Ioannis Angelos Karanasios is a first-year undergraduate reading Jurisprudence (with European Law) at Pembroke College.

We live in a society that is sick of itself; guilty and ashamed of its pride and joys yet fearful and resentful of change and of recognizing its vices and unfulfilled potential. The strain of the disease is particularly acute and tragic when one ponders the state of interpersonal relationships and human connections in the modern world. The individual is suffocated with emptiness. Distractions become the mundane spectre haunting our everyday life.

Jake Dibden (Committee Member) is a first-year History and Politics student at Trinity College.

Over the course of the last year, the government has had to increase rates of taxation which, as with any sniff of tax rises, caused outrage amongst members of the Conservative Party. For some reason, born out of nostalgia for the brutal free-market, low-tax economics of Thatcher, and the fetishisation of Reaganomics, even the youngest members of the Conservative Party see increases in taxation on personal wealth as being inherently contradictory to our position as the ‘party of aspiration’.

Ellie Williams (The Social Secretary) is a second year undergraduate at Regent’s Park College reading Classics and English.

It was a cold Hilary morning in deepest, darkest Cowley. The OUCA contingent had bravely set out to help the East Oxford Conservatives understand the views of residents on local issues. ‘Bravely’ is by no means an understatement. The unsuspecting OUCA members were faced with an onslaught of very opinionated and heated citizens at every door. However, it appeared that one issue in particular was, to quote one gentleman, ruining their lives.

Franek Bednarski (The Communications Director) is a first year Classicist at Jesus College.

When Constantine, having swept through the empire in triumph and vanquished his rivals, finally captured Rome from Maxentius, he decided to construct a great triumphal arch between the Palatine and the Colosseum. Built in a space surrounded by older works of architectural beauty, depictions of the titans of the old Rome, he wanted it to convey the key tenets of his own reign: from the inscription referring to his own divine inspiration to depictions of imperial grandeur, it was to be the culmination of his victorious tour of the provinces and a final portrayal of his unquestioned power.

Juan Davila (The Political Officer, Ex-Treasurer, Ex-Political Officer, Ex-Social Sec, Ex-International Rep) is a third year reading Engineering Science at St. John’s College

An adaptation of A Visit From St. Nick, by Clark Moore, adapted for the OUCA blog.

'Twas the night before Christmas, when in Number 10;

A creature awakened: it was the PM.

A year of toiling, and going from here to there,

In hopes that at some point the voter would care.

Chloe Dobbs (the Treasurer, Ex-Political Officer, Ex-NEO for OECA Liaison, Ex-NEO for Legal, and Ex-Publications Editor) is a third year reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Pembroke College.

Lockdown measures in an attempt to fix one crisis have created another: a mental health crisis. Lockdowns, stripping us of our basic needs like social interaction and simultaneously limiting access to mental health services, have caused the mental health of the nation to plunge. Almost all of us have experienced a hit to our mental health over the course of the pandemic, even if we are not diagnosed with a mental health disorder. Data from the ONS has shown the proportion of UK adults reporting symptoms of depression nearly doubled between the year before March 2020 and June 2020 (before and after the first lockdown). This time of crisis is an opportunity to rethink our approach to mental health: Boris’ post-pandemic ‘Build Back Better’ strategy should focus just as much on regaining mental health prosperity as it should economic prosperity. A focus on sport might just provide the answer: we are made to move.

Archie Batra is an MSt student reading Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at Christ Church.

Thus, when forced to talk about the Coronavirus pandemic, I invoke the life of Canute the Great, one of England’s most august medieval kings. Smothered by cloying and grovelling courtiers who believed him to be all-powerful, Canute sought to teach them a lesson in rulership. Placing his throne at the sea’s edge, he commanded the tide to retreat, and not to flow over his land, nor presume to wet his feet and robes. It’s easy to dismiss this as the general madness of pre-modern rulers: after all, the emperor Caligula decided to declare war on Poseidon, and king Xerxes ‘punished’ the Hellespont by ordering it to be attacked with whips and brands. Canute was cleverer than this, however. “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings” he proclaimed, as the tide dashed over his feet. In doing so he gave his subjects a bitter but inviolable truth: there is a limit to what the government can, and, indeed, should do.

Josh Wallace (Ex-Committee) is a second-year reading PPE at Jesus College.

This last week has seen the screening of that explosive interview between the Sussexes and Oprah across the world, the fallout being almost as severe as could have been imagined. Following an almost equally explosive episode of Good Morning Britain on Monday morning and then a major strop on Tuesday’s edition, the infamous Piers Morgan has stepped down from his role as a presenter on the show. It is clear that this is a move we should all be celebrating, one that enhances our democracy and draws on larger questions of the role of the media in our society and how it conducts itself with relation to the nature of discourse in the political sphere.