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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
6 8 October 2016
N
orth Oxford is a heartland of aca-
demia where leafy halls of residence
mingle with stately homes and rare
-
fied hostelries. Situated in almost
the very centre of Britain a windless
calm favours scholarly reflection removed from
modernity’s fugue. Even the traffic is orderly
with bicycles sensibly preferred. It is one of the
most attractive places in the world. Spend an
afternoon on the lawns at Christchurch if you
doubt it. Oxford is world-class in so many ways:
the city and the university. PWC and Demos rated
it the best place to live in Britain, in 2012, across
a wide range of criteria. Shanghai ratings names
Oxford University the seventh best in the world.
South Oxfordshire was recently named Brit-
ain’s best rural place to live. It is transcendent
England.
What has this to say about Brexit, the political
issue of this generation?
The City of Oxford is located on the confluence
of the Isis (the idiosyncratic name for the Thames
here) and Cherwell rivers. Broadly, it may be
divided into three zones with a clear north-south
divide: that affluent and mature north Oxford of
Jericho and Wolvercote; predominantly twenti-
eth-century suburbs including Cowley to the
south; and the historical and commercial centre
linked to Botley and Osney Island, built around
an Anglo-Saxon settlement of which little
remains. This contains renowned colleges such
as Christchurch, Balliol and Magdalen. The first
sign of incongruity is how close it nestles to the
'any-town-UK' commercial centre and its array of
gaudy chains.
Moving south, there is yet another Oxford as
housing gets cheaper and industry is evident.
The first industrial revolution passed Oxford by
as colleges objected to the contagion of com-
merce. Only after World War II did significant
manufacturing arrive as the city attracted a car
industry. By the early 1970s, 20,000 people were
employed in the sector and the original Mini
Minor was developed here in 1959. Unfortu
-
nately, as in much of the country, a significant
proportion of heavy industrial jobs have
departed.
The working class areas now face social prob
-
lems familiar in many English cities. Living as a
jobbing tutor and supply teacher in Oxford for
two years I encountered classroom behaviour
that made experiences in schools in socially-
deprived areas of Dublin seem almost
meditative. Oxford is a place of profound educa-
tional inequality.
Oxford accomo-
dates a great literary
tradition: JRR Tolkien, CS
Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Graham and Irish
Murdoch wrote from Oxford.
The number of Prime Ministers that have
passed through Oxford University is startling.
28 overall. Only Jim Callaghan and John Major,
who revelled in his immersion in the university
of life, among English Prime Ministers since Win-
ston Churchill (who finally left office in 1955) did
not pass along its quads. Alumna Theresa May
(St Hugh’s, 1974) joins a list that includes Labour
Prime Ministers Tony Blair (St John’s, 1974),
Harold Wilson (Jesus College, 1937) and Clement
Atlee (University College, 1904) as well as Tories
Anthony Eden (Christchurch College, 1922),
Harold MacMillan (Balliol College, 1914) Edward
Heath (Balliol College, 1939), Margaret Thatcher
(Somerville College, 1947), and David Cameron
(Brasenose College, 1988). Oxford indubitably
has seeded the post-War UK political
establishment.
Moreover, numerous Tory politicians maintain
an association with the wider shire. Churchill
himself was born in the nearby ancestral estate
Though it has produced nearly all modern
Prime Ministers and is solidly pro-EU, this
elitist university town antagonises the UK
more than it defines it.
Oxford is a place
of profound
educational
inequality
October 2016 6 9
of Blenheim Palace (though he passed some of
his early childhood in Dublin’s Phoenix Park).
David Cameron, MP for Witney, Oxfordshire,
lives in Chipping Norton close to Rebekah
Brooks, Jeremy Clarkson and the rest of the well-
placed Chippy set. Michael Heseltine (Pembroke
College, 1954) dwells in style nearby though one
imagines he looks slightly askance at the gobby
neighbours.
Theresa May grew up in the village of Wheat
-
ley a few miles east of Oxford where her father
served as vicar. Further east towards London,
Boris Johnson (Balliol College, 1987), the new
foreign secretary, lives in Henley-on-Thames.
Jeremy Paxman, Richard Branson, Kate Moss,
Kate Winslet, Rowan Atkinson, Jeremy Irons and
Ben Kingsley: celebrities, high-and-low-brow,
live in Oxfordshire.
Perhaps the county has a quality – an England
of the imagination – that grandees of all sorts
gravitate towards. It could be the low rural popu-
lation density, a legacy of the Enclosure Acts
(1760-1830) that placed formerly common land
in the hands of expanding gentlemen farmers.
Today, though located only an hour from some
of the most inflated land prices in the world in
London, it is possible to drive for long stretches
without seeing a single dwelling. The hoi polloi
were kept at bay, in Oxford and swathes of its
hinterland.
As an Irish person living in the city of Oxford I
never had a sense that I was unwelcome, or at
least any alienation was no different to that felt
by the bulk of the population before a converg
-
ing aristocratic and mercantile elite: unlike the
ancient regime in France since the Tudor era,
nobility has been open to the highest bidder and
an Oxford education provides the polish.
One must however acclimatise to the southern
English reserve and a sardonic sense of humour.
The historian Tony Judt (St Anne’s College 1980-
87), who concededly knew little of Ireland, wrote
that the English are perhaps “the only people
who can experience schadenfreude at their own
misfortunes”.
Succumbing to generalisation I regard English
friendships as firmer than Irish for all the latter’s
sociability. But these societies of companions
generate mosaic communities often hostile to
one another. Better the devil you know and
bugger the rest.
In the era of the Internet there is a growing
suspicion of the ruling class of politicians. Many
do feel “shat on by Tories, shovelled up by
Labour” in the words of Uncle Monty in 'Withnail
and I'. They are often seen as a separate cast
reflecting the cultural dominance of Oxford and
Cambridge Universities (‘Oxbridge’) which
extends to the media and business. This trend
perhaps explains why maverick and grumpy
(though otherwise profoundly different) outsid-
ers such as Jeremy Corbyn, Nigel Farage (and
Boris Johnson who went rogue over Brexit) are
appealing to a jaded electorate; a state of affairs
the Oxbridge elite cannot abide.
The excellence of the Oxbridge education con-
tributes to the dislocation. Staff-student ratios
at colleges are approximately one member of
academic staff to every five students while other
third level institutions in the country are usually
about 1:20. The hallowed tutorial system gives
the best-performing students, by the age of 18,
individual or small-group tuition, accelerating
progress in their chosen fields.
Even if a student arrives from a lower-middle
class or working class background – and the uni-
versities are constantly endeavouring to
increases this cohort – and not from a grandiose
public school, that individual is stamped with
the culture and polish of this elite institution. An
Oxbridge degree brings enhanced job prospects
and most alumni are absorbed by an adaptable
ruling class that grudgingly accepts infusion of
new talent - just as in Plato’s Republic there was
a fluidity between the different castes of Gold,
Silver and Bronze.
The major problem with the system, if we
accept that a fixed sum is devoted to education
overall, is the opportunity cost of not investing
in other institutions catering for a broader demo-
graphic. The fruits of this and the age-old
problem of Class is that many – Brexit suggests
most - English feel alienated from the elite, from
the rarefied, educated establishment with all
their logic and polish. Michael Gove, one of the
prime ideologues of Brexit, studied English in
Lady Margaret Hall and was President of the
Oxford Union. He will forever be remembered for
his campaign interjection that Britain had had
enough of experts. Perhaps his own background
as an adopted baby who grew up over 500 miles
aways in Aberdeen explains a continued sense
of alienation from that elite despite his educa-
tional achievements.
A background in public-school and Oxbridge
is wind in the sails of the rich and powerful. And
it generates perhaps understandable resent-
ment. More than a third of Britain’s 54 Prime
Ministers went to Eton (annual fee £37,000).
Independently schooled pupils still make up
around two-fifths of the intake at both Oxford
and Cambridge. Poor children who are high-
attaining at 11 are four times less likely to go on
to an elite university than their high-attaining
wealthier peers. It cannot be coincidental that
according to British Social Attitudes 43% think
there are too many university graduates in the
Only Jim Callaghan and John
Major among English Prime
Ministers since Winston Churchill
did not pass along its quads
7 0 October 2016
labour market. The penumbra of Irish third-level
education, for all its failings, is more republican
in this respect.
The argument for disproportionate investment
with finite resources on the cultivation of the best
and brightest may be persuasive in the sciences
but is less compelling in humanities where a
wider diffusion of expert teaching could benefit
English society as a whole.
Moreover, the Oxbridge education is at the
apex of a system with a degree of specialisation
unlike other European countries or the United States.
School children take a mere three subjects at A-level
from age sixteen, explaining – among much else - the
lowest rate in Europe of an ability to speak a second lan-
guage. Depth in a chosen field cohabits with a
narrowness that might offer an insight into
the closing of the English mind which
the Brexit result has uncovered.
The Oxford ethos does not even
run throughout the town.
One should generally avoid
extrapolating grand narratives
out of chance encounters,
nonetheless a single incident
sometimes crystallises an
understanding of a larger con
-
troversy. Three days after the
result of the Brexit Referendum I
arrived in Oxford to teach on a summer
school. The following morning I encoun-
tered a man in his seventies buying
strawberries in a pricey delicatessen. He was deter
-
mined to ascertain whether the provenance of the
strawberries was English and that they had not been
grown indoors in a “ghastly poly tunnel”, a method he
attributed to the Dutch. After being reassured of their
local origin he exceeded himself by declaring that after
Brexit there would be more local produce and it would
now be possible for fishermen to bring in our fish.
As a matter of fact a recent report in The Guardian sug-
gested that the British strawberry industry was
threatened by withdrawal from the Europe Union, and
the fishing industry will still have to contend with dimin-
ishing catches for the foreseeable future, and negotiate
with other countries for rights to certain waters.
The lady serving him was, to be fair, taken aback by
the man’s ignorance of how British supermarkets have
often pioneered industrial food production. She red-
dened palpably when she turned to the “nonsense” of
Brexit. The city of Oxford voted by 5:2 to Remain and
some weeks later forlorn banners are still visible, with
hardly an advertisement to Leave in sight. The University
is closely tied to other European institutions and the
community is comparatively young, affluent and edu-
cated, all good indicators of a Remain preference.
In the wider county however less well-off towns such
as Bicester (defined as a “Tescos Town” on account of
the 6 branches directed at its 29,000 people) ensured
that the vote was much closer (52:48%). Large farmers,
anxious to retain EU subsidies, along with afflu-
ent and cosmopolitan former Londoners
ensured a Remain majority, against
national trends.
And so the United Kingdom is
left with the vicar’s daughter to
clean up the mess made by her
younger Oxford fellow-alumni.
It remains to be seen whether
the cultural cracks are best rep-
resented by England’s failure in
the European Soccer Champion-
ships, or its elevated Olympics
medal haul.
Perhaps the English (or really Brit
-
ish) revolution arrived too soon. Charles
I was eventually defeated in Oxford and
beheaded in 1649 but his son Charles II returned to the
throne in 1660, and the country enjoyed a decadent
Restoration.
It is hard to imagine the tranquillity of Oxford as the
scene of one of the bloodiest battles in English history,
but the strength of feeling generated by the Brexit result
has produced divisions in British society that will take
many years to heal. And they are evident in Oxford. A
growing contempt for expertise and the difficulty of
defining Englishness or Britishness threatens the very
intellectual foundations of a consensus that has lasted
these four hundred years. Oxford thinking alienates too
many. If England is to flower Oxford must popularise.
After Brexit there
will be more local
produce and our
fishermen will again
be able to bring in
our fish
October 2016 7 1
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boring
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(photograph by the late Christopher Robson)
