A Decade Since Doomsday

Posted on Jul 8, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Few analyses of the revived series of Doctor Who, much less the David Tennant era specifically, could be complete without this. It is easy to remember the moment where a new trend, a new idea or a new meme begins but often very difficult to pinpoint the moment at which it ends. Can we really know exactly when the Harlem Shake died off (or the Ice-Bucket challenge for that matter). We are often quick to notice when a new character or personality enters the public consciousness, but do not notice when they have gone, for we are already concentrated on the successors who eclipsed them. This is particularly noteworthy when you look at the quick stream of events in the weeks since the EU referendum – just look at the news coverage on Wednesday 22nd June and compare it to today’s to see how quickly events can move. Sometimes, however, a certain person or event, a certain character does have a lasting presence long after their departure. For the purpose of this article I am talking about Rose Tyler.

It would be wrong to suggest that Rose is universally considered the greatest companion in the franchise, nor even a contender – indeed many fans of the program are keen to express their dislike, even contempt for her. Nevertheless her position within the timeline of Doctor Who means that she cannot be easily forgotten. The very first episode was named after her, with the opening sequence being a catalogue of her existence. The Doctor himself does not appear until quite a long way in. It is also noteworthy that her companionship was structured very differently to that of her predecessors. Whereas most companions would leave their old lives behind to travel with the Doctor, departing from the TARDIS just as abruptly, Rose had a whole family in the supporting cast to which she would return every few episodes. There was no precedent for this from the classic series – except perhaps the UNIT crew, but that was a more professional relationship.

Ian and Barbara left Coal Hill in An Unearthly Child and did not return for another two years, after which they never featured in the series again. Ben and Polly left the TARDIS when they arrived back at their starting point by coincidence. Jamie and Zoe were unceremoniously plonked back in their homelands with no memory of their other adventures. Romana and K-9 II were abandoned in E-Space. Nyssa stayed behind at Terminus, Traken having been destroyed. The only companion who returned to mundane life before travelling again was Tegan, and even that was a one-off stunt. Furthermore, the appearance of a boyfriend usually only occurred at the end of each’s tenure as a way of detaching them from the Doctor – Susan with David, Jo with Clifford, Leela with Andred. Such pairings usually developed within a single serial and had little narrative foundation.

Ian & Barbara were perhaps the best-developed couple of the Classic Series.

The revival, however, changed all of this. Partly this was a matter of necessity. Russell T. Davies began his quest to bring back the series in 2003, in an environment where few remembered how to execute a science fiction series. The new program therefore had to be redesigned for an audience used to soaps and reality shows. To some extent this was referenced by the characters themselves – the Doctor said he didn’t do domestic.

Odd as it may have been, though, this model stuck with Doctor Who for several years: Martha Jones had regular encounters with her siblings and parents, and they even had her mother repeat the face-slap made famous by Jackie two years prior. In many ways it seemed like a conscious retread. In Gridlock, Martha commented “You’re taking me to the same places you took Rose.” with a muttering of “Rebound”. Indeed, much of Series 3 saw Martha being compared to Rose and a conscious retreading of the previous two years’ themes. Donna Noble likewise had a family, though they were structured differently – her mother Sylvia and her father Wilfred were used for comic relief more than for drama, though Wilfred later became a companion in his own right. The late Geoff Noble was also made something of a legacy character.

The less than memorable family of Clara Oswald, Christmas 2013.

Into the Moffat era, the companion family largely disappeared as an integral part of the story, but a vestigial presence remained. Amy Pond’s parents were absent for most of Series 5, having been erased from time. Their emergence in The Big Bang was a sign of sanity returned to the universe, though afterwards they never actually appeared afterwards. Brian Williams, however, played a prominent role towards the end of the Ponds’ tenure. Clara’s family had only one outing as a minor sub-plot in The Time of the Doctor, but her parents’ history had earlier been an important feature of her character arc. While the Oswalds had nothing like the narrative significance of the Tylers, it is notable that their block of flats was filmed somewhere that strongly resembled the Powell Estate. Even eight years, two Doctors and four sets of companions after the revival, Rose’s shadow still fell, however faintly, over her successors.

Were it insufficient for Rose’s archetype to continue shaping the series long after her departure, there is still the matter of Rose herself never quite going away. From the moment that Series 2 concluded, there was always speculation that the character would eventually return. There were hints and nods in Series 3, but by the time of Series 4 it was a certainty. The premiere, Partners in Crime, featured Rose in person, quietly disappearing in a cloud of mystery. Her face briefly flashed on screen in The Poison Sky and Midnight before she fully emerged in the finale. After a second farewell scene (again on Bad Wolf Bay) it appeared that her character was finally finished, her ghost having haunted the franchise for what then constituted more than half of its existence. Even so, there was still time for yet another goodbye in The End of Time, though this time with an earlier version prior to her début.

A shot from The Day of the Doctor (2013). Bad Wolf Girl, with glowing yellow eyes, stares at the camera from inside the barn.

Billie Piper as “Bad Wolf Girl”

When Billie Piper returned for the golden anniversary special The Day of the Doctor it was significant that she did not quite play Rose Tyler again. Instead she had the role of “Bad Wolf Girl”, a manifestation of galaxy-eating superweapon “The Moment”. She was visible only to John Hurt’s character, the War Doctor, with David Tennant’s never actually interacting with her. Evidently the producers wanted to avoid playing out her tearful departure a third time. Even so, it was in itself rather odd to find that Piper had returned as a nostalgic reference, rather than as an active incumbent. This, more than anything else, was the solid confirmation that the Rose era had actually concluded and would not be revived.

The legacy of Doomsday is not the long-awaited battle between the Daleks and the Cybermen, nor the introduction of the Torchwood Institute or even the first glimpse of Donna Noble but the departure of Rose Tyler as a regular companion. In particular, the episode is remembered for the closing dialogue on the Norwegian beach of Pete’s World and the Doctor’s abruptly-terminated “Rose Tyler…” before his final loss of contact. The viewer never learned what the end of this sentence would have been, but hints can be found in the commentary, where the executive producers had the following exchange:

Russell T Davies: “Rose Tyler, I owe you ten pence.”

Julie Gardner: “He was going to tell her he loved her. I will not have it any other way.”

The Middle Age of Beverley

Posted on Jun 23, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Whereas it might have been more in line to devote this post to discussion of the European Union referendum, here instead is an account of a college trip to some medieval hotspots in Beverley.

That we should have been on such an excursion at all was an oddity – the locations featured were entirely focused on Medieval History, yet the Modern History class were allowed to tag along. This being the penultimate day of the term – and there being no more history lessons in the remainder of the timetable – the educational focus of the outing was light. No worksheets were distributed nor notes taken, though teachers occasionally stopped to explain the historical significance of the local landmarks.

A large black cylinder with wooden boards over the outlines of windows.

The tower at Beverley Westwood.

The first such place was the Black Mill at Beverley Westwood. It one of two survivors of the five windmills which once stood in Beverley, and lost its sails in 1868. The Westwood is one of few remaining areas of common land in England, meaning that residents have maintained their traditional rights to use the turf for grazing cattle or collecting firewood – indeed there were several cows (and cowpats) there to greet us as we ambled across. In the modern era, visible to us on our visit, the territory is also used for a golf course and for Beverley Racecourse.

Beverley escaped the Harrying of the North because the Normans knew of the area’s religious past. John of Beverley – then the Bishop of York – was believed to have performed miracles. He also founded Beverley’s first building, a church dedicated to St John the Evangelist, though this was abandoned in the Viking invasion. The settlement became a large town and was granted borough status in the twelfth century with special interest in trading wool and leather. In the late fourteenth century it became the tenth-largest town in England, having continued to grow despite the effects of the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt and the Hundred Years’ War which stunted the development of other parts of the country.

Having ambled across the turf, exploring the dips and bumps in the ground, we were lectured on the habitation of the settlement in the middle ages. We also were dispatched around this area to uncover a large metal hook in the ground. This was used for the medieval sport of bull-baiting: A bull would be attached to the hook while dogs were sent to attack it. Spectators would bet on the time taken for the bull to die and the number of dogs slain in the process. There was also a practical purpose – the adrenaline rush in the last moments of life improved the taste of the beef.

Grass, a dark circle of earth and a metal hoop protruding from the ground..

The bull-bating hook.

The second stop on our visit was the deserted village of Wharram Percy. Occupied almost continuously from the ninth century to the fifteenth, the village was then abandoned. There are some six thousand or so settlements of this type in Britain but few of them are so large or so well preserved. The nearest car park is some 750m away, so getting to the site requires a lengthy trek down an overgrown rocky slope which some members of our group found taxing. The land, overseen in its day by the Percy family (Earls of Northumberland, and relatives of Lord Percy Percy in the first two series of Blackadder) contains the church of St Martin, the outlines of several houses and, naturally, some more cows.

Having picnicked in the shade behind the minibus, we headed for Rudston Church. There lies the body of Winifred Holtby, the novelist and journalist best known for 1936’s South Riding, which was adapted to a BBC miniseries in 2011 (parts of which were filmed near my house).

The graveyard at Rudston Church

Our next stop was at Burton Agnes. Though the location is normally advertised for its grand Elizabethan stately home, we headed for the smaller Norman building to its side. The dark, uneven ground floor and tight helical stairway belie the vast dining room above, though the overall appearance was still somewhat spartan, with nothing but a long wooden table in an otherwise empty expanse.

Burton Agnes Norman Hall (left).

Finally we ventured to Skipsea Brough. Surrounded by grassland and yet more cows, this small hamlet features the motte of Skipsea Castle, built by Drogo de la Beuvrière circa 1086 to secure the region and its trading routes against an invasion by Denmark. The castle itself was destroyed following the rebellion of William de Forz in 1221. All that remains now is the artificial hill. The land was reclaimed for farming in the eighteenth century and taken over by the Office of Works in the twentieth.

The view from the Motte

It may perhaps appear strange that we closed out the academic term by wandering around the countryside, carefully evading deposits of Bovine faecal material while discussing medieval history, but in many ways it was a blessing that East Yorkshire had such rich locations to offer, and that we were able to visit them all with time left at the end of the day to visit the polling station. Though this day out may well be overshadowed in most people’s memories by the referendum, it will stand out as an example of what rural England has to offer as well as that which can survive the many tests of time. That last point may well prove more important than ever given what is about to come.

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A Date for the Calendar

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Paul Brand of Independent Television introduces the pundits.

Britain’s relationship with the European Union has been highly controversial since before it even began. Forty-one years ago after the original referendum on whether to stay in the European Economic Community, the question “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” has been put to the people, to be answered on 23rd June. This has been the biggest talking point in British politics generally, and it has also been a recurring issue at Wilberforce College.

For a long time we knew relatively little about the debate. We knew that ITV Calendar would be covering it and that students were invited to ask questions, but we had no certain knowledge of the politicians in attendance. At various points we thought we might have David Davis, Karl Turner, Diana Johnson or Graham Stuart. Then we heard that we would have Alan Johnson and a UKIP MEP (we never knew which one). A few days before the debate we even heard that Johnson had “wobbled” and might pull out. The afternoon before the debate, as the atrium was evacuated and closed off to begin the conversion to a makeshift television studio, we still were none the wiser. On the morning of Friday 13th I was finally told that we had “Mike from UKIP” and subsequently I deduced that this was Mike Hookem, member of the European Parliament for Yorkshire & the Humber.

It was at 2pm that students were finally allowed into the atrium, and there we were introduced to Paul Brand, who was hosting the installment. We had all been provided with a pair of laminated cards: the first bore a black question mark, while the second was a choice between the Union Flag and the EU’s circle of stars. Several takes were expended before Brand managed not to say “Union Jack”. We were asked to hold up the image which represented our position before and after the debate. Eventually (around 3pm) we had our panellists arrive. The seating arrangement was unusual – we thought that Johnson and Hookem would be on the floor seating opposite the students on the steps, but instead they were positioned in our midst, with some other students filling up the additional seats. Nobody could quite understand this decision.

A crowd of adolescents on stepped seating. They hold up cards with Union Flags, EU Flags or Question Marks.

The students show their voting intentions.

The politicians began by making introductory speeches on the merits of staying or leaving. Johnson made the emotional appeal to the European project, saying that the Union had been a safeguard against war on the continent. He questioned the use of the Union flag for the Leave vote, saying that Brexit was not the patriotic British option. Hookem dismissed the romanticism of “Remainians” and warned the students about TTIP. We noticed that he was relying quite a lot on his iPad.

I was the first to ask a question, which was whether Brexit would revive Hull’s fishing industry. I seem to always end up on that topic when appearing on television. Other questions followed on immigration (naturally), terrorism, commerce and the obligatory quip that “You can’t go back to the British Empire.”. Throughout the debate it became clear that the two contestants were not evenly matched – Johnson had spent many years on the front line of politics including a period in the cabinet, whereas Hookem was a fairly obscure figure whose career in the European Parliament did not even stretch two years. He was rather obviously out of his depth during much of the debate and struggled to maintain a smooth flow of words when giving answers – whereas Johnson had spent decades polishing his speeches, Hookem often communicated in short, fragmented sentences.

The debate ended with a reprise of the flag display. By this point, Johnson had clearly proven the more effective debater as there had been a clear swing from Leave to Remain among the students in attendance. Six days later, the college launched its own referendum on-line, with the result that 63% of respondents preferred to remain. The result of the actual referendum (including for the Hull area) are likely to be much different.

Meeting Diana Johnson MP

Posted on Apr 30, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

Diana Johnson, Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull North 2005-present.

As we move into the month of May 2016, we are nearly at the anniversary of the most recent general election. Four days from now, there will be a smorgasbord of other elections taking place: the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Police & Crime Commissioners, the Mayor of London and some 125 local councils. Additionally there will be two by-elections to the House of Commons – one in Ogmore, the other in Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough. Not long afterwards, of course, there will also be a UK-wide referendum on our membership of the European Union.

While many of these elections are relatively low-key affairs (certainly, it will be on Holyrood that media attention is focused), there is to me a special significance to the Police & Crime Commissioners because they represent the first occasion on which I am eligible to vote. There are four candidates standing and, whereas the original elections back in 2012 were notable for the large number of independent candidates (who actually won 12 positions compared to Labour’s 13 and the Conservatives’ 16), in my Humberside area this time there are only four, and they represent what are now established as England’s four main parties: Matthew Grove (Conservative and Unionist), Denis Healy (Liberal Democrat), Keith Hunter (Labour) and Michael Whitehead (United Kingdom Independence). The system used is the supplementary vote, which means I will be voting for as many candidates as I am turning down.

On the last Friday of April, I took part in a meeting with the honourable lady the member for Kingston upon Hull North. The subject of discussion was the upcoming EU referendum. A point which came up notably in the session was eligibility for voting – our delegation contained two students from outside the United Kingdom (but inside the European Union) who were not entitled to vote in the referendum. Several others were also barred for failure to attain the age of eighteen years. There had been much clamouring for the voting age to be lowered to sixteen, as had been done for the Scotland referendum, but these were thrice rejected by the House of Commons. Our guest was quite openly displeased about this fact, and stressed that it was vital for those of us who could vote to do so, lest our generation’s voice be politically ignored – she noted that pensioners had done quite well out of recent budgets because they tend to have the highest voting turnouts.

The honourable lady was quite insistent upon her party’s unity with regards to this issue: she explained that whereas in the previous referendum (She repeatedly said 1974, and none of us thought it pertinent to say it was actually 1975.) the Conservatives had been uniformly in favour of membership of the European Community and Labour divided, in this present era the situation had been reversed and that it was now the Conservatives who were thus fractured. I might have detected more than a grain of salt in this sentiment given that her current leader (The Right Honourable Jeremy Bernard Corbyn MP) was adamantly Euroskeptic for most of his life, and has only very recently (and rather meekly) proclaimed his support for our continued membership. There are, too, a handful of Labour officeholders campaigning to leave (Kate Hoey, Graham Stringer, Kelvin Hopkins and Roger Godsiff). Perhaps her position in the Shadow Foreign Office compels our visitor to gloss over this issue in public.

Returning to the area of youth engagement in politics, Mrs Johnson talked about the popularity of the President of the United States (His Excellency Barack Hussein Obama) – “He’s just so cool!” – and lamented, in her view that neither his charisma nor that of the Prime Minister of Canada (The Right Honourable Justin Pierre Trudeau MP PC), could be matched by our own statesmen, explicitly giving unfavourable status to Boris Johnson MP and Nigel Farage MEP. The point she was keen to make was that most elections – especially the EU referendum – affected the young more than the old (as they would not live to see out its full effects).

One memorable moment came when the honourable lady went around the table asking each of us our intention with regards to future studies and careers. Several people mentioned biology (which struck the elders in the room as unusual) and several others law (which did not, especially given the explanation that the college did not offer politics & government or economics). I said my pursuit was chemistry, which caused Mrs Johnson to remark that I could be the next Margaret Thatcher – though she moved quickly to eliminate any inferred suggestion of thinking me a Conservative.

At this point, perhaps far too late into this post, explain what was actually discussed about the European Union – that being the topic around which the meeting was centered. Ironically it is this component of the visit of which I have the least clarity in recollection. The points which stick out the most are that the EU has guaranteed decades of peace between European countries unseen before its development, that international cooperation is increasingly necessary for dealing with global threats and that the uncertainty of Britain’s existence following a Brexit would be dangerous to the economy. She did, though, confess to an agreement with the statement that few in Britain truly love the EU.

It remains to be seen if the fear of uncertainty or the gratitude for peace will ultimately prevail as the leading motive for remaining in the European Union. Indeed, that the Remain campaign should be victorious with either strategy cannot yet be confirmed. Most polling for this referendum has shown the balance shifting daily, such that a decisive victory for either camp seems improbable if not impossible. Already, many are stirring rumours of a second plebiscite to follow should the first attempt fail to yield the result they desire. Certainly, the United Kingdom’s constitutional identity is likely to be the subject of great debate for a long time to come.

Long To Reign Over Us

Posted on Apr 21, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

A dark-haired woman of 19 in a military uniform stands in from of a green truck with a large red cross on the right face.

HRH The Princess Elizabeth in April 1945.

Not many people, even among royalty, make it to the age of ninety years. George III and Victoria both expired at 81, while the first Elizabeth was a source of amazement for living to 69. Indeed, many a sovereign has died rather young – Henry V died at 36, Richard II at 33, Mary II at 32 and two Tudor monarchs (Edward VI and Lady Jane Grey) never reached adulthood. Edward V did not manage to reach his teens.

All the more impressive it then is for our diamond nonagenarian to reign as she does today. More so, it is a significant accomplishment that today’s birthday girl can still appear in public for her celebrations, whereas few others of her age could claim likewise. By the time that George III reached his final year he was bald, blind, and utterly insane. Among his many descendants he had outlived three of his children and three of his grandchildren. His wife, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg, tightly predeceased him as well.

Victoria had her own share of tragedies: having been one of few monarchs to truly marry for love, she spent thirty-nine years in mourning for her lost Prince Consort. Again, several princes could not outlive the Queen – Alice, Alfred (of Edinburgh), Leopold, Frederick, Sigismund, Waldemar, Albert Victor, Alexander John, Friedrich, Marie, Alfred (of Saxe-Coburg), Christian Victor, Harald, and two unnamed stillbirths.

Lilibet, by contrast, has her litter, and theirs, intact. Though she has lost her younger sister, the only death so far in the generation below her was Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 (and she, by that point, was not actually a relative anymore). In that decade it was lamented that, in the family supposed to represent the bulwark of British integrity, three of her four children had divorced. Now, though, two have happily remarried while the third has seemingly reconciled with his former spouse.

Furthermore, the institution she represents has generally been stable – whereas Charles

Having been head of state in so many countries for so many years (with the result of featuring on so many coins, notes and stamps), Her Majesty has the most reproduced face in all of human history.

Welsh AMs Recall over Tata

Posted on Apr 4, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

A small beige room with four rows of people behind wooden desks.

The debate by the Assembly

Recalls of legislative assemblies are not unknown: Parliament was recalled to Westminster in late August 2013 (a week before their summer recess was due to end) to discuss the response to chemical weapons in Syria, and again thirteen months later for developments in Iraq. Other causes for Parliamentary recalls include the Falkland Islands, Devaluation, the Suez Canal, the death of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the death of the Baroness Thatcher.

What is interesting about today’s recall of the National Assembly for Wales is that it will be the last time they ever meet. On Wednesday 6th April 2016 the National Assembly will dissolve and the election (for Thursday 5th May) will officially begin. Indeed, the Scottish Parliament dissolved eleven days ago and the Northern Ireland Assembly followed on the penultimate day of March – as did the Commons and the Lords a year earlier. This crisis meeting, therefore, is the last hurrah of the current body. After this week it will no longer exist, and the Assembly which meets in May will be a new one, with different members and possibly producing a different government.

This meeting is also strange because the Assembly is not housed in the Senned – which is currently closed for refurbishment – but in the Tŷ Hywel (formerly Crickhowell House) where its predecessor sat in the early days of Welsh devolution. The cramped chamber (resembling a university lecture theatre more than a parliament), hardly provides the grandeur that might be expected for the final meeting.

BBC parliament originally expected the meeting to last from 1330 to 1500, but naturally the Welsh talked for more than double that time. There have also been calls (including a petition by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn) to have the Westminster Parliament recalled. The Prime Minister has rejected this, but the cabinet are working on strategies for dealing with the crisis.

The new Welsh assembly (the fifth since devolution) will meet at some point in May.

Council Report for Lent 2016

Posted on Mar 25, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

From 16:30 to 18:50 on Wednesday 23rd March I made my second appearance as an observer on the Corporation of Wilberforce Sixth Form College.

This time the council president was absent for reasons he was reluctant to explain the next day, so I delivered the Student Council’s report by myself, telling of the council’s activities since returning from Christmas.

On February 9th several of our number formed an interview panel for the position of Assistant Principal, which eventually went to the Director of STEM, Dr Karen Ashman.

Our biggest workload came on Tuesday 22nd March when we launched the Tour de Wilberforce – a fundraising event in which students and staff alike were encouraged to take turns riding exercise bikes. Together, they covered a distance equivalent to the entire Tour de Yorkshire cycling challenge.

On the same day, the college welcomed The Most Reverend and Right Honourable Doctor John Sentamu. He gave an interview to a group of students as part of his pilgrimage of prayer. We were told of how God must make himself known, how the name of marriage would not solve the problems faced by sexual minorities, how religion is so often contrived as an excuse for war and how the traditions of the first century prevented the consecration of women in the twentieth.

At the corporation meeting, the subject of a great deal of debate was the prospect of academisation. A gathering storm since 2010, this is the process by which a comprehensive school would be removed from the control of the local authorities and funded directly by the Department for Education and the faculty would be given much greater freedom in setting term lengths, opening hours and curricula. Already more than half of comprehensive secondary schools have been academised, and in the Autumn Statement 2015 (which came shortly before the previous corporation meeting) the Chancellor announced that the option was to be extended to sixth form colleges as well. Following the Budget Statement 2016 it became an inevitability that Wilberforce will convert to academy status by 2022. We therefore were led to discuss potential other institutions with whom a Multi-Academy Trust might be formed, namely Wyke or Hull College, as well as potentially Franklin. I was assured upon querying the matter that academy status would not cause any changes that would be noticeable to students who were outside of the corporation meetings.

The next meeting is likely to be sometime in late June. Before then, the college is to stage a mock referendum on Britain’s potential exit from the European Union. ITV Calendar have agreed to host a televised debate on the issue, with a number of politicians visiting the college. So far the only confirmed attendee is the honourable member for Kingston-upon-Hull North, Diana Johnson (shadow Foreign & Commonwealth minister).

Oxford Cambridge Conference at Aintree Racecourse

Posted on Mar 16, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

As part of the Inspire programme, I went on a trip with seven other students to Aintree racecourse near Liverpool, where a conference was underway for prospective students at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The journey to this was long and arduous. Setting off from Hull at 07:00, the minibus did not arrive until 10:50, nearly an hour after the first lecture had started. Upon arrival we split up to pursue our own interests in terms of subject areas. I began with a lecture on Chemistry and Earth Sciences at Oxford, given in the Corbière Suite.

In the afternoon I went to the Golden Miller Suite for two lectures: firstly on Making a Competitive Application, secondly on Student Finance and Careers. Finally I returned to Corbière for Natural Sciences at Cambridge.

The speakers throughout were keen to dispel the commonly circulated myths about elite universities – they insisted that dress standards would not factor into interviews and that student loan debt would not be a life-crushing burden.

While the lectures themselves were certainly informative, the venue left something to be desired. There were an estimated three thousand students crammed into a venue which could not hold them. This was especially notable at lunchtime when the two food outlets still open (the rest being closed off or used for lectures) were crammed to bursting point and dozens of students could be seen awkwardly sitting on the floor. The transition between sessions was also a tight squeeze as masses of confused wanderers ambled up and down a series of outdoor staircases.

While I must sadly report that I recall fairly little of anything said in the lectures given, I can at least be appreciative of the fact that such an event was offered. This was by no means the first such excursion on which I have been dispatched, and I certainly hope it is not the last.

Harold Wilson turns 100

Posted on Mar 11, 2016 by Robin Stanley Taylor

The Nixons and Wilsons stand on a red carpet surrounded by officials and officers.

Harold & Mary Wilson pose with Richard & Pat Nixon outside the White House, 27th January 1970

Britain’s longest-serving male prime minister of the post-war era, and so far the last to ever serve non-consecutive terms, Harold Wilson was born on 11th March 1916. He first entered the House of Commons in the Attlee landslide of 1945, winning the seat of Omskirk from Commander Stephen King-Hall of the National Labour Organisation. By that point, though, he already had a fascinating career behind him.

He was head boy of Wirral Grammar School, having moved there in 1932 after his father was made redundant. In 1934 he enrolled at Jesus College, Oxford to study Modern History. Here he became politically active as a member of the Liberal Party. Later he transferred to Philosophy, Politics & Economics and joined the Labour Party instead. At 21, Wilson was one of the century’s youngest Oxford dons, teaching Economic History at New College in 1937.

As war came to Europe, Wilson joined the civil service, rising swiftly through the Ministry of Fuel and Power to become Director of Economics and Statistics. For his work he was made an Officer of His Majesty’s Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

When the war ended and a general election seemed likely, Wilson resigned from the service in order to be secured immediately as a candidate (bridging the gap as a Praelector at University College). Having been returned as an MP, he was quickly brought into the Attlee government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works (the department which managed the requisitioning and development of property). In 1947 he was promoted to Secretary for Overseas Trade, which consisted largely of negotiating supply contracts with the USSR. Later that year he was further raised to the presidency of the Board of Trade (a job now held by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills). This was a cabinet position and he, at 31, was Britain’s youngest cabinet member. During his early tenure, he led a “bonfire of controls” to get rid of wartime rationing and his reputation suffered during debates over the value in sterling when he was seen as having repeatedly changed sides. Opposition to the introduction of medical charges to the National Health Service caused him to resign in April 1951 from the government, which sixth months later fell from office as Winston Churchill’s second premiership began.

Attlee stood down as Labour leader after the party lost another general election in 1955. He was succeeded by Hugh Gaitskell, who returned Wilson to the front bench as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Wilson stayed there until 1961, facing down four Conservative incumbents (Rab Butler, Harold Macmillan, Peter Thorneycroft and Derick Heathcoat-Amory). He had the unusual distinction of serving on the shadow cabinet and simultaneously chairing the Public Accounts Committee, the latter role normally being given to backbenchers. After Labour lost its third consecutive general election in 1959, Wilson unsuccessfully attempted to replace Gaitskell as party leader. Later, George Brown beat him in the deputy leadership election of 1962. Wilson’s break came in January 1963 when Gaitskell died and he won the subsequent leadership election (ahead of both Brown and eventual successor James Callaghan). As the Profumo Affair sullied the government’s reputation, the opposition gathered greater public support. When Macmillan left office, the disclaimed earl (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) who followed him proved no match for Wilson at the dispatch box. The ultimate result was that the 1964 general election made Harold Wilson into Britain’s youngest premier for more than seven decades.

Yet his victory was, if anything, underwhelming: rather than the red landslide which pundits had expected, Labour in fact had a majority of only four seats. This is a curious part of Wilson’s legacy; he is famously remembered as the man who won four general elections – whereas Blair and Thatcher each only managed three. Wilson, however, had fewer years in office than either, and usually worked with much smaller majorities. Only the election of 1966 proved a decisive triumph, with Labour earning a 111-seat lead over the Conservatives whose rookie leader Edward Heath was still relatively unknown as a political figure. Heath and Wilson were vital figures in one another’s political careers: Born in the same year, they both broke the political mold by attending grammar schools rather than private, and they both came to the frontbench with records of wartime service. Their clashes across the dispatch box caused them to be seen as a modern-day Gladstone and Disreali, and began the path later completed by Thatcher and Kinnock of defining the modern day rivalry between party leaders, especially at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Another defining feature of Wilson government’s was their poor track records in by-elections, which caused the repeated whittling down of their parliamentary majorities. As the 1970s arrived Labour had lost control of sixteen constituencies. When polls suggested that their popularity had risen again, the prime minister called an election, only to find himself swiftly replaced by Heath. Wilson survived as Labour leader and after four years of Conservative rule Heath himself was in trouble with oil price rises and industrial unrest leading to three-day-weeks. A snap election was initiated. Wilson did not strictly win (it being a hung parliament in which the Conservatives actually outpolled Labour yet returned fewer MPs), yet after six days of negotiation he was once again posing before the black door. His minority government was unstable and so after just seven months Britain went back to the polls. On the second attempt Labour outpolled the Conservative and won a majority in the Commons – yet it was one even smaller than that of ten years before. This, though, would prove only a brief encore: Wilson did not intend to stay in office past the age of sixty years. On 5th April 1976 he resigned, by which point he was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and drinking during the daytime. His resignation honours were derided as the “Lavender List” for giving gongs to businessmen and celebrities with little connection to public service. The list was so named after the suggestion that his political secretary Baroness Falkender had written the first draft on lavender notepaper.

James Callaghan (Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs and MP for Cardiff South East) won the Labour leadership election and took over as prime minister while Wilson was made a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Sir Harold remained on the backbenches while the government deteriorated until eventually in 1979 a vote of no confidence by the House of Commons forced a general election in which Margaret Thatcher brought the Conservatives to office. Sir Harold retained his seat and continued to serve in the House until 1983 when, after achieving her second (and largest) election victory, Thatcher included in her dissolution honours a peerage for her predecessor. he declined the earldom which retired prime minsters normally enjoyed, settling for the Barony Wilson of Rievaulx. He made his last speech to the House of Lords in 1986 (on the subject of Marine Pilotage) but continued to attend that place until 1994. One year after that, he passed away from a combination of Alzheimer’s and colon cancer at the age of 79. The noble Lord’s memorial service at Westminster Abbey was attended by Sir Edward Heath, the Baroness Thatcher, the Lord Callaghan of Cardiff and the Prince of Wales.

This year, Lord Wilson’s legacy is under renewed scrutiny as we approach a referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union. When he called a plebiscite in 1976 on the European Economic Community (or Common Market), his cabinet was split on the issue as seven senior ministers campaigned to leave as Wilson (and indeed Heath) pushed to remain. The decisive Europhile victory briefly settled the issue, but in the following decade the Labour Party was wrought by internal divisions which kept it out of government until 1997. Now it appears that David Cameron may be facing a similar situation as six of his own cabinet ministers campaign for Brexit while the Scottish National Party have repeatedly hinted at a renewed push to break up the United Kingdom itself. Time may tell a different story but for now it appears that Wilson’s troubles of forty-one years ago may soon return to haunt Downing Street once more.