This Thursday, polling stations across the country will be filled with the voting electorate. For weeks now, the British public has been bombarded with sound-bites and video clips of politicians eager to please. Despite the continuous stream of statistics and data that we have been subjected to, no one can truly claim to be able to know what awaits us at the outcome of the General Election. However, one aspect is clear: the Liberal Democrats will command far more of the popular vote than ever before. Even so, their rise in popularity has not been met with a similar degree of scrutiny of its policies: far too much of it has gone on Nick Clegg as a leader. In Oxford East, the constituency encompassing the University of Oxford, the election is a two-horse race. The incumbent labour MP, Andrew Smith, is challenged by the Liberal Democrats’ parliamentary candidate: Steve Goddard. Since 2001, Dr Goddard, a university lecturer, has whittled Andrew Smith’s majority down to less than one ...

The Alligator 's Thomas Morris and Freddie Manson continue our special General Election coverage with an in-depth interview with the Liberal Democrat candidate for Oxford East, St Catz don Dr Steve Goddard.Dr Goddard defends his party's policies on tuition fees, the Euro, reforms to the electoral system, nuclear weapons and an amnesty for illegal immigrants - and explains why he thinks Gordon Brown was "out of order". ...

One of my first thoughts when snow started to fall across the south of England a week before Christmas was how tremendously pretty Oxford would look in such weather, with the Bodleian frosted over and the college quads carpeted in white (and probably full of over-excited, snowball-wielding students). It wasn’t until a little while later that I thought vaguely of the Big Issue seller who I passed on my way to lectures, standing by Blackwell’s every day during term that I considered the fact that, for those without a roof over their heads, Oxford in snow is probably the first definition of downright grim. The massive homelessness problem was one thing which I – perhaps naïvely – was not prepared to find in Oxford. Over the Christmas vacation, my first time back at home, people kept asking me “was it how you expected?” and I suppose, for the most part, it actually was. I had known there would be slightly quirky traditions, I came with some expectation of tourists (although ...

This summer I was lucky enough to visit two very different countries. The only immediate similarity I can think of is that they were both in their own way superlative: India, the world’s largest democracy; and Belarus, ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’ (according to Condoleezza Rice). However, symptomatic of my cultural nosiness, as I travelled through these countries I made a point of speaking with as many of their students as I could. It was from these conversations that another similarity arose – that despite my admiration of many aspects of these foreign cultures they each inspired in me a great pride in Britain. My pride was thankfully not too predictable. I wasn’t having thrills about our civilised tea parties or tripping on a patronising diagnosis of their political systems. I was proud of British universities. "In Britain, I declared, anyone can afford to go to university" I know it sounds obvious, but sometimes you need a harsh juxtaposition to prove what yo ...

As Trinity Term comes to a close, it marks the end of one of the most stressful periods in the calendar of the Oxford student. After weeks, if not months of panicked, clammy handed revision, last minute doubts, inexplicable euphoria and deep black despair, the conclusion of Finals brings with it a cathartic release of emotion for the average scholar. As the scratching of quills slowly ebbs into silence, as the Examination Schools shuts its doors and recedes to lick sore wounds inflicted by razor-sharp wits and mighty flashing pens, the streets are filled with students dancing, singing, laughing, crying, bedecking each other with garlands of flowers, crowning victors with laurels and liberally distributing champagne and strawberries. What a beautiful, heart-warming sight; the next generation of thrusting young minds catapulted on a soaring arc towards greatness, towards creating a better world as they put their talents to use in the common cause of humanity. But there is a dark heart t ...

So I’m in my second year, and I’m sure I can’t be alone in finding myself feeling slightly stranded mid-way through my course by the impression that everyone I know is doing much better than me. I’ve been out-ambitioned, since I haven’t applied for any internships and I don’t want to be a lawyer or a banker and it seems as though everyone else does. I’m a pretty lazy person and suddenly it’s emerged all the people I know are just an awful lot keener than I am to grow up. And I can’t help but wonder, does no-one just want to drift through Oxford any more? When you look at the middle aged people dominant in our newspapers, in the Houses of Parliament, on television, it doesn’t seem like very many of them were particularly proactive whilst they were at Oxford. Tony Blair was too busy being in his band. David Cameron was probably too busy being smashed, yet one managed to become Prime Minister whilst the other probably will soon. The point is that both were able to d ...