Cambridge University
Fame came too late for Nick Drake
The singer-songwriter deserved to be far better known in his lifetime – but reticence and mental illness contributed to his tragically early death in 1974
Revealed: Huawei's Oxbridge millions
British universities have received twice as much funding from Huawei as previous estimates suggest, according to new figures obtained by The Spectator.…
Braverman's brush with the law
Ah student politics: is there anything quite like it? The strange creatures it attracts, the passions it unleashes, the adolescent…
Cambridge’s hysterical reaction to a Hitler impression
Last week, the Cambridge Union hosted a debate on the motion ‘This House Believes there is no such thing as…
National Trust members fight back
At the National Trust’s annual general meeting last week, the voting was much more unusual than the public will have…
Why Jesus College shouldn’t have returned its Benin bronze
Jesus College Cambridge can claim a world first. It is the first institution, at least in the twenty-first century, to…
Cambridge comes unstuck on Winnie the Pooh
Oh dear. Over the weekend, Cambridge University’s Twitter account celebrated the graduation of its most recent cohort with some pearls…
Will social kisses survive Covid?
There is a ‘pervasive presence of Chinese military-linked conglomerates and universities in the sponsorship of high-technology research centres in many…
Will Samuel Pepys be cancelled next?
A seemingly obscure battle in an ecclesiastical court could threaten the security of every historic monument in the care of…
The trans debate could cost this Cambridge porter his job
This is a story about a man called Kevin Price, who was until last week a councillor and who is,…
Jesus College’s China problem
Although Stephen Toope, vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, is committed to openness, it is a struggle to get information out of…
Now Gladstone must fall?
There are far more Chinese students in British universities than there are from the entire Commonwealth. Many universities have been…
Will Cambridge University finally stand up for free speech?
When Dr Priyamvada Gopal, a University of Cambridge academic, tweeted ‘White lives don’t matter’ and ‘Abolish whiteness’ in response to…
The grand names on Huawei’s payroll
Why is it wrong, some ask, for senior British businessmen, former civil servants etc to work for Huawei UK? After…
What is Dominic Raab not telling us about Hong Kong?
The government’s promised ‘pathway to citizenship’ to Hong Kong people is wonderful, but has the Foreign Office arranged a get-out…
No blues, just reds and whites: the Oxford vs Cambridge wine-tasting
The cellar room is almost silent save for the sound of slurping and spitting and the odd gentle sigh. One…
Why is there more intellectual freedom in Bucharest than Cambridge?
‘You can talk about anything you like,’ said Radu, a young Romanian academic when he invited me to a conference…
Anglo-Saxons deserve reparations for the Norman Conquest
Restorative justice for the victims of colonialism is an idea whose time has come. A few years ago, the Indian…
Joan Bakewell: on socks, fridge magnets, teddy bears and such stuff
I don’t know if this counts as name-dropping, but I recently interviewed a boyhood friend of Elvis Presley’s in Tupelo,…
If you want an argument against state-school-only Oxbridge colleges, just look at me
I read with some interest the proposal for Oxford and Cambridge to set up state-school-only colleges in the Guardian this…
Letters: Sir Peter Lampl replies to Charles Moore, and the memories of a wasteful GP
Medical waste Sir: Susan Hill’s article (‘Patient, heal thyself’, 29 June) dealt only with the unnecessary visits to GPs for…
