Clarion Weekly, 29 August 2025

Oxford is never shy about making its views known, and this week more than ever with the city rallying in support of Ukraine, asylum seekers, and Palestine. With Nigel Farage choosing Kidlington as the venue to launch his repatriation policy this week, Oxfordshire took the opportunity to reply – and how. Thank you to all those who have shared photos, tip-offs, reports and reports with us: we are all the Clarion.

This week’s long read

Oxford has been at the forefront of climate change science, from the earliest weather records 250 years ago to the latest satellites. We took a look at the science of man-made global heating, and Oxford’s part in it.

Climate change and Oxford – a history and primer

On 26 January 1776, at just after ten past eleven in the evening, Dr Thomas Hornsby, Professor of Astronomy, walked back from his thermometers on the lawn of what is now Green Templeton College into his study. He recorded the temperature carefully in his book - ‘16 2/3’, the

Oxford ClarionOxford Clarion

This week’s top stories

A Baptist minister was arrested in Oxford on Sunday (video) for holding a placard reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Rev James Grote of New Road Baptist Church said: “I am doing this because of my faith. I’m doing this because I’m a follower of Jesus Christ, who broke the rules and created peace.” Rev Grote was arrested under section 13 of the Terrorism Act. The High Court will review the ban on Palestine Action in November.

Flags bearing the St George's Cross, placed in roadside locations around Oxford, were amended on Sunday night. Two flags at Headington were amended to say ‘Love Immigrants’. A national flag flying campaign ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ has provoked controversy.

Further flags over the A34 were replaced overnight with a banner reading ‘Asylum Seekers Welcome’, following a protest outside the Holiday Inn Express by the Kassam Stadium where asylum seekers are being housed. Meanwhile in Abingdon, a roundabout and road markings had been repainted with the Cross of St George over the weekend. Oxfordshire has been a county of sanctuary since February 2024, and Oxford City since 2008.

Sunday marked Ukraine's 34th Independence Day – their third since the full-scale invasion, and their 11th since the Russian invasion of Crimea – and a rally was held in Radcliffe Square to mark the occasion. Many attendees were were clad in traditional embroidered vyshyvankas, or bearing Ukrainian flags, signs or sunflowers.

Speakers included 9-year old Timofei from Odesa, who said he liked the people of Oxford and the food, but he missed his home. Emma from the Ukrainian Friendship Centre at St. Michael’s Church, Summertown, wished all Ukrainians strength in their search for peace. Oxfordshire has welcomed 2,800 Ukrainian refugees (though some have since returned home) out of 254,000 in the UK. Germany has taken over 1 million.

Nigel Farage, leader of the seventh largest party in Oxfordshire, used a speech at London Oxford Airport in Kidlington to announce a plan for “a five-year emergency programme to identify, detain and deport illegal migrants”. The airport is next to Campsfield House, the former immigration removal centre being reopened by the current Government.

(Reform UK has one councillor across Oxfordshire's six principal councils, behind the Liberal Democrats (137 councillors), Labour (58), Conservatives, Greens, Independent Oxford Alliance and Henley Residents' Group.)

Calum Miller is LibDem MP for the Bicester & Woodstock constituency where Farage delivered his repatriation speech. Miller said Oxfordshire is “thriving thanks to overseas talent” – and criticised him for not meeting residents living near Campsfield House detention centre, next to the venue for Farage’s event.

“You often invoke Winston Churchill, born here in Oxfordshire. He spent his career grappling with difficult truths and forging alliances instead of sowing division. We need fair migration to meet workforce shortages, a faster asylum system, and support for those fleeing persecution. I would be glad to show you Oxfordshire’s real story: businesses thriving thanks to home and overseas talent, health and care services desperate for staff and residents supporting refugees with compassion. You would see a community interested in solving problems, not fuelling conflict.”

The Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, wrote an open letter to Farage:

“Oxford is one of the kindest and most welcoming cities in the country and one of the greatest cultural crossroads in the world. Our city seemed a strange choice for your press conference. I heard no compassion in what you said for those who are at risk from people traffickers; those who fled for their lives; those who long for sanctuary and safety; the vulnerable who would be forcibly deported. The British people, as I understand them, want public policies founded on the deeply British and Christian values of compassion and care for those in need.”

Over 2,000 people, including three Oxfordshire MPs, have now called for ‘Unity and Compassion’ in Oxfordshire after Reform’s announcement. An open letter organised by Asylum Welcome raises deep concerns about the rise in hostility towards people seeking asylum in the county, and condemns the use of dehumanising language and the intimidation faced by asylum seekers living in local hotels.

Oxfordshire's sole Reform councillor, Hao Du, was at the launch and said Farage’s policy was “simple, clear and rooted in common sense”. Oxfordshire Stand up to Racism staged a protest outside the Reform event.

Oxford journalists joined a nationwide protest against the killing of 219 journalists in Gaza on Wednesday. Anna Wagstaff, local secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said:

“Our colleagues are the only reporters able to broadcast to the world the devastation, death and famine Gazans are facing. The people of Gaza have a right to have their stories told and their voices heard, yet the only reporters broadcasting news from Gaza are being relentlessly killed. We are demanding that Israel be held accountable for these deaths.”

At the protest in Bonn Square, a poster listed the names of the 219 killed, together with details of who they worked for. The Israeli military has claimed some Gaza-based journalists are Hamas operatives. The NUJ says international media must be given access to the Gaza Strip to report on the latest military offensive.

A separate protest is held every Thursday outside the Radcliffe Camera from 6.30pm, with attendees holding images of Palestinian and Israeli children “whose involvement was never a choice… together, we will affirm a simple truth: both Palestinians and Israelis deserve to live.”

Around the city

• Oxford vets have spoken out against the “corporatisation” of veterinary care. Speaking to the Telegraph (paywall link), vets from the Oxford Cat Clinic called out the pressure to recommend expensive treatments in the place of pragmatic veterinary care. The specialist clinic was bought by vet giants Medivet, and six months later bought back by former employees. The Clarion has independently spoken to a vet who worked for an Oxfordshire practice owned by one of the ‘Big Six’ chains, who told us she believed decisions were being made for the profitability of the company rather than the health of the animals. The Telegraph suggests that a Competition & Markets Authority investigation into vet ownership “has pivoted away from the more profound problems of the corporate sector”.
• The pedestrianised Market Street is here to stay. Oxfordshire County Council officers have recommended that the ‘pedestrian and cycle zone’ currently being trialled on the street should be made permanent, saying “many responding to the consultation note that the street is more attractive for pedestrians than it was when there were more motor vehicles using it”. The final decision will be made at an OCC meeting next week.
• Oxford’s Christmas Market this year will have a ferris wheel as well as the traditional carousel, a two-storey Alpine bar, and chalet-style huts for retailers. Plans for the event have been lodged with Oxford City Council.
• The proposed congestion charge was debated at an Oxfordshire County Council scrutiny meeting this week. OCC Cabinet is due to make a decision on 10 September.

Around the county

• Another rural Oxfordshire pub could be converted into a house. The Woodman in North Leigh, just east of Witney, closed in April having been bought just last year for £290,000. A viability assessment commissioned by the owners suggests it would lose £50,000 every year. The owners say they have considered coffee shop, restaurant, B&B and childcare uses but that the village (population 2000) is too small to support them. An application for change of use is with West Oxfordshire District Council. North Leigh has one remaining pub, the Mason’s Arms.
• Separately, South Oxfordshire District Council has given permission for the Four Horseshoes in Checkendon, in the Chilterns near Sonning Common, to become a house. The former Brakspear inn closed in 2013.
• Proposed parking restrictions in Abingdon have been rethought. Oxfordshire County Council was proposing new double yellow lines and limited-time bays around the town centre and Ock Street areas, but has now pared the plans back to double yellows on a smaller selection of streets due to “the notable level of objections to some elements of the scheme”. The recommendation is due to be considered at an OCC meeting next Thursday.
• Plans for a solar farm at Ramsden, north of Witney, have been turned down by West Oxfordshire District Council. Planners cited “a significant harmful impact on the historic landscape setting of the Ramsden Conservation Area” and said no agreement had been reached on a “Skylark Mitigation Strategy”. The solar farm would have had 20MW capacity plus a 1.5MW battery energy storage system; plans had already been revised to provide a larger field-edge buffer and incorporate additional planting, but the Parish Council objected to the revised scheme. Historic England, however, did not formally object, saying “harm to the Ramsden Conservation Area, through development in its traditional countryside setting […] could be avoided through targeted changes in the design of the scheme”.
• A Victorian boathouse in Goring has been Grade II listed. The boathouse was built around 1894 for Samuel Saunders, a pioneering boatbuilder and engineer and is a rare surviving example of a late Victorian commercial boathouse. Saunders' steam launch, The Flying Dutchman, was said to be the fastest boat on the Thames, reaching 17.4mph. The steam launch Consuta, built in 1898 for the Henley Royal Regatta, was used for many years by the BBC for the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

Oxfordshire politics

Parliamentary recess ends on 1 September, so we fondly imagine there is a “last week of the school holidays” vibe in our MPs’ offices…

• Banbury MP Sean Woodcock, on Ukrainian Independence Day, thanked constituents for all they continue to do to support the people of Ukraine. He is holding a series of drop-ins for residents to tell him about housing issues: they are on 22 and 24 September, and 12 October. Details on his Facebook page.
• Bicester & Woodstock MP Calum Miller, not content with writing a letter to Nigel Farage in his capacity as LibDem Foreign Affairs spokesperson, wrote a letter to the Foreign Secretary on Gaza, urging sanctions, an arms ban and a ban on trade with illegal settlements. He is hiring for.a campaign mobilisation officer: if this sounds like your bag, click here.
• Witney MP Charlie Maynard visited the Three Horseshoes in Witney, officially the best pub in the country, where he discussed “the trainwreck the Labour government is creating in the retail and hospitality sector”. Landlords Mike and Tommy are heading down to Westminster to make their case to government, and that is a press release we can't wait to see. (The Clarion may strive for political neutrality but it is emphatically pro-pub.) He’s also been walking across his constituency talking to people, this time through Buckland to Faringdon.
• Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds was out on the doors in Barton. She issued this video where she spoke about the need to accelerate progress on Templars Square Shopping Centre.
• Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover has been investigating parking charge changes at the Orchard Centre in Didcot. He appears to have spent the summer quietly holding 'summer surgeries' in villages, visiting businesses in Harwell and Getting On With Casework, which, although he's clearly marking his own homework, appears to be paying dividends.
• Henley & Thame MP Freddie van Mierlo says that Ofwat has let Thames Water off the hook, “allowing it to pay only 20% of its pollution fines now”.
• Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber shared this update of his week and was out campaigning in Long Wittenham.

University and research

• OrganOx, the Oxford University spin-out making machines to keep transplant organs alive for longer, has been acquired by Japanese med tech company Terumo for $1.5 billion, the largest ever acquisition for an Oxford spinout. Prof Constantin Coussios, CTO of OrganOx, said this would help the company reach more patients and develop more applications. The technology has already assisted in 6000 life-saving transplant operations in 12 countries, and won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s MacRobert Award earlier this year.
• Oxford Brookes has been awarded University of Sanctuary status, recognising its “sustained commitment to sanctuary seekers through research, community partnerships, and direct student support such as Sanctuary Scholarships”. Brookes works with charities including Oxford’s own Asylum Welcome to provide events, training and outreach. It collaborates with the University of Oxford on the Refugee-Led Research Hub, which “supports individuals with experience of forced displacement to become leaders in humanitarian response”. The University of Oxford became a University of Sanctuary in 2023.

• New College is proposing to rework its secondary gate on New College Lane, which has not been the main college entrance since the 1870s, to create a tourists’ entrance and gift shop in the old Porters’ Lodge. Entrance tickets will be sold through an existing window in the undercroft. Although the entrance is already used for tourists, New College says “the current ticket selling strategy is unable to cope with the demands resulting in large queues, occurrences of unauthorised entry and disruption to the college staff and members”. The plans envisage selling pastries, hot drinks and “pre-made food and produce from the college’s farms”. The application is now with Oxford City Council for consideration.
• A clutch of Oxford University scientists have been recognised by the Royal Society, in both its annual awards and the new long-term Faraday Discovery Fellowships which “support exceptional mid-career research leaders”. Royal Society Awards went to Rory Collins for cardiovascular trials and leading the UK Biobank; Kayla King for evolutionary theory of infectious disease; Philipp Kukura for pioneering mass measurement of single biomolecules; and Michael Wooldridge for artificial intelligence research. The new fellowships were awarded to neuroscientist Timothy Behrens studying “neuronal connections that underlie a world model”, materials chemist Andrew Goodwin, and AI researcher Andrea Vedaldi who is focusing on ”future AIs that can reason in a spatially aware manner”.
• And finally, as this appears to have become the Protest Edition, have a look at this: graffiti in Christ Church objecting to Robert Peel as MP for the University (yes really), who had stood on a platform to emancipate Catholics. He would later become Prime Minister.

Walking and cycling

• The Thames Path south of Moulsford, on the Oxfordshire/Berkshire border, is being resurfaced and levelled with natural materials following a successful project at Streatley. Work will take place in the first half of September and the path will remain open throughout.
• Also being resurfaced is the path across Kidlington Meadows, part of the National Cycle Route from Oxford through Bicester to Cambridge. Cycling charity Sustrans says the work should be complete by November. At the same time, Oxfordshire County Council noticed that part of the route wasn’t officially designated as a right of way, and has filed the paperwork to fix that.

Trains and buses

• A Facebook advertising campaign offering “free transport for residents of Oxford” is a scam, Oxford Bus Company have confirmed. The posts claim OBC is offering “6 months of unlimited travel for only £1”, directing users to a series of scam sites to claim a “special Oxford SmartZone Card”. The scam appears to function by affiliate links and suspicious downloads. Glowing reviews on the Facebook post are authored by profiles claiming to be Ukrainian residents and several users marked as “New Facebook account”.
• Kingham railway station, in West Oxfordshire, is to lose its last bus service. The station formerly had a bus link to Chipping Norton; after this was withdrawn, a bus to Bourton-on-the-Water was introduced, but this too is now being dropped.

Dates for your diary

• Tiny Ideas Festival. 27-28 September. Oxford’s early years arts festival. Expect sensory theatre performances, stay and plays, disco parties, crafts, story time, immersive sound and light shows and more! 
• Hertford College Open Day. Saturday 6 September, Hertford College. Guided site tours of the college's excavation, plus displays of finds uncovered, a chance to explore a special library display, and visits to the beautiful college chapel.
• Moreton Show. Saturday 6 September, Moreton-in-Marsh. Admittedly a few miles over the border from Oxfordshire (but just 30 minutes on the train), this colossal agricultural show is really quite something. Recommended for foodies, families, and anyone who likes animals, really. (“All we like sheep…”)
• Oxford Open Doors is 13-14 September and we promise we’ll keep reminding you until then…

This weekend

• Tequila, Mezcal and More. Friday 5pm, Amathus, 116-117 High Street. Mexico-based agave journalist Anna Bruce launches her new book on spirits.
• Bat and Moth Evening, Friday from 8.30pm, Aston's Eyot, Jackdaw Lane (off Iffley Road). Identify the creatures of the night. Children welcome with a responsible adult.
• Bunkfest. The UK's largest free community access festival is this weekend in Wallingford (we want to see the Red Hot Chilli Pipers). And if you want to arrive by steam train, here are the details. There's even a station bar..
• Braziers International Film Festival. All weekend, 4 miles southwest of Wallingford. World cinema and radical films, with a special focus this year on films from Palestine and Lebanon.
• Local artists David Lockett and Peter Ross are spotlighted in a new exhibition at the Oxfordshire Museum in Woodstock, starting this weekend.
• Abingdon Fireworks and Monster Truck Festival. Saturday. Just click the link…

Oxfordshire’s independent media

• To celebrate International Dog Day, TVP shared this video of their police dog pups, and the Ashmolean produced this thread of dogs in their collection, as did the Bodleian. Paw-sitive content all round. (Well done their social media managers!) Speaking of the Bodleian, don’t miss the incredible typewriter art of James Cook.
• Ox in a Box reviews veggie/vegan food at Namaste Village in Oxford's Castle Quarter, and so does Bitten Oxford.
• Red Kite Days rounds up the best places for paddling in Oxfordshire, for those of us still eking out the summer.
• Cherwell reports ‘relief’ among Oxford University offer holders living in Gaza as their visas are approved.
• The Oxford Sausage goes headhunting in search of the carvings that once adorned the Sheldonian.
• Nightshift’s September issue is out with an interview with electronic pop and shoegaze artist The Bobo.
• And finally, we stumbled across this from a few years back: 50 years of BBC Radio Oxford. The station was officially opened at 5pm on Thursday 29 October 1970, broadcasting on 202m medium wave from its studios at 242-254 Banbury Road in Summertown. Although there had been test transmissions throughout the day, the first programme was the official opening by Lord Mayor Alderman Michael Mcglagen, followed by Oxford Circus, Home Choice, Front Page, Sports Desk and Music Makers. The first full day of broadcasting then started at 6am. Now best known for his stints on LBC, Talk Radio and TalkSport, it was Mike Dickin who got to try out the station's radio car in Parking Disc: “Mike Dickin parks the car, you choose the disc.” (Oxford was experimenting with a disc-based parking system at the time.)

Notes from Clarion HQ

Everyone, including us, gets captions wrong sometimes. (Our sympathies to the 1990s Sunday Times Magazine art editor who wrote a placeholder of ‘Add caption here for this f—ing boring picture of kitchen knives’ – except without the dash – which duly went out to 1.3m readers.) But we would like to be the first to congratulate City Council leader Susan Brown on her elevation to MP.

We love you folks. We don't spend much time looking at the reader statistics of the newsletter (honest), but we idly checked in on ‘most clicked links’ last week. Top of the list were ‘Carterton's unusual purchase habits’ (NSFW) and ‘Oxford's best ice cream’. Which says two things. Firstly that, if we were ever to have a party for all our subscribers, it'd have the very best people in it. And secondly, we missed a trick: we should have put in an affiliate link to the adult toy manufacturer we referenced in the Carterton story, so next time, when asked “But how is the Clarion funded?”, we can respond “adult purchases of the Oxford literati”. If you're new here, for the record, we don't have any funding, or use affiliate links – if you want to support our mission of real local news, the best way is to get more people reading real local news, so do share this newsletter. More importantly, if this week's events have made you as angry as they've made us, maybe drop a few pennies to Asylum Welcome, Oxford Mutual Aid, or charities working in your town.

We have at least two long reads coming up next week, maybe three. Keep an eye on our Bluesky/Twitter accounts and we will, of course, flag them in the newsletter. Have a great weekend and see you next week.