The Clarion, 19 May 2026

A dispute over a bridge, another Bridge arrested, a row over rowing, a bumper crop of university news – and how active is your MP in Parliament? Plus the return of Ozymandias to brighten your week.

This week’s top stories

Labour will continue to run Oxford City Council after recent elections left the council hung – but the party promises “closer working on a number of issues”. Labour leader Susan Brown said:

“I am pleased that we have been able to reach agreement with the two main opposition groups on a way forward that provides stability for the council. The council’s priorities, while set by a Labour administration, command broad support across the political spectrum. While we will continue to have differences of opinions on some key policy areas, we have agreed to work together where we can.”

After this month’s elections, Labour has 20 councillors, the Greens 13, and the LibDems 9. Green leader Lois Muddiman said: “We have secured a more open and collaborative approach to how the council will operate in the future, including officer time to develop the big priorities that we promised voters.” LibDem leader Katherine Miles added: “We welcome the commitment to more affordable housing and community infrastructure, including upgraded public toilets and community centres and a city centre children's playground. But these must not be empty commitments, made to reach a deal.”

A footbridge across Oxford's ring road has been closed at short notice. Oxfordshire County Council has shut the Cottesmore Road bridge, which links Rose Hill to Littlemore and Heyford Hill Sainsbury's, after inspectors identified safety concerns with the structure. Diversions are in place.

OCC's new cabinet member for transport, Rebekah Fletcher, said: “Our top priority is always the safety of the public, and we will not compromise on that. The decision to close the bridge has not been taken lightly, but it was the only option in the circumstances.”

Anneliese Dodds, MP for Oxford East, said: “Safety has to come first but local residents in both Littlemore and Rose Hill have been kept totally in the dark about what’s happening here. There does not seem to be any plan or even commitment, to sort out this situation for Rose Hill and Littlemore residents: the diversion is huge and this is going to be a particularly big problem for elderly and disabled people.” Oxford City Council deputy leader Cllr Anna Railton added: “This, and the weight restriction on Donnington Bridge wrecking some key local bus routes, is just making everyday life harder for many residents in south-east Oxford.”

Around the city

• Reports surfaced over the weekend that Ryan Bridge from Raise the Colours had been arrested at Euston station while en route to the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally organised by Tommy Robinson in London. Bridge was arrested a month ago in Oxford on suspicion of causing racially and religiously aggravated harassment. He was released on bail. We wrote about 'Raise the Colours' and their actions in Oxfordshire in March this year.
• Magdalen College School is setting up an outpost in Kuala Lumpur. MCS is advertising for a ‘Founding Principal’ to lead the school in Sunway City, which already has 500 students. Independent schools in Britain have increasingly set up international branches, or franchises, in recent years. The school describes its aim as “bringing Cambridge A-level programmes to local and international students, delivered to the highest British academic standards and enriched by MCS’s 500-year tradition of intellectual excellence and holistic development”.
       Kuala Lumpur is home to the second tallest building in the world, Merdeka 118, which at 679m is 15 times taller than Magdalen Tower. (If MCS’s marketing team are not already on the phone to the tower owners, setting up an opportunity for the choir to serenade the Malaysian capital from the 118th storey on May Day, we will be very disappointed.)
• Oxford’s Windrush Day celebrations on 22 June will be boosted by a £14,000 Government grant. Plans include exhibition tours and a Memorial Lecture at the Ashmolean Museum, a service and celebration at John Bunyan Baptist Church in Cowley, and intergenerational artistic and story collecting projects. The programme is being drawn up by Oxford City Council and the Oxford Windrush Working Group. They say: “By working with Oxford’s Black communities to share lived experiences, we will raise the positive profile of the Windrush contribution to the City and increase pride in the stories being shared.”
• Can't park there mate: The Environment Agency has issued a warning after several boats have run aground on a shoal in the River Thames by Port Meadow. One boat was marooned overnight, with the crew having to wade ashore to walk their dog. Another was rescued by a dinghy crew from Medley Sailing Club.
• 28 new employers have signed up for the Oxford Living Wage. Oxford City Council’s voluntary scheme commits employers to paying a minimum wage set at 95% of the London Living Wage to reflect the high cost of living: it is currently £14.06 an hour. The new sign-ups, employing 1,298 people in total, include Missing Bean, Kelpie Coffee, Oxford North, Damascus Rose Kitchen, Oxford Biomedica, Cyclox, and Makespace Oxford. In all, 193 employers have now signed up for the scheme.
       Missing Bean’s Olly Wilkins said: “By paying everyone Oxford Living Wage and above, it means they have the opportunity to live amongst their communities.” Cllr Susan Brown, leader of Oxford City Council, added: “Every single Oxford Living Wage employer – new or reaccrediting, big or small – is directly helping to build a fairer city.” We wrote about the Oxford Living Wage in February.

Around the county

• Abingdon’s Abbey Hall has been sold to the company that operates the Abbey Cinema in it. Husband and wife team Ian & Sue Wiper, whose family previously rescued the Regal in Evesham, have been running the cinema since 2018 – but they say short leases meant they could not invest in the building. They have now bought the freehold from Abingdon Town Council, which itself had previously acquired it from Vale of White Horse District Council. The town council had faced a maintenance bill of £3m. Ian Wiper said: “We have plans drawn up for the building which can now proceed with confidence.” Priorities include separating the Abbey Hall from the Guildhall, better disabled access, improving its external appearance, and a second, smaller screening room. For the town council, Oliver Forder added: “We have worked very hard to ensure a thriving cinema in the centre of Abingdon.”
• A new transport plan for Witney, Carterton and Eynsham envisages a rapid transit system linking the towns to Oxford – but concedes that in a rural area, “people will rely on a private vehicle… this plan intends to make it less stressful and more convenient for people who do need a car for their journey”.
       The draft Movement & Place Plan for the West Oxfordshire Lowlands says rapid transit could be rail, tram or a busway. It suggests reinstating double track on the railway from Oxford through Hanborough. In Witney, the Five Ways and Deer Park roundabouts could be rebuilt as ‘Dutch style’ interchanges with safer provision for cyclists and pedestrians.
       The plan points out that road collisions involving vulnerable users are “well above the national average”. 7.8% of KSI collisions (killed/seriously injured) involved children, compared to 4% nationally. Across the area, it proposes new zebra crossings and School Streets to improve safety.
       It also observes that “the availability of free parking discourages the use of alternative transport for short journeys, where people have the ability to do so”. WODC documents show that council tax payers, including those without cars, pay up to £120,000 a quarter to subsidise “free parking”.
• A county lines drug network operating around Didcot has been successfully dismantled, according to Thames Valley Police. Ali Abdallah, 33, from north London was arrested in Didcot in March in connection with the supply of crack cocaine and heroin. £4750 in cash, mobile phones, and drugs were seized. He was sentenced to 5 years 7 months in prison at Oxford Crown Court on Friday. For the Met Police, DCI Hailey Panting said: “County lines devastate lives. It is much more than drug dealing – it has wide-reaching impact on communities across the country.”

• This Saturday is the Bampton Shirt Race, a chariot race in the West Oxfordshire village which since 1953 has raised money for elderly locals. The race is run in fancy dress and includes stops at the village pubs (there are four, one per 750 residents). The event is organised by SPAJERS, the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Junketing. Teams of at least two must arrive by 5pm at the Morris Clown pub. (The Morris Clown was so named in 1975, provoking a 25-year boycott by the three local morris sides because they have fools, not clowns.) Road closures will apply in the village between 5pm and 8pm. (As yet we are unaware of any petitions or AI-generated campaign images against the road closures, but then this is West Oxfordshire so we’ll keep you posted.)

Oxfordshire politics

Research company Polimonitor has analysed the spoken and written contributions of the new intake of MPs to create a league table of Parliamentary activity. There is plenty to geek out over in the numbers, not least the fact that larger parties get more speaking time in the chamber. Out of 333 MPs, here is how our local heroes fared.
     Topping the Oxfordshire league table is Freddie van Mierlo at no. 28, followed by Calum Miller at 76, Olly Glover at 85, Charlie Maynard at 92 and Sean Woodcock at 199.
     Other new intake MPs with an Oxfordshire (Labour) connection: former Oxford city councillor Tom Hayes smashes in at 24; former Cherwell district councillor Perran Moon is at 51; husband of Oxford City Councillor Linda Smith, NEC member and former Oxford City Council candidate Luke Akehurst is at 119; and former Oxford City councillor Marie Tidball makes it in at 287. (No connection to Oxfordshire, or not much, but Reform leader Nigel Farage is in at 329 out of 333.)

• Banbury MP Sean Woodcock met the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Commenting after the meeting, he said: “Banbury has real potential as a visitor destination and I am pleased to have had the chance to pitch my ideas.”
• Bicester & Woodstock MP Calum Miller, pulling no punches in this video, reckons the King’s Speech should have been a reset, but instead was a missed opportunity. He called out the priorities he hears on the doorstep: rising bills, overstretched councils, housing growth without the roads, GP appointments, and social care.

• Witney MP Charlie Maynard is spending a lot of time in Carterton of late: Football Club, May Day Fair, and St George's Day lunch. (In the district elections, military Carterton returned two Conservatives and one Reform councillor.) On the King's Speech, playing to his areas of expertise, he bemoaned the lack of economic plans, and took the fight to Thames Water (again). He's hiring for a Communications & Policy Officer.

• Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds is very happy that the government is nationalising the railways. She was at Artweeks in Littlemore and out campaigning in Barton, and therefore wins the Clarion's ‘Straight back out there’ golden rosette for fastest MP back on the doors after the recent elections.

• Oxford West & Abingdon MP Layla Moran (a former teacher) visited St Barnabas School for a demonstration, once again, that the kids are all right: she reports “hundreds of questions in assembly which pupils had for me, including why I became an MP, where I sat in the chamber, if I could speak Arabic, and if I had any pets. They even asked if I could come back as their maths teacher when I told them how much I loved being a teacher before I became an MP!" (Awww.) As chair of the Health & Social Care Select Committee, she thanked Wes Streeting for his service as he stood down to join the Labour leadership soap opera race.

• Didcot & Wantage MP Olly Glover presented a petition to Government this week calling for East Hagbourne’s Post Office to be reinstated, saying that Post Office Ltd’s new ‘Local Model’ was unsuitable for small villages: “To expect a small community-run shop to take on the work and liabilities of the new approach is unrealistic.” He spoke at a reception in Parliament for Modeshift, celebrating 25 years of work making everyday journeys safer, healthier and easier (extra Clarion points for a bike emoji). He visited Clifton Hampden Primary School, where he's working with the County Council to get urgent repairs done on the roof. Here's his weekly round-up.

• Henley & Thame MP Freddie van Mierlo met with Henley business Ella's Kitchen to discuss the B Corp movement. His big campaign this week has been on sewage capacity, summarised in his video looking at growth in Oxford and surrounding areas in his constituency: a nuanced look at the tensions of building to alleviate the ongoing housing crisis, the challenges of getting sufficient sewage provision to these homes, and the consequences of building on green belt. If you only click on one link in this newsletter, make it this.

• Thames Valley Police & Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber this week launched a Vehicle Crime Strategy, focusing on crimes committed to vehicles rather than those committed using them. He also hosted a discussion in Didcot between councils and housing developers about unadopted roads in housing estates, given Oxfordshire's homebuilding acceleration. Usually when housing developments are built, local councils become responsible for maintenance of roads: increasingly, however, long legal battles cause delays to ‘adoption’ of estates. This can leave residents without services and impact police enforcement. Barber commented: “It is not acceptable that years after people move into new homes, local councils are not providing the services that people are paying for. Today is about unblocking delays which impact on parking, road safety, and more.”

University and research

• Have you seen a missing statue? Trinity College has commissioned replacements for four deteriorating statues visible on top of its chapel. It is now appealing to the public to look out for three previous versions, possibly removed from the roof 200 years ago.
       Further along Broad Street, three of the Muses from on top of the Clarendon Building will be on display at ground level in the Weston Library from Saturday (until September). Six of the nine statues were taken down for restoration or replacement in 2023.
       (And last year, the Oxford Sausage blog went in search of previous incarnations of the emperors' heads from outside the Sheldonian Theatre, tracking them down in Hinksey and Horspath.)
• Harwell’s Diamond Light Source is being used to research how drugs could target hand, foot and mouth disease (virus EV-A71). Oxford University researchers have released a dataset and AI model based on detailed X-ray images of 699 compounds binding to the virus protein. Most medicines work by binding to specific disease-related proteins in the body. Predicting which molecules will bind, and how strongly, is a central part of early-stage drug design. The researchers are now working as part of the OpenBind consortium to find how AI can accelerate this process. Charlotte Deane, Professor of Structural Bioinformatics, explained: “This first release is an important step because it shows we can now generate high-quality, standardised data at scale, specifically designed for AI in drug discovery.”
• A US investor has snapped up Oxford startup TFP Fertility. Founded in 2012 with the merger of Oxford Fertility (a spin-off from Oxford University Hospitals) and IVF Hammersmith, it has been acquired by US private equity investor Amulet Capital. The company has a network of IVF clinics across the UK and Poland.
• Donors to Oxford University dominate the latest Sunday Times 'Rich List'. Reuben College, the Blavatnik School of Government, the Weston Library, and the Bukhman Centre for Diabetes all take their names from billionaires in the top ten. (We looked at their history in December.) The founders of XTX Markets and Ineos, two companies which have made substantial donations to support Oxford University, also appear at positions 8 and 9 respectively.
• Today's ‘this is what we all hoped AI was going to be used for’ news: a multi-discipline research collaboration has developed an AI framework that can help predict how cells develop into specialised cell types, accelerating discoveries in developmental biology and regenerative medicine. A significant proportion of the research underpinning the study was carried out in Oxford through the work of Tatjana Sauka-Spengler’s research group.
• Poetry news: Magdalen student Angus Barrett has won the 2026 Sir Roger Newdigate Prize, recognising the best English verse by an Oxford undergraduate. Previous winners include Oscar Wilde. His poem ‘The Deposition of Harry Goodsir, Assistant Surgeon’ will be read out at Encaenia next month. Meanwhile, Christ Church has announced the winners of the 2026 Tower Poetry Competition for young poets. 14,000 submissions were received on the theme of ‘A Riddle’, with first prize going to Zeba Padinjare for her poem ‘Application’.
• Row over rowing: Trans women may no longer row with other women, according to new rules introduced by Oxford University Rowing Clubs. The updated Rules of Racing are currently displayed on the clubs’ website against the background of a trans flag.
       Student newspaper Cherwell attributed the decision to Oxford University’s Director of Sport. A university spokesperson, however, said that the policy had been set by British Rowing: “Oxford's registered sports clubs and committees are required to follow the policies and eligibility criteria set by the relevant national governing bodies, to comply with UK law as well as to ensure alignment with competition frameworks. The University of Oxford remains committed to being an inclusive university, where everyone is treated with respect, courtesy and consideration.” A similar debate recently played out in Cambridge.
       Somerville College Boat Club will encourage rowers competing in the Summer Eights races at the end of May to wear LGBTQ+ wristbands. Trans man Michael Dillon was president of Oxford University Women's Boat Club, winning a Blue in 1935 and 1936, then rowed in the men's boat for Dublin University Boat Club (Trinity College Dublin) in 1946 and 1948.
• Llongyfarchiadau to Oxford University's Welsh-language society, which is celebrating its 140th anniversary next month. The 'Dafydd' was founded in 1886 and admitted women from 1966. The celebration will take place in Jesus College, traditionally the Welsh college in Oxford.
• The National Conversation: An Oxford University initiative launched this week to record “how people across the UK feel about the future of the country”. Dubbed the National Conversation, it aims to capture large-scale public data on social cohesion and community life. Lead investigator Melinda Mills said: “There is an urgent need to understand how people across the UK are experiencing social change. Much of the current debate relies on assumptions, fragmented polling, or political rhetoric. Understanding the dynamics is essential to prevent further division.” As well as an online survey, the initiative will include community-organised ‘Group Conversations’ and AI/digital tools. Researchers at Oxford Population Health intend that it will become a long-term social barometer to track community cohesion over time.
• Turner Prize-winning artist Keith Tyson, whose works involve probability and orbital mechanics, has announced he is to part fund Oxford’s 400 year old astronomy professorship (£), the Savilian Professorship, with a £250,000 donation over five years. Previous holders of the Savilian professorships in astronomy and geometry include Christopher Wren, Edmond Halley, and Thomas Hornsby – who started the long-standing weather records at the Radcliffe Observatory. Tyson is now based in Oxfordshire, where he lives with his wife Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
• Members of the public are invited to learn about mental health research at the Warneford Hospital. The psychiatric hospital, which is planning a major redevelopment, is hosting an open day on Wednesday, International Clinical Trials Day.
• The head of Stonewall will speak at Oriel College next month on The Future of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Simon Blake will chair a panel of business leaders as part of a lecture series in sex and gender identities endowed by alumnus David N. Lyon.
• And finally – were you glued to Eurovision at the weekend? We were tempted to live-post it, but failed to find the Oxford connection until after the voting started. In their spare time, Oxford data scientists have been crunching Eurovision results from past years. Enjoy…

Ozymandias update

The return of our occasional section on Magdalen's most photogenic fur-fellow to brighten your week. This week, in no way exclusively, we can report that Ozzy ate a bumble bee (first image) but seems to have recovered enough to disrupt work at the college, and grace this very fine window with his presence. If you're new here, this giant floofball was once a tiny enormokitten.

Notes from Clarion HQ

Has silly season – or as they call it in Scandinavia, ‘cucumber news season’ – come early this year? We are bemused by the froth around Oxfordshire County Council’s leader Cllr Liz Leffman stepping down. The Clarion appears to have been the only outlet to note the fairly pertinent detail that Cllr Leffman is 77, meaning that if she stood again for election next year, she would still be a councillor at 82. So a fairly routine retirement, you would think, but not if you read some of the excitable commentary elsewhere. Traditionally the role of the press has been to weigh up what’s important rather than just regurgitating politicians’ every utterance, but we guess it fills pages…

We hit 5,000 followers on our Bluesky channel yesterday. Admittedly, thanks to some US-based ‘authentic local media’ lists several of them are in places like Minnesota, and no doubt confused by our hashtags (parts of Florida should indeed #BeMoreBanbury), but we'll take it. We're not far off that on newsletter subscribers, which makes us proud that enough of you care about local news to read us twice a week… even if it is faintly terrifying hitting the ‘Publish’ button each time. All of which is to say: thank you for being here, thank you for sharing and thank you for keeping the tips coming. You make it what it is. See you Friday.