Steerpike

On Wednesday it was revealed that 150 Oxford academics are boycotting Oriel College and refusing to teach its students in protest at its decision to keep the Cecil Rhodes statue. Steerpike has been sent a copy of the letter – which sets out the academics' collective view that 'Oriel College's decision not to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes undermines us all' – and a full list of the co-signatories, republished here for the first time. Reading through, Mr S was struck by the number of proud imperialists who gave their names to posts currently held by the anti-Rhodes protesters.

Jeremy Corbyn has spent the past few weeks going on something of a road trip of British universities. Now sitting as an independent for Islington North, Corbyn spoke at the Oxford Union last month where he was asked if he had any regrets about his time as Labour leader to which he replied: 'Regrets? I’m really with Frank Sinatra on regrets actually – I’ve got a few but too few to mention.'  Sangfroid that will be of little comfort to the 46 MPs who lost their seats 18 months ago... Today it was Cambridge who played host to Corbyn for an hour.

Tomorrow Gordon Brown is set to release his latest messianic tome. Grandly titled Seven Ways to Change the World: How to Fix the Most Pressing Issues We Face – presumably from some of the problems he first caused – it is set to be released exactly one week after his successor Ed Miliband published a rival guide: Go Big: How to Fix our World . Mr S wonders whether actually winning an election could be the answer to any of these questions? Other Labour books out include the ironically titled The Dignity of Labour by Jon Cruddas and Jess Phillips’s Everything You Really Need to Know About Politics – a surprising title for a candidate who had to withdraw last year from the Labour leadership race after 18 days owing to a lack of support.

The end of lockdown and the dawn of summer has seen Westminster's finest emerge once more in their best cricket whites. On Sunday two lobby teams turned out at Bromley common ground to see Harry Cole's Chatty Bats face off against Brendan Carlin's Cincinnati cricket club. The latter eventually triumphed by 48 runs and now have the honour of facing off against the best talent banded together from the Lords and the Commons as part of an all-star parliamentary XI. Ahead of the crunch tie, peers and MPs themselves took to the field in a warm up game against Marylebone cricket club as part of the dozen or so fixtures the side play a year.

Tories up and down the country should be celebrating tonight after it was revealed that walking CCHQ advert Zarah Sultana has kept her seat intact in the report by the Boundary Commission. The hard left MP has served as a Conservative recruiting agent since 2019 when the 27-year-old squeaked home in Coventry South by just 401 votes – down from some 7,947 her Labour predecessor Jim Cunningham managed just two years earlier. And this afternoon Sultana gave us some indication as to why she hemorrhaged votes to such an extent at the last election. Popping up today at Home Office oral questions, Sultana asked Priti Patel about detention conditions for asylum seekers at Napier barracks.

As culture secretary, Matt Hancock developed a taste for technology, even launching his own eponymous social network in February 2018. But now as health secretary it appears his appetite for big data has grown ever greater. Not content with launching the NHS Covid app as part of a £22 billion test and trace scheme, his latest wheeze is to partner up with the UK's most popular dating devices including Tinder, Bumble and Hinge to boost vaccine uptake. A gushing departmental press release proudly details how, from Monday, these apps will provide 'bonuses, stickers and profile badges' for vaccinated users.

In a sign that nature is truly healing, this afternoon brought reassuring news of a great parliamentary tradition reasserting itself: the House of Lords hereditary by-election. These contests are held every time one of the 92 hereditary peers still in the Upper House die and see the great and the not-so-good vote among themselves to elect one of their number for a seat on the red benches. Elections have been suspended due to Covid since March 2020 but now they are back, with four spots up for grabs: one as a crossbench peer and three on the Tory side. Mr S has spent the afternoon combing through the manifestos to bring you the best and the worst of the election statements put out by the lucky lords and ladies hoping to make it into the Upper House.