Watching Young, Bright, and on the Right, a BBC2 documentary about two rightwing Oxbridge students, was like being mugged on Memory Lane. The familiar locations and places were all there – even the student newspaper I wrote for got a mention – but the participants were a lot more unpleasant than I remember. That’s not to say that the Oxford University Conservative Association we saw in the documentary was a trick of the cameras; it was horribly, horribly real, but, like Arsenal’s 8-2 defeat to Manchester United, I’d largely repressed the whole thing.
As a largely ineffectual deputy chair of the Oxford University Labour Club, and a fundamentally lazy writer for the student paper, the Oxford University Conservative Association were pretty handy to have around: they were so offensive to Labour Club members that I didn’t seem so bad, and the fact that they could be relied upon to do something racist or misogynistic every single term meant that you were never short of an easy joke to enliven the end of an otherwise inconclusive paragraph.
But, in my more serious moments, I could see that the awfulness of the Oxford Conservatives was a big problem. It meant that there was no place for ordinary, decent rightwing types – I’m reliably informed they do exist – to hang out and talk politics, other than in their colleges, which must have been incredibly boring for their friends. Watching the programme, it seemed to me that Cambridge’s Chris Monk – an inoffensive type that every student organisation, from the Algebra Club to the Warhammer Society, seems to attract – would have no natural home at Oxford. Ambitious Conservatives had two options: either steer clear of the whole thing, or lie back and think of England.
Joe Cooke – the real star of the programme – chose the latter option. He was one of a long number of Oxford Tories – some of them were filmed advising Joe on tactics over tea and scones, I kid you not – who wanted to reform the Oxford University Conservative Association. But this approach never worked, because the problem with fighting from inside the belly of the beast is that eventually you end up digested, and the beast endures. Joe neatly symbolised the problem: to become president, he changed his clothes, his accent, became the very model of a traditional Conservative; but the organisation refused to change. Over the course of the programme, we saw him struggling with the realities of that failure, and with his own denial of his background, of the mother who’d raised him on her own, the loss of his original accent, eventually culminating in an emotional breakdown.
At the close of the film, Joe resigned from the Oxford University Conservative Association, becoming the first president of the society to do so, and attacked the organisation for its bigotry and scandal-ridden past. It was an act of rare and surprising bravery, and, should this documentary surface again in a decade or so’s time, it should be a source of pride, not embarrassment, for its subject.
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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
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Recognise “the problem with fighting from inside the belly of the beast is that eventually you end up digested, and the beast endures.”
Sadly it’s within my LABOUR CLP run by a closed shop.
The beast only endures because the party refuses to listen!
I refuse to be digested but all it equates to is not campaigning for the party.
Perhaps in your case still, its an odd comment on the Progress website – Militant, Clause 4? – ring any bells?
Cooke was not the model of a traditional Conservative but a caricature. His background was obviously very tough, but that doesn’t excuse his actions, and the extreme and potentially illegal activities he engaged in. He wasn’t trying to reform OUCA, he could have done so as President. He had every right (and the constitutional power) to abolish P&P in his term, but if you read his termcard, you’ll see he wanted to keep the port flowing. As for the scandal, if wanted to deal with it, why not go through the OUCA Disciplinary Committee, the University Proctors, or the Central Party. This is article is probably biased because you went to the same college as his best mate.
Biased how? I also went to the same college as his “best mate” (I think I know who you mean) but this person was rusticated for most of the 3-year period his strictly-speaking contemporaries were at Balliol; he was a minimal presence with no real ties within college. Consequently, I think it’s probably fair to say, people at Balliol had no special sympathy or disdain for Cooke, even if one or two could perhaps summon up the odd memory or two of the would-be OUCA President embarassing himself at a ball or something.
“because the problem with fighting from inside the belly of the beast is that eventually you end up digested, and the beast endures.”
That really is a corker of a quote. Nice one.
He started of scheming and backstabbing within OUCA, then went on to scheme and backstab outside it. His plans for the organisation may have differed from the others but at no point did he deviate from pure self interest. He knew what the organisation was like, then attacked it after he left to make himself look clean – there was no bravery. He came across better towards the end, but was still trying to piss on the people he considered his friends and allies. Being a backstabber may help in politics, but being seen to be a backstabber is not.
I’m struggling to watch this: I can’t decide whether I want to believe Oxbridge is like this, albeit, I am a graduate of the same age and yet I’m astounded at how utterly un-grounded they are. These men may be intelligent and brilliant in their field, however they are extremely petty and seem completely unaware of the world. Regardless of the politics, I feel the caricatures are so childish and aloof that I can’t take them at all seriously!
Oh my.