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Claustrophobic colleges breed discontent. (Credit:Tom Stoddart/Getty Images)
Oxford colleges are suffocating places, stuffed to the gunnels with competitive and perfectionistic types, precocious in some ways and very immature in others. Everybody knows everybody else, adolescent hysteria and gossip can travel fast, and an atmosphere dominated by a few loud personalities can feel extremely claustrophobic. In this respect, smaller colleges are probably the worst.
I learnt this lesson the hard way. Early on during my time at Oxford, after an alcohol-fuelled encounter during Freshers Week, I descended gingerly into the quad the next morning. On a noticeboard at the college entrance where people would usually read official missives about exams or prizes, some third year had stuck up a bit of A4 gloatingly informing fellow students, tutors, and passing tourists of my liaison. Beneath such a weirdly personal prank, darker emotions were presumably lurking, but 19-year-old me was incapable of analysis, conscious only of burning shame.
I remembered this feeling reading about the death of the 20-year-old Oxford student Alexander Rogers, who killed himself within a week of being shamed by university friends. According to the coroner, he too had become the subject of rumours after a post-pub tryst. While no formal allegation was registered, the woman involved told mutuals afterwards that it had left her feeling “uncomfortable”. An ex-boyfriend of hers was then involved in a physical confrontation with Rogers, while others told him he had “messed up” and they would be distancing themselves accordingly. Shortly afterwards, the third-year material sciences student wrote a goodbye note describing an “unintentional but unforgiveable” act.
It’s usually an oversimplification to assume a suicide is caused by a single precipitating event. Still, the coroner in this case at least seemed to think that the social punishment exacted immediately beforehand played a substantial role. He cited an independent review commissioned by Corpus Christi — the college attended by Rogers — describing a “normalised” culture in which “students could rush to judgment without knowledge of all the facts, could shun those accused, and a ‘pile-on’ might occur where a group would form a negative view about another individual”. According to the report, “this culture was not limited to Oxford University — it is an issue for the higher education sector as a whole.”
When I was an undergraduate, it was the Nineties, and the balance of social power was still mostly in males’ favour, especially if they came from public schools. The kings of the castle were the “rugger buggers”: braying beer monsters who would get their kit off in the bar or race naked around the quad at a moment’s notice — only apparently to impress each other — and who tended to treat members of the opposite sex like confusing and slightly distasteful alien species. There was lots of open mockery and cruel nicknames for certain collectively designated stooges. Those who didn’t positively join in tended to watch with the flat indifference of late youth, strategically incurious about whatever the victims must be feeling inside.
And then there was the Junior Common Room (JCR) meeting every Sunday, to which most Freshers in my day would dutifully troop. A venerable college tradition had it that each week a comic speech would be given by a second year — almost always male — roasting flamboyant college characters old and new in the crudest of terms, and detailing any intrigue that had taken place over the past seven days. There were only a handful of women in my intake, and female vocal tics, surnames, fashion choices, and doomed attempts to find boyfriends were the butt of many jokes. I would laugh as hard as anyone there and ignore the mortified faces beside me, glad that this time it wasn’t me.
I won’t be sparing a thought for the “friends” of Alexander who shamed and denounced him. They weren’t his friends. They aren’t the victims.
His torturers are clever adults with agency. Soon they will glide through Oxbridge and ascend into government. Unrepetent and now self-identifying as “victims” of his death, these hysterical witchfinders will join the thousands of recent graduate witchfinders who are already turning the country – the civil service, schools, hospitals, and even industry – into the campuses they poisoned.
This is the beginning of our Inquisition. This is the start of our Cultural Revolution. There is no limit on the madness and destruction caused by those motivated by both virtue and ideology. And our young ideologues feel particularly virtuous.
“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because it’s excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.”
Adam Smith.
The Oxford Mail report the following :
He added (Mr Graham, the coroner): “I did not find on the balance of probabilities that this culture specifically caused or contributed to Alexander’s death, but it did give rise to a concern that circumstances creating a risk of future deaths could occur.”
It is very unusual for their to be a single reason for suicide. From what I can see, no-one here was present at the inquest including Kathleen Stock, so any conclusions about the reasons for this absolute tragedy are purely specualtive.
Hazing, bullying and social exclusion has been a part of University life for ever. Young people in a new and possibly frightening environment (for some of them) will almost automatically join a tribe to feel more comfortable. Tribal behaviour will follow, regardless.
I am 65. Is this generational? I neither experienced nor did I witness any hazing, bullying or social exclusion at a red brick University (’77-’83). I had known horrible bullying through comprehensive school, I suffered unpleasant hazing in the Army Cadet Force… But University was a social idyl after that, full of grown ups! I did MEET bullies at Uni, and even exchanged blows with a couple (well, they hit me, anyway.) But they were notoriously social outliers and very rarely encountered. One day, the captain of the rugby team and few of his burly ‘rugger b****r’ mates had a strong word and they simply went away. Tribes were few and far between, but one could find them and belong to them if you sought them out.
Mostly, we were individuals and ploughed our own furrow within the eclectic academic and social environment we discovered when we left childhood behind upon leaving home. Maybe there were some class issues, but it was as likely to be inverted snobbery as anything.
Was I just lucky? Perhaps. If so, then it seems I should be thankful that I was born in my own time. I have seen changes coming. Few have been welcome.
No, that was my experience too. Mind you, I didn’t go to university just for the social life. I was really interested in the subject I was studying and my friends tended to be the same.
I’m slightly more optimistic. If the developments of the last fortnight in the USA are anything to judge by, the tables could be turned quite abruptly, and it could soon be the antisemitic racist misogynist child-mutilating woke scum who find themselves on the receiving end of cancellation and ostracism.
In this country? And who is going to bring that about? Certainly not Badenoch or Farage, they just don’t have the strength of appeal that Trump has.
Alexander’s ‘friends’ were in fact the conscious agents of his demise. I doubt if any of them suffer from remorse.
Maoist denunciators spring to mind.
One of the most compelling reasons for celebrating Trump’s victory is his promise to take power over education away from the totalitarian bureaucracy that has fostered this climate in schools and universities and return it to parents and genuine teachers.
Agree, the tide is turning.
It’s difficult for me to assess the attitudes in US private universities, but there is promise of change as well as many other well respected university options.
For me the key point KS makes in this piece is, “had powerful adults not sanctioned it.”
However, it’s not just teachers, lecturers and admin, it is the law, the 2010 Equality Act with it’s “protected characteristics” legislation which includes every single identity in the UK except heterosexual white men. Literally, by definition, this not only discriminates against them, but it puts the onus on them to behave impeccably, or else.
Along with the Special Obligations legislation, this law is at least partly responsible for the soft totalitarian and puritanical age we find ourselves in. When it is combined with social media with it’s potential to whip up mobs in a flash it can become u g l y very quickly.
Poor lad. Poor all of them really, I just hope this cultural mess that has been created by “powerful adults” is rectified soon. Unfortunately, history shows that in liberal democracies such as ours it is much easier to make laws than unmake them. While this law is in place we need to bring up our sons and daughters to be aware of it’s ramifications and resilient with their peers.
The Equalities Act, broadly speaking, prohibits discrimination based on a set of classes of characteristics. All of these classes will have multiple expressions in individuals and discrimination on the basis of ANY expression is prohibited. The way that the inquisitors have come to power is by bullying rhetoric that misrepresents the law. They have snuck in their own victimhood hierarchy and convinced many individuals and institutions that the law states that only certain expressions of these characteristics are protected. There was no real need for this act and it was always going to become a cranks’ charter.
From the EQIA2010:
Sex: In relation to the protected characteristic of sex—
(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a man or to a woman;
(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same sex.
So you see, it’s not just for women. If you’re feeling left out as a heterosexual white man, the 2010 law is not to blame. ‘Man’ includes you. Ditto for who’s included in ‘Race’.
“the 2010 Equality Act with it’s “protected characteristics” legislation which includes every single identity in the UK except heterosexual white men.”
And Fox Hunters. They came for the Fox Hunters first.
Well, those people are clearly subhuman. What did Oscar Wilde say about them?
Brings to mind an interesting article in the Observer by Kenan Malik last weekend, looking at the new book by American writer Musa al-Gharbi: We Have Never Been Woke.
I haven’t read the book but the gist of it is that al-Gharbi accuses white liberal elites – such as Ivy League university activists – of cosplaying at social justice. This involves adopting the language and styles of progressive identity politics, but only as means of accumulating social capital and entrenching their own position and interests. These “symbolic capitalists”, as al-Gharbi terms them, have little or no regard for actually changing the material inequalities of American society, only in out-competing their rivals within the elites by pretending to be the good guys.
And this is unfortunately what has been created. Progressive witch-hunts and cry-bullying have become a vehicle for accruing social capital, so people do it.
That sounds like a good book to read.
I can’t help but feel that this is another tragic example that demonstrates how the whole mess that is identity politics, critical race theory, binary politics etc. is fundamentally at odds with evolution and human nature.
Can kids and young adults be cruel? You bet your sweet bippy they can. However, this cruelty is a small part, or perhaps even a byproduct, of a social mechanism that’s evolved over thousands of years that enables human being to function socially.
This social mechanism revolves around group cohesion, status competition, and in-group/out-group dynamics. Evolution has shaped humans to seek belonging within a tribe, as isolation historically meant a higher risk of death. Within these tribes, individuals jockey for social standing and influence, sometimes through altruism and cooperation, but often through subtle forms of exclusion or dominance. This includes teasing, bullying, or enforcing group norms through social pressure.
While these behaviours can be cruel or harmful when taken to extremes, they serve an evolutionary function: they establish and maintain social hierarchies, signal who is a reliable member of the group, and teach individuals where they stand in the pecking order. Importantly, these interactions also help develop resilience, conflict resolution skills, and the ability to navigate complex social environments.
Identity politics, critical race theory, and binary political thinking, however, often frame these behaviours in binary moral terms, ignoring or rejecting their evolutionary underpinnings. They tend to view all social hierarchies and in-group dynamics as inherently oppressive, assuming that humans can and should live in a state of perfect equality and harmony. This ideal is at odds with human nature, which evolved in conditions where competition and differentiation were necessary for survival and group success.
By attempting to eliminate all forms of social tension or competition, these ideologies risk dismantling the very mechanisms that help individuals adapt and thrive in social contexts. They create environments where people are shielded from natural social feedback, leading to fragility rather than resilience. Moreover, by encouraging individuals to see themselves primarily as members of rigid identity categories, these frameworks exacerbate in-group/out-group dynamics, ironically intensifying the very divisions they aim to dismantle.
In short, while the impulse to reduce suffering and promote fairness is noble, these modern ideologies often misunderstand the evolutionary roots of human behaviour, leading to solutions and overcorrection that are ultimately counterproductive. Rather than attempting to rewrite human nature, a more effective approach would be to channel these evolved tendencies in ways that promote cohesion, understanding, and mutual growth.
I agree with much of what you say, but humans do not evolve consciously, that is we do not choose a development, eg, resilience, then consciously evolve ourselves towards it.
Perhaps there is a bit of a crossover in your analysis, “a more effective approach would be to channel these evolved tendencies . . . “, between evolution and progressivism, which I don’t think exists.
In which case what we are seeing is like any other cult or ideology that has happened before in human history, a reaction to events and conditions that will continue to change. We humans will continue to evolve despite them as we always have.
I wonder if you’re conflating contemporary sensibilities with hard-wired, “natural” instincts.
We can never really know what culture and society were like for ancient and prehistoric people. In terms of competition versus cooperation, or adherence to hierarchal standards we’re just lost in the tall grass. History, being written by the winners, only ever gives us one side.
And archaeology doesn’t help much since the fabulous tombs and rich grave goods we find all belonged to the “leadership” while there is literally nothing left of the vast majority of individuals.
I’m guessing this repeat of your reply to Steve Jobs is a mistake, please correct me if I’m wrong.
Yes. Mistake. Sorry.
I couldn’t get the Damned Machine do do my bidding. Not for the first time.
No problem, we’ve all been there.
I wonder if you’re conflating contemporary sensibilities with hard-wired, “natural” instincts.
We can never really know what culture and society were like for ancient and prehistoric people. In terms of group cohesion, status competition and in group/out group dynamics” we’re just lost in the tall grass. History, being written by the winners, only ever gives us one side.
And archaeology doesn’t help much since the fabulous tombs and rich grave goods we find all belonged to the “leadership” while there is literally no evidence left of the vast majority of individuals.
“[Identity politics] tends to view all social hierarchies and in-group dynamics as inherently oppressive”
Er, except its own of course.
That’s what makes identity politics so damned infuriating — the refusal to believe the reflection in the mirror.
So evolution isn’t necessarily a force for moral good?
Who would have thought it?
Perhaps our kids would have better prospects for the future if we thought more about philosophy and (dare I say it?), theology rather than fixating on science.
‘ … the young friends of his who believed they were doing the right thing in confronting him.’ Confront him about what and was the accusation true?
If Rogers had been accused of rape, then these friends would have been correct to confront him and say that they could not be friends with a rapist. At the same time, the friends should have encouraged the accuser to report the alleged crime to the police, assuming the police weren’t too busy investigating non-crimes.
Of course the alleged action could have been more minor and the students’ reaction out of proportion. The accusation could have been false, with the accuser being the one responsible for Rogers’ death. We don’t know.
What does seem clear is that, despite having numerous officers looking after students’ welfare, there was no one to whom a suicidal student could go to. There is also the attitude of students who feel that they have the right to be judge and jury. They will be ruling over us in 30 years time.
Stock seems oblivious to an apparent truth – men are in the wrong, women are helpless victims, and culpability, including criminal responsibility, is entirely determined by a woman’s feelings about a sexual encounter, consensual or otherwise.
Perceptions are as good as reality, it seems, and if someone’s guilt is predetermined by their identities – which in the case of heterosexual men, guilt generally is – then there’s no need to bother with details like facts, evidence, or reason.
We already know who the guilty parties are, regardless of their actions. This is the beauty of progressive leftism – anything that fits their narratives is automatically so; anything that can exculpate a member of an out group is false, and is misinformation at odds with the zeitgeist.
Is th is how fewer than 2% of alleged rapists are found guilty?
I’d like to know where that number came from.
Curious how with this atheistic woke mindset, you still have to start with an assumption of deep moral taint, with vigilant repression thereof, and atonement. I thought humorless Calvinism was bad, but this is infinitely worse, lacking a God, or even the promised reward of heaven in the hereafter. Or, sadly, forgiveness.
Thank you by the way for the perfect description of MeToo.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with atheism. Religious hierarchies have themselves provided the blueprint for the kind of unthinking uber-moralistic condemnations prevalent in woke culture – two birds of the same feather, and under the same delusion of “goodness”.
The misdiagnosis, however, doesn’t surprise me in the least.
Agree completely. Atheists and theists alike can partake in this behaviour.
Besides, one need only look at the denominations of Christianity, let alone religions as a whole, to see how in group/out group ostracism occurs.
Whenever ideology transitions to dogma, whether religious or secular, these are the kinds of results we get. And often, it is the tip of the iceberg.
It also lacks singing
I find it difficult to have much sympathy for his ’friends’.
I have none.
the woman involved told mutuals afterwards that it had left her feeling “uncomfortable”.
In other words, the woman experienced regret, which is NOT rape, no matter how desperately some there and here in America try equating the two. Ms. Stock is right about one thing – this condition was adult-caused and adult-created, one in a growing litany of examples of how alleged grownups have failed the young people in their charge.
The sad part is that this will get worse. These coddled morons will graduate. They will enter the worlds of business, govt, and academia, where they will perpetuate this strain of cultural Maoism with others in their cohort who also think this is normal.
I also question her motivation. She reported her feeling to a group including an ex-boyfriend. Perhaps she used Alexander Rogers to try to re-ignite an old relationship. That is despcable and she should be feeling shame, if so.
What I find difficult to understand is why the young woman involved spoke about it to Alex’s male friends. I find this rather bizarre and slightly ominous.
“While public sympathy is rightly with Alexander and his family, please do spare a thought for the young friends of his who believed they were doing the right thing in confronting him.”
Absolutely not. They deserve to suffer and the shame should follow them for the rest of their lives
They are most likely at least 18, adults, and supposedly some of the brighter members of that category, having gone through an adequate education.
The first thing they did wrong was act before they thought: they didn’t consult someone with any experience, or one of those university supplied entitled group officers. It highlights just how dysfunctional the Education System has become, if the problem is so widespread. And it sounds that those that are not directly affected still have to negotiate around it.
How could anyone believe they were doing the right thing? Maybe they’ve never failed: four A*’s, and school debating society champion, but never had to survive, failing an exam, being dropped from team, or were able to just ignore such setbacks.
Who would want to send your own offspring there?
In 30 years time they might be running the country. What a prospect.
The saving grace is that in thirty years’ time they will either have learned better or they will have come a moral cropper somewhere and ruined their careers.
Remember when sticks and stones and names had a reverse hierarchy? Then, though, before the polar shift, integrity meant something, and self reliance was more important than social identity. Shaming is not necessarily a bad thing, anything can be employed as a hammer. The shamers ought to be ashamed. Devils.
‘We raised them that way.’
Speak for yourself.
This tragedy highlights a confluence of two trends: casual sex & a failed/distorted view of feminism. The latter has failed to glorify the traits of women and, instead, told women that they can be men; in so doing, it vilifies genuine masculinity.
This silly girl has learned the hard way that casual sex is not fireworks and roses. She should sue Germaine Greer.
Dr. Stock once again demonstrates her range. Last week, she provided one of the more incisive, hilarious closing lines of all times. This week, she shows compassion we all do well to strive for.
Thank you, Kathleen, for being so excellently human.
Much of the left gleefully delights in tormenting people, based on little more than their skin color, gender, or religion. They always have.
This is a direct result of a worldview moreso Marxist, than Manichean – a dialectic of slave against free, serf against noble, proletariat against bourgoise, “in a word, oppressed against oppressor.”
The haute bourgoise and aristocrats attending Oxford, or L’Sorbonne, or the Ivy Leagues simply swap out their own social class for males, heterosexuals, Christians, Jews, etc.
This allows them to be the “allies” of a benighted, substitute proletariat – blacks, homosexuals, Muslims, women, gays, etc.
Of course this all ends in horrible suffering for innocent people. Simply look at Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, or Cambodia under the Khymer Rouge. Or Nazi Germany, for that matter – a similarly militant, totalitarian, and collectivist society.
Milder firms of socialism and milder forms of identitarianism only result in milder forms of suffering and destruction. The occasional suicide, the sometimes destruction of a career, the moderately depressed economies of France, or Great Britain, or California. The middle class vaporizes, class divisions grow stark, and certain groups are only somewhat confined to pariah status.
This is the outcome of most leftism – the elimination of most personal freedoms, the erasure of working middle classes, and an ultimate end to liberal democracy, which requires a real middle class, and a real free market.
For all of their vaunted learning and keen intellects, leftist elites somehow refuse to acknowledge these obvious facts. They can draw no lessons from history, not can they apply logic to their own ideologies.
A hearbreaking story, beautifully and sensitively handled.
There’s a BAME officer, an LGBTQ+ Officer, a “Womxn’s Officer”, and two “Class Officers… for anyone who identifies with class issues”.
But no officer for any student entertaining suicidal thoughts.
But that’s what Ministers of Religion are for. The College Chaplain.
This article did make me wonder when mass hysteria becomes a form of psychopathy.
Here’s a thought. What if we looked at the subejct base of all of the students associated with all of this dreadful business? Maybe this might give us another angle on it.
I’m out over my skis here, but I’ll bet you won’t find science, math or engineering represented.
I also suspect there’s a deeper cultural misalignment behind some of these incidents.
I notice that the young man was a materials science student. I was also a science major and, unless things are radically different now, most science students rarely interacted with humanities students to any significant degree, and the humanities seem to be where most of the current cultural excesses originate.
In my day, a significant number of science students conformed to the stereotype of socially awkward, perhaps even on the Asperger’s spectrum. It’s extremely easy for such people to unintentionally fail to read social cues or understand the prevailing mores.
The science types were also often under academic stress that didn’t seem to affect their humanities peers so much. The subject matter was difficult, there were frequent assessments (often weekly in the form of “problem sheets”) and, for many, there were labs that had to be completed and written up. Many students discovered, to their dismay, that while they may have been among the cleverest people in high school, they were now working hard to be average.
Add to that the current obsession with all the “isms” and DEI, and it’s incredibly easy for some of these students to overstep the invisible social lines.
I feel deeply sorry for this young man. I wish Unherd would publish an article by a legal expert explaining whether there’s any possible redress against the university/college for fostering these destructive social conditions.
“How can you blame us? We supplied all those ‘resource officers.’ “
Class Officers… for anyone who identifies with class issues
How does someone identify with class issues?
Identity is the central tenet of left-wing ideology these days.
I’ve noticed with British people that they can take delight in being collectively vicious if they feel they are acting in defence of a righteous cause.
I’ve never liked the idea of charging people with ‘joint enterprise’ as accessories to a violent crime, but perhaps the persecutors of this boy could be charged with something of that nature. It might make other people think twice about acting out self-righteous cruelty.
I will not excuse Alexander’s friends or the girl who said she was “uncomfortable.” (Whet the hell does that even mean?) I hope Alexander haunts them for the rest of their lives.
What is the name of the “uncomfortable girl”. The names of accusers need to be public. No more anonymous accusations!!
I agree to some degree with your second point.
But all we know about the girl is that something happened – and we have no idea what that was – that made her feel uncomfortable. She could just have made one truthful and innocuous remark for all we know. She may not be the architect of a suicide that some are making her out to be.
I don’t know the full details of exactly what tge lady in question actually daid but did she actually accuse him of anything or did she simply state that she felt uncomfortable about a, possibly alcohol driven, one night stand one night stand and the whole rumour mill and pile on, as it so often does, followed on regardless.? A bit like we seem to see here in regards to her.
The thing is,he couldn’t just ignore them all and be a Lone Wolf,a Clint Eastwood outsider because any future career he wanted to follow he would find himself in association with one or more of the New Puritans. No man is an Island and if he wanted to pursue a career and why would you be at Oxford if you didn’t then these dreadful people would have an influence all his life. The real criminal in this is that stupid girl.
Absolutely. The lie that “there are no false rape or assault charges” is belied by every insane story like this one.
We seem to have enough data points to discourage glib generalisation. My experience of Oxford in the seventies has left behind roseate memories of a relative lull between the Roaring Twenties of Decline and Fall and the claustrophobic atmosphere to which Kathleen Stock was subjected in the nineties. I think I can honestly report that the Bullingdon still existed in my day, but had yet to undergo the resurgence that led to Boris Johnson. Shaming was not a thing. Tempora mutantur. I think what we see in the ostracism at Corpus is a manifestation of the Zeitgeist (as the coroner remarks), rather than of Oxford per se, or even of a small-college effect within Oxford.
The problem of Inquisition as a desirable attribute begins “at the top.”
Dad and Mom.
Elementary, Middle, and High School teachers and administrators.
College and University “professors” and administrators.
School Board. City Council. Legislators. Jurists.
All of you contributed to building the contemporary zeitgeist.
You.
Not to be overlooked, you who became their lemmings and quizzlings, who gulped the Kool Aid, who manifested their moral failings, you did this.
You.
#YouToo
Whether it’s the 90s version or today’s, it’s a sad reflection on the U.K. that this is how the future elite of the country spend their formative years. No wonder we’re in a mess.
Gunwales, not gunnels.
Many years ago i remember reading about the denunciation rallies and struggle sessions of the Maoist cultural revolution and how they often led to torture and even death of the poor souls singled out for denunciation as class traitors. I thanked my lucky stars that I was born in a place where that could never happen- such was my naïvety back then. It appears that what is routinely now taking place in universities is but a few short steps away if this evil is allowed to continue unchecked for much longer.
Why do you think that rapists deserve to be protected?
This situation has been decades in the constructing. I was born in the mid 1950s thus I grew up with the constant cultural promotion of the Sexual Revolution. The promise was that sexual shame and stigma would be no more. A wide range of sexual activity would be open mindedly accepted and as everyone was having an exciting sex life,no one would be taking a prurient interest in other peoples. And Germaine Greer was one of the most vocal and vociferous leaders of the campaign to remove an Age of Consent so that children who do have sexual curiosity could indulge in sexual activity without incurring shame and stigma . That was the logic,or how they put it. So from the 1970s and into the early 2000s the doors got kicked open. More and more previously illegal activity or if not illegal then dubious activity got made legal. All would be joy and calm peace in future. Now everyone could express their self in the way best for them. And people started doing just that. And got arrested in droves. I’m thinking of the first wave,all those celebs. A lot had to endure long,expensive court cases to get acquitted. Some died in prison. I do not believe Rolf Harris was guilty. THEY have a malicious sense of humor. Mr Harris had an affair with his daughters friend but after she was 18,thats not good,but it was when she tried to blackmail him for money to prop up HER HUSBANDS failing business and he refused that she went to the police like the common dirty scrubber she must be. Now after the first round of destroying by sexual shaming they turned on celebs who had taken on board the im not doing anything illegal idea. Paul Gambaccini was able to fight his corner. Philip Schofield as he at first plaintively stated had not done anything ILLEGAL. The law had been changed to allow same sex activity from the age of 18 so that young men of that desire would not have to endure the torture of not being able to express themselves (the reason we were told). As for Hue Edwards,that is not the man who 10 years before had critiisced the “of it bleeds,it leads” news agenda. Drugs? Mind Control? His toad faced wife is horrible so… So after years of sexually liberating society and removing stigma we live in a highly judgemental society that wants to burn anyone at the stake who they want to “other”. The young woman here is the villain of the piece. She is a victim of the “it’s no big deal” cultural idea I’ve described above . In fact I think this was the cause of her discomfort. She had sex with this young man and it was NO BIG DEAL. That’s not what every popular song,movie,etc tells you. She felt ashamed of herself because she found out that sex with no personal intimacy well no money was involved but it’s an act of prostitution,it’s fornication. Would have been more honest if she had demanded he pay her. I hope she is bowed down with guilt at having murdered someone. THEY created a huge TRAP into which many went attracted by the sweeties. Some got out again. Many did not including me.
Now sexual shame and stigma is being used at industrial strength to destroy people. If you stand against The Agenda they’ll use it against you.
Spiteful people tend to be spoilt and insecure; their minds and bodies have not been tempered by adversity and their mettle tested. Hence a few years of undertaking tough and responsible work before going up to university produced more mature undergraduates.
A friend who spent two years shaft sinking in the NCB, where in a twenty man team he was the only one not injured, produced a tough cheerful young gentleman. Plus on top he was a superb rugby player and boxer.
The woman who made the accusation needs to be outed. The name of the accused is known. Why should the accuser be allowed to hide behind anonymity?
Name the accuser. Don’t let her off the hook.
Let her off the hook?
She was sexually assaulted. Why are you attacking her?
Why? And how does anyone who wasnt there know she made an accusation? Rumours, innuendo and gossip are not truth or fact. Tbe coroner heard the evidence and made a judgment. Why do we need to know more, except if we want to be the “village gossips” and so part of the problem!
Comment deleted as I thought the original had been removed.
Should’ve left it – this is all that’s here for me.
It disappeared and then reappeared again. Comments all over the shop on here once more.
This is nothing new
No, they deserve no thought at all. They are supposed to be intelligent and able to think for themselves.
If they think hounding a young man to his death, then they are taking their moral stance from the crucible and that is unacceptable.
I don’t care what they were taught. If they have absorbed this rot like a sponge without question, maybe their upbringing should be questioned
If it was my daughter I would be extremely ashamed and angry with her for what she and her ex had started.
You always have a choice between ok and not ok , nice and nasty, evil and good.
If these bunnies don’t know the difference, why are we helping them to be educated for the top jobs in the country?
They should all be sent down but they won’t be.
They’re probably all in counselling to deal with the trauma the selfish act of the young man they mentally tortured has caused them.
‘We’ didnt raise them. i had nothing to do with it. and as for ‘they have to live with it’ i doubt overprivileged narcissists will give two hoots; now or in 20 years.
Kathleen Stock lurches further and further to the right to satisfy her new paymasters. She’s now defending rapists and blaming people who choose to no longer be friends with the rapist for the decisions they then make.
Is this a Trump thing I wonder? Is it part of the ritual humiliation of being a Trump cultist that you have to defend all sexual assaulters and make frenzied attacks their victims? Fits with all the other bilge that worshipping a fat criminal moron requires…
For every rapist in a university, there are 10 unfairly accused men who had drunken sex with drunken women. Drunken sex is not rape.
It’s amazing. When you do actually say something you look even more ridiculous than you do with your lazy insults.
Why do you support rapists?