The meaning of woke

School chief urges headteachers to challenge anyone who criticises young people for ‘wokeness’

Defaced Churchill statue
A defaced statue of former prime minister Winston Churchill in Parliament Square during an anti-racism protest
(Image credit: Isabel Infantes/AFP/Getty Images)

“Oxford students cancel our Queen!” screamed the Daily Express splash this morning following a vote at Magdalen College to remove a portrait of Her Majesty from a common room.

First reported by right-wing news site Guido Fawkes, the graduate students agreed to take down the print of a 1952 photograph of Elizabeth II on the grounds that “depictions of the monarch and the British monarchy represent recent colonial history”. The decision was made by members of Magdalen College’s Middle Common Room (MCR), of whom ten voted in favour of removing the portrait, two against and five abstained, according to the BBC.

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