‘A+ trolling’: Oxford University Law School makes Vote Leave jibe in official exam report

Thanked students for not writing answers on buses

The University of Oxford’s EU law team has been commended for its “A+ trolling” after it poked fun at the Vote Leave campaign in its 2017 examiners’ report.

Law students will likely be familiar with these reports, which are compiled to give students and staff a rundown of how the academic year went. Buried in page 28 of Oxford’s end of year run-through — alongside to-be-expected information such as the percentage of students scoring firsts and the general procedure for marking papers — was this excellent line:

“All scripts were written in the standard answer books. No one wrote on the side of a bus. We are grateful for this. Experiences suggest it is hard to tell the truth about the EU when using such a medium.”

Legal Cheek can only assume this comment is in relation to Vote Leave’s infamous £350 million bus message (pictured top), which continues to provoke controversy to this day.

The jibe featured in the Oxford report’s ‘European Union Law’ section, which then follows with a more in-depth look at the questions answered by students.

Highlights here include “’O it’s the subsidiarity question!’ thought too many students brightly, before trotting out their prepared answer” in relation to question three, and a warning that “a simple uncritical trundle through the case law isn’t enough” for high marks on question five. Legal Cheek can confirm the report’s sections on the international trade exam, the labour law exam and the personal property exam weren’t quite so animated.

Back to the bus comment, which was posted on Twitter by Katy Sheridan, a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) student at Oxford.

Suffice to say it tickled many Twitter users, attracting comments including “A+ trolling” and “superb”.