The ugly consequences of the right’s culture war

Students of Magdalen College voted to remove a picture of the Queen from the postgraduate common room, to the outrage of the tabloids. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/REX/Shutterstock

Congratulations to Aditya Chakrabortty for providing a judicious account of the ludicrous “portraitgate” scandal that so enraged the rightwing press last summer (Hate mail and death threats: how the right wrecked one man’s life for its culture war, 12 May). It’s easy to forget how deranged that period was. Having to negotiate an obstacle course of journalists on Magdalen Bridge, for example. They were courting students like me, presumably desperate for some nugget of juicy portrait-based gossip – I’ve heard that undergraduates were providing contradictory quotes to competing reporters as a two-fingered salute to the whole enterprise.

In any case, the press’s unforgivable treatment of the then Magdalen College MCR president, Matthew Katzman, deserves further scrutiny. A slightly more substantial figure than the article makes out (strategy board games and bins are just two of a wide variety of interests, I’m sure), his enforced exile is a loss to the college, and to Britain generally.
Dominic McGinley
Magdalen College, Oxford