The £55m Oxford University building on the front line of a war between seagulls and mankind

Telegraph

14-04-2025

Daphne du Maurier would surely crack a smile from beyond the grave at news that the Blavatnik School of Government – the University of Oxford institution where the leaders of tomorrow are nurtured by a network that includes Rishi Sunak, Amal Clooney and Jacinda Ardern – has been brought to its knees by rogue seagulls.
Du Maurier's short story The Birds – which inspired the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name – features thousands of feathered assassins and plays on British anxieties about the government's failure to protect citizens from intruders after the calamity of the Second World War.
In a spectacular case of life imitating art, on Wednesday last week the Blavatnik School – which is housed in a shimmering glass building that reportedly cost £55 million to build and which is currently being run by Rachel Reeves 's husband, Nicholas Joicey – was ambushed from above.
While the rest of Oxford enjoyed the relative peace of the university holidays, Blavatnik – which opened its doors in 2016 – was busy as usual. The building tends to be occupied year-round, offering a refuge for students writing and researching dissertations and keen to enjoy the free coffee its cafeteria offers.
But then there came a tap, tap, tapping on the central pane of glass high above their heads. This was followed by a pause, and then more tapping, and finally a loud crack. Was it an intruder hell-bent on learning how to win a mayoral election in a mid-sized city? Or protesters getting a head start on calling out our future leaders? Or irate business owners finding any possible route to talk some sense into Reeves?
No, the tapping came from a far more ominous source: hungry seagulls.
One of the birds was filmed bouncing a large stone off the glass roof like a basketball in footage thought to have been captured just moments before the pane was shattered.
'From what we can gather, the gulls thought stones they were using to hit the glass were actually eggs and that by cracking them they might get to some yolk,' says a manager on the Oxford University building maintenance team. 'Unfortunately they weren't eggs and even more unfortunately these gulls chose the very worst pane of glass to tamper with.'
Julia Gould, a seagull expert who works at Bird Aid (a rescue and rehabilitation centre specialising in gulls), agrees with this hypothesis. '​​I would say it's natural for gulls to drop shellfish to try to break them, so this may be an extension of that behaviour,' she says. 'Gulls are also very curious and learn through play, so they could have been trying to see if the stones were food or just practising their technique. Either way, they would not be doing it to annoy people.'
Maybe not – but their egg/prawn-hunting antics surely added to what must have already been a stressful week in the Reeves-Joicey household. Joicey is currently the interim chef operating officer of Blavatnik, on secondment from the Civil Service, although perhaps the chaos provided a moment of bonding for the married couple. Because what really is the difference between Donald Trump hurling tariffs at a fragile global economy and a few freewheeling gulls hurling stones at a £55 million glass roof? At least the gulls thought they'd be getting some eggs at the end of it.
About 30 minutes after the tapping began, the Blavatnik School made the decision to evacuate. Lectures were cut short, computers were turned off and dissertations were paused mid-sentence as the future leaders of the world shuffled outside to watch their tormentors swoop and scream above them in triumph.
'The building was now open in the centre, so we had no choice but to ask everyone to leave,' says the Oxford University manager, who confirms that the pane of glass did not survive the assault. 'It was pretty urgent because it just wasn't safe.' This was, he says, the first time they have had to deal with a problem like this.
Mohammed Ahmed, who runs a newsagent's opposite the School of Government, agrees that the gulls unleashed chaos.
'On Wednesday, everyone rushed out of the building and by Saturday, there were cranes there with people working on the roof for hours,' he says. 'Normally even in the holidays there are conferences and people coming in and out at all hours, but it's been completely deserted for days now.'
If this is a battle of man versus bird, then the birds are clearly winning. Five days after the incident, the entire institute is boarded up – the doors are locked and the lights are off. One post-graduate student called Oliver, who has both studied and lectured at Blavatnik, says it is the only time he has ever known it to be closed. 'It is the sort of place that shuts on Christmas Day and that's it,' he says.
Still, perhaps this will provide a useful lesson for the politicians who have studied in the building – of which there are many. The school only opened in 2016 and already its alumni have their fingers on the levers of power: they include Marian Schreier, the youngest mayor ever elected in Germany; Labour MP Keir Mather; and ministers and MPs in Yemen and the UAE.
Tellingly, this is not the only building-related trouble Blavatnik has experienced in the past few weeks. According to Ahmed, earlier this month protesters shattered a pane of glass next to the front door. Who they were remains unclear – Ahmed heard they were pro-Palestinians, but another student suggests the protest might be to do with founder Len Blavatnik, who gave tens of millions to start the school and who was born in Odesa, Ukraine.
Palestine and Ukraine are likely to be the focus of much study by the usual occupants of the building. Yet the human protestors only managed to break a single insignificant pane of glass – allowing Blavatnik to stay open as usual. In contrast, the birds succeeded in forcing the cancellation of a long-awaited heat pump summit, hinting that they could be anti-net-zero gulls.
The lesson that every good politician must learn is that real problems often arise from the most unexpected sources – as demonstrated by the chaos caused when three gulls, determined to have eggs for breakfast, wreaked havoc on the school.