Hello everybody, welcome back. Sorry for the delay, there was no internet access at Durham, so here’s a brief account of what you missed. Do read, there’s some very exciting things further down…
Despite an inspiring and impassioned pair of speeches from our Strathclyde friends, the Newcastle final was won by BPP, Jack Watson and Harish, and I’ll give a golden star sticker to anyone who says they were honestly surprised by that result. There was a very enjoyable social in an 80’s style club, but the St Andrews contingent (after leading the sally onto the dance floor) were disciplined enough to retire relatively early for a good night’s crash before getting up bright and early to get the train to Durham. There we met up with the bunch of our companions who hadn’t managed to make it to Newcastle, giving us a very respectable five teams:
St Andrews Famine – Alex Don and Ruairidh Macintosh
St Andrews Pestilence – Michael Heubeck and Kurt Jose
St Andrews War – Lukasz Krohl and Anton Orzel
St Andrews Death – Farhan Samanani and Salman Tariq
St Andrews Greek Bailout – Ben Adams and John Harper
Ruth Cunningham, Alasdair Clarkson and Penny Sadeghi were our talented and stylish judges.
The motions we were up against are as follows:
This house believes the police should not create perp walks.
This house would teach boys those aspects of subjects which are thought to be most interesting to them, such as military history.
This house would require all newspapers to be constituted as cooperatives, owned and run by journalists.
Insofar as it is cost effective, this house believes that authorities should routinely gather and access as much information, including private and personal information, that may conceivably be useful in solving or preventing crime, as possible.
This house would punish NHS workers who do not blow the whistle on malpractice, corruption or negligence, of which they know, as if they had carried out the act themselves.
The main tab can be found here – https://docs.google.com/a/st-andrews.ac.uk/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Avt5qtIO_XzOdGF6X2xJWTI4dEpoekI5dnhlenhJd0E#gid=0
As you’ll notice, St Andrews Famine made it through to the Novice break – indeed made it through in second place. More on that in a moment as it’s jolly exciting, but the main break first. Friends of ours who made it through were Strathclyde (again – they’re on great form at the moment) and Edinburgh A who were in first and second Opp respectively in a tough break room with BPP and a talent Oxford team on the motion: “This house would not prosecute people living below the poverty line for purely acquisitive crime.” Unfortunately neither made it through though, making the line-up for the final:
1Prop – Oxford SM – Hamaad Mustafa and Mahrunissa Sajad
1 Opp – ULU A – Jordan Anderson and Oscar Avery
2 Prop – BPP – Jack Watson and Andrew Tuffin
2 Opp – Nottingham Colonised – Tom Jackson and Nick Derrington
The motion was “This house believes that the media should not use the phrase ‘big society’ uncritically.” It was an excellent debate to watch, particularly life-long Labour supporter Oscar standing up and defending the Big Society as the greatest piece of political thinking this side of the war and Jordan Anderson declaring the state illegitimate and over-bearing except when putting up bunting. The high point however was Jack Watson’s extension – Ruairidh and I traded looks of slack jawed amazement in between promises that we would finally get round to reading all those Economists we keep buying. A cockily brilliant summation followed and BPP clearly took the win, in perhaps the shortest judging call I’ve ever seen at an IV final – they must have got instant unanimity on the first round of voting. As the chair judge said when he returned the call; “all teams were discussed. Some of them in relation to who won…”
Anyway, the novice final! Our lads were in first Prop (to make their achievement even more awesome, they went the entire competition without drawing second Opp) with Edinburgh C in second Prop and an all-Cambridge Opp bench on the motion, “This house believes it is illegitimate for governments to prevent any peaceful protest in public space.” Alex and Ruairidh both spoke like seasoned pros, calmly and systematically delivering nuanced, solid and comprehensive analysis, striking the perfect balance between the number of points and the depth of analysis. Neither looked in the least flustered at any point despite the robust atmosphere in the chamber, their style was cool, understated confidence. The first Opp team were nearly their equals however, and coming out of the top-half it would have been hard to be certain of the call. The Opp summation looked flustered though, and when he started floundering half-way through his speech, he took four, yes four, POIs from our lads. They used them well, getting in at least a minute of material attacking the strong Opp extension and emphasising the key claims from their speeches that hadn’t been rebutted, and that clinched them the victory. They did us all proud, with freshers like this I think I’ll just give up now and become a career judge, spending my twilight years shepherding the all-conquering, world-crushing team super-fresher around the circuit and blogging their successes. Maybe if I’m really nice to them they’ll let me carry their bags…
Anyway, more fun to come, as I type we’ve got two teams down at the Oxford IV who may be blogging shortly. If not, don’t forget to come back for the main annual Novice’s comp, Bogwall, on the 19th, this year hosted right here in St Andrews.
Big love ‘till then,
Ben Adams
Also worth noting St Andrews Bailout were in the break room with Edinburgh A and Oxford SM, taking a third from 2nd Opp.