I got back from the tournament late last night. We managed to turn up late after a confusion over the trains but after that, rather inauspicious, start it went well. The motions were (approximately):
1. This house would make securing an offer of a job a precondition to being released from jail.
2. This house would compensate women for a portion of their lost earnings to encourage childbirth.
3. This house would legalise beastiality.
4. This house would invite Israel to NATO.
Semi-final. This house would create a watchlist of countries from which no immigration would be allowed.
Final. This house would remove the ban on secondary picketing.
There were quite a few instances of the general thrust getting a little missed but I'm still pleased we managed to get some new ideas out there. The second motion was based on the Estonian plan for reversing the demographic decline and the motion for the semi-final was based on my thoughts on the EU and immigration. I tend to find that when I'm setting motions this blog's ideas find their way in as it is such a reflection of the topics interesting me.
The final was superb with all the teams really managing to get their teeth into the motion. The unions constitute an issue which doesn't crop up a lot in university debating so it was nice to see the teams get stuck into it. The winners (a Cambridge team) very much deserved their win with an argument centred around the necessarily political implications of secondary striking.
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5 comments:
I feel duty bound to point out that the final motion, THW allow 2ndary picketing, was my idea :)
Glad it made for a good debate.
Good set of motions; nice to see some innovative topics and wordings. I particularly like the Israel one, it would get right up the nose of lefty debaters.
I've debated in / judged a few bestiality motions in my time in debates; in general they were great fun to take part in, but not really very amusing or interesting to watch. Did the weekend's Rd.3 debates buck that trend?
Re-reading it, I'm even more glad to see that a prop team won.
xD.
Dave is right... he did come up with secondary picketing. I'm not sure what you're talking about in your second post though Dave... the final was won by an opposition team.
The beastiality motion was fun. I agree that the funny sexual motions tend to go a little boring at times (we had an LSE Open final on BDSM once and it was boring). This one went quite well though.
That you've debated this a fair bit before and worry about lefty debaters suggests you went to a Northern university. I was talking to a former Leeds debater about this motion before we set it and he said it was done a lot up North. Down South we don't debate beastiality much and debating is probably the most right wing student activity. Am I right?
it was done a lot up North
Well, we talked about it a lot, anyway. My university was a lot further north than Leeds, though; try Glasgow.
Debating is probably the most right wing student activity in most parts of the country, not just down South, but it's all relative. Certainly that's true of Glasgow, where the GUU was almost certainly the most right-wing corner of campus at a time when being Tory in Scotland was about as popular as cancer.
Not that things have changed much on that score...
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