Today was the regional final of the Debating Matters competition, which I have written about before. I was pulled in to join a team that was rapidly disintegrating due to a history exam taking out a third of it, and babysitting removing one of the initial replacements. The day opened in high spirits, Owen and myself taking on the task of defending, from the opposition bench, the BBC’s continued public funding. I wasn’t too happy with my opening three minute speech; for me the short speeches followed by collecting questions at once to be answered from judges, the other team and the audience isn’t ideal as I prefer the sustained oratory of the Mace. But we got stuck in to the debate and succesfully took it. The big issue though from the judge’s feedback was the way that they wanted us to give specific examples and give some detailed research. Other judges in this and other competitions have told us entirely the opposite! We always aim to look at the bigger picture, get to the heart of the matter (there are only actually about six debates around), and be ideological about things as motions are generally ideological affairs. But this competition seems to be more focussed on responding to the current and historical context of the motion rather than taking a philosophical, abstract, theoretical standpoint as we are proudly used to doing.

In the second debate our way of working really became obvious in the sense that it differed from the competition’s expectations. The motion was that ‘happiness should be a key goal of government policy’ and our side proposed this using the concept of eudaimonia, which we thought was a strong case that could provide a good debate. However, the judges attacked the lack of specific policies intended to bring about happiness - surely the motion was not about this! We tried to debate the motion, it seemed we were meant to be politicians. This meant that despite a poor case from the opposition we lost that round. However, due to the extremely complicated streaming system this still put us through to the final and the debaters for the second debate, Tom M-W and Andrew, went forward to oppose the motion that ‘excessive bureaucracy is keeping drugs from patients who need them’. The proposition read a prepared speech and kept repeating themselves, and Tom and Andrew managed to take it by providing and arguing with specific examples, and keeping to a team line. Thus we are through to the London final, with the intention of bringing along the whole squad of competative debaters for a valuable experience. MP3 players all round was another part of our victory (plus subscriptions to Britannica, brrr).

The issue with the focus of this competition was a problem for us, even if the format wasn’t. In fact, the format really did favour the intellectually very strong but less debating-experienced Tom, where the questioning suited his highly destructive style perfectly. For me, the speeches are too short and there is no chance to build up much of a case. But the competition’s focus on research was a problem for most of us. At the end of the first debate the chair told me (nicely!) that he thought I had given three minutes of virtually no actual material and that my speech had been a bit of a waste of time, in a sense. It may not have been perfect, but I believe I clearly laid out the case that the BBC’s quality and diversity could not remain if it were not publicly funded. Giving examples of programs and naming examples of controversies is not part of what debating should be about.

Whatever my criticisms of the competition, it is a great initiative for spreading debating to those who are less interested in oratory and rhetoric, so I really do salute the organisers (I signed up for the possible volunteers database for regional rounds). On to London, and to the battle there.