Violet Tries: a Cambridge Union Debating Competition

In this weeks ‘Violet Tries’ columnist Oona Lagercrantz tries a virtual debating competition, with varying degrees of success.

Oona Lagercrantz

"I can't even image what it must've been like to watch 37 beginner debaters"Shutterstock

I recently took part in a Cambridge Union competition, as one of 37 beginner debaters, divided into 19 teams and thrown into breakout rooms on Zoom to fight to the debate-death in front of judges for 8 hours. Here’s how it went:

Preparing for the fight

From 12 years of schooling in Sweden, I can recall countless group discussions (including on important topics such as ‘what is the meaning of life’ and ‘what do you do if a bear attacks you’) but only 2 debates - and they were definitely not ‘British parliamentary style’. So, to prepare for the competition, I read the Union’s ‘Introductory Guide to Debating’ and tried to learn some of the key terms: BP, DP, LO, JLO, POI, BOI, CO, OO, CG, MOG, OG, DOG, BOG, COG, NAT, WAP, WHIP etc... I then watched a few “Chaos in the Commons” videos to get in the mood and perfect my posh-angry-white-British-man accent.

9 am- Logging in to fight

The day was off to a bad start: soon after joining the Zoom, I found out that the team name my freshly allocated debating partner and I agreed on had been dismembered: instead of ‘Debating is a social construct change my mind’ (yes, it was a little long), we were now the somewhat shorter ‘Debating is a social construct cha-’ team. Was this a joke to them? I didn’t have time to be outraged for very long however, before all debaters were instructed to change their Zoom names to their respective breakout room- a challenge that was clearly not a feature of the Cambridge Admissions process. After a good 20 minutes, a few people seemed to have succeeded at last...

10 am- The fight begins

Finally in the breakout room, my teammate and I were supposed to defend a ban on unpaid internships and, as Closing Government, we had to come up with a unique angle. I suggested arguing that unpaid internships were the road to serfdom. He said that didn’t make any sense. I agreed. When it was my time to speak I copied the others, keeping my camera off, which fortunately allowed me to read straight from my page of pre-written notes; unfortunately, my writing was unintelligible and I also forgot how to speak English. My debate-mate tried to fix the situation with some complicated words, and we ended up in third place, beating team ‘Still Stumped’ (who are probably still stumped!) Afterwards, debate-mate asked me what country I was from, cementing my failed British accent.

“I tried to channel my inner Boris, successfully contradicting myself over 10 times in under 5 minutes.”

12 pm-The fight continues

Allocated to a new breakout room, debate-mate and I argued that ‘Political opinion polls in the run-up to elections should be banned’, this time in the role of Opening Government- starring myself as Prime Minister. I tried to channel my inner Boris, successfully contradicting myself over 10 times in under 5 minutes. The other teams did rather badly, or at least, their internet did: one speaker disappeared completely, upon which the rest of us moved on, only to be informed that she “was still speaking” (everyone collectively ignored this message). In the end, we won the debate (!!!) and I started thinking that maybe this debating thing wasn’t that bad after all!

2 pm- The fight ends

It could only go downhill from here, and it did. First the motion ‘This house opposes the societal narrative that forgiveness is a virtue’ was thrown upon us (I’m sorry -what?). As Closing Opposition my debate-mate and I, but mostly my debate-mate, identified 3 arguments for why forgiveness is good and, when the debate started, I even switched on my camera- after all, I had made my bed (visible behind me) specially for this occasion. But my confidence was quickly crushed when the Opening Opposition team had the audacity to steal all 3 arguments, leaving nothing left for me to say. I vowed to never forgive them (forgiveness is clearly overrated) and before I began my (non-existent) speech, I concluded that BP debating is that bad, in fact, it is worse, it’s an abomination, a sin, a cruel form of punishment, a-

Our team rather unsurprisingly ended up last.

4 pm- The final


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Unsurprisingly, ‘Debating is a social construct cha’ didn’t make it to the final, but I still stuck around to watch the finalists use 1000+ fancy words per minute, whilst I felt bad about my lack of debating skills. But then I remembered that it’s all just a social construct and felt good again (yes I do study HSPS- why?)

6 pm. The End

Finally done with the debating, I revelled in the thought that I will never ever be any sort of politician as I retreated to the safety of my favourite social media bubble- far from the land of reasoning and rebuttals- to catch up on the latest correct opinions. Apparently Hobnobs have been cancelled and Jaffa Cakes are now the new flapjacks.

On that final note…

I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to watch 37 beginner debaters fight it out for 8 hours- without being allowed to roast their performance or throw in a punch of your own- so props to all the debate judges involved!