Public Debates

Every Tuesday at 7pm in LN/002 we hold a Public Debate to which anyone is welcome to come along.

Motions vary week-to-week, depending upon what’s in the news or whatever has caught our attention that week: we aim to provide a variety of thought-provoking – and hopefully entertaining – debates, with topics ranging from international relations, to moral questions, to on-campus student politics.

The format of the debate is slightly different to the usual competitive style, with fewer speakers and a lot more audience participation. We have two speakers on each side, and a Chair – keeping order and also expanding the discussion between speeches. Following a preliminary vote on the motion, each speaker has 5 minutes to make their speech, with the middle three minutes ‘unprotected time’ where the opposing team can stand up and make a point against them. Once all four debaters have spoken, we open the debate up to the floor with a Question and Answer session directed at the speakers; each side then has 3 minutes to make a closing speech to try to finally convince the audience, before taking a closing vote.