Cambridge Wins Mass Debating Competition

Huzzah! Cambridge reach the climax of the European Debating Championships and come out on top.

Anser Aftab Ashish Kumar Cambridge Debating emma European Universities Debating Championship King's College Kitty Parker-Brooks Lee Jia Wei Old Trafford Pembroke Trinity College Dublin

Last week – as most students continued to make the most of a well-earned rest from coursework and/or sold their souls to some of the UK’s more prestigious accountancy and law firms – two Cambridge students won the European Universities Debating Championship, beating off competition from over 200 teams arriving from all over Europe.

Ashish Kumar, from Pembroke, and Anser Aftab, of Emma, reached the climax of the competition on Friday after pounding teams from Trinity College Dublin and King’s College London in the quarter finals. The two finalists pulled pole position, flogging another Cambridge team, comprised of Kitty Parker Brooks and Lee Jia Wei, in the semi-finals after offering ejaculations on the motion ‘This House Regrets the Demonisation of Islamic Extremists as Terrorists by the Western Media, Rather than Portraying them as Criminals with Legitimate Political Grievances’.

In the final they faced off against Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin and Oxford, going back and forth with the motion: ‘This House Would Grant More Votes to Citizens Based on Their Score on a Current Affairs Test’. Most sportsman like, the two are understood to have offered their opponents a hand for a job well done.

The competition, this year held in Manchester, brought together 216 teams from over 100 institutions and 46 countries, with over 28,000 minutes of speeches and 500 debates. The venue for the quarter and semi-finals, held in Old Trafford stadium, proved controversial as one Oxford debater tossed out normal debating decorum, donning a Liverpool shirt during his speech on United’s hallowed turf.

Their rise to the top, described by one onlooker as a “white knuckle ride”, is only the second time Cambridge has spanked the competition, with the Other Place having strongarmed their way to the top on 7 previous occasions.

The Tab wishes to offer both Ashish and Anser our congratulations.  Should you wish to speak to either of them, we have been instructed that the two winners can be found in their rooms, polishing their very large cup.