Union line-up crawling with quirky celebs

The Union will be sure to rope in plenty of unsuspecting freshers with this assemblage of eminent journos, bizarre fashionistas and that woman who was seeing that pop star that one time.

For the open period, the Union have called on the services of the star of How I Met Your Mother, Josh Radnor, to convince you to shell out the £185 on membership. You’ll probably recognize him from endless reruns of the show on E4. He’s speaking on 9 October.

Too happy

Sticking with the transatlantic theme, Britain born Jerry Springer will be gracing Cantabs with his presence on the 5 November. He rose to dizzying heights of fame with his talk show “The Jerry Springer Show”. Before that he was a political animal.

Continuing the indecorous line-up is Vivienne Westwood. Like Springer, who always presages his show with the  caution that it contains content inappropriate for children, Westwood is a fashion designer infamous for her uncouth approach, once driving a tank to David Cameron’s house in Oxfordshire to protest the use of fracking.

Vivienne has also worked on projects with Liberty, a civil liberties advocacy organisation. Which is fitting because the director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti is coming to speak on 17 November.

Quite creepy

Also interspersing art with political activism is the big name of this term’s line-up: Japan-born artist and singer Yoko Ono in coming to the union on 16th October. As John Lennon’s widow, she has done much work to preserve his legacy and in that vein has set up several exhibitions in his memory.

Quite quirky

Budding journalists will be happy with the number of high-profile media hacks who are coming to speak — Emily Maitlis, BBC newsreader, Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru Murphy and CNN’s Christiane Amanpour will all be at the union this term.

The speaker of the House and colourful public character John Bercow will be taking the chair in the Cambridge chamber on the 15th October.

Other politicians coming to speak include Paddy Ashdown, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats as well as the controversial George Galloway. In a similar vein, Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming and Palestianian ambassador Manuel Hassassain will also be giving talks at the union.

This term of speakers will close with Brian Blessed, the much loved British actor on 1st December.

The line-up for debates is also looking superb, starting Louise Mensch who will be debating whether “Oxbridge is a Finishing School for the Privileged” in the first debating event this term. Andrew Mitchell will be joined by Sir Malcolm Rifkind on the 22nd October. They’ll be debating the rise of China as a global superpower. Find out more about the debates line-up here. 

Quite sassy

Speaking exclusively to The Tab, Union President Oliver Mosley, told us he is “excited about the Termcard. Speakers are awesome, debates are awesome – and we’ve got sh*t loads of frickin’ Oysters and Prosecco at the Freshers Ball this year.”

“I’m also debating Max Mosley, alongside Katie Hopkins, at the end of term in my Presidential debate/public family therapy session. Basically – we’re excited, and you should be too (because I have a list of most of your readers’ addresses and take managing members’ reactions very seriously).”

Not a bad line-up by any means, it seems the Union will be aflood with controversial characters this term. That’s exciting and certainly an improvement on the dull Easter term speakers. The only drawback, of course, is you won’t have any time to see them—welcome to Cambridge.