Skip to main content

Debating Club - Election Special

Went to a debate yesterday at the Tea House Debating club. Due to the recent political atmosphere in the UK, they decided to have an election debate special. All of the speakers were members of the club and as the tradition, were given the party that they might not agree with. I totally agree with the format and that way of doing things, debating is healthy and should be encouraged in any modern society as it enables people to see things from another perspective and empathise with alternative views.

Image result for election 2019 uk

However, the Liberal Democrats, Labour, Green, Brexit, Conservative, and "No Party" i.e. "None of the above", were all represented. They were given 3 minutes to tell us why we should vote for them and another 3 minutes criticising the other parties. After which, there was a vote and two of the six parties were eliminated. During the debate, 2 things became obviously clear or apparent. That the speakers who were able to engage the audience and charismatic, whatever their policy did get a lot of the votes. And some parties were "one-trick ponies". Like the Brexit Party and the Greens, they did not have the experience in government, neither do they have long term sustainable policies to deal with running a successful government in power. Especially in these turbulent and precarious times, which would require politicking and experience. They are more of a protest party and are there to note people's opinions about the main political parties and the mess they seem to have got the all the country into over Brexit.

The people who performed the least were voted out after 6 minutes the Conservatives speaker and the person who represented "No party" opinion. The person who spoke for the conservatives lack enthusiasm and appeared to be out of his depth. It later turned out that he did not give it his best performance and believed that he could only become a Conservative "when Hell freezes over" due to their policies. The "No Party" speaker's brief was to speak for those who felt fed up with it all and did not believe in any current party and wanted a new one formed. At the end of the second run, the Liberal Party and the Greens were let off. Both parties wanted a second referendum and they gave the impression that the people who voted for Brexit were not fully informed or did not understand the implications of their actions. This did come across as paternalistic and condescending. But they did have a point, which was put across by the Liberal Democrat speaker, most of those who voted for Brexit were of the older generation, and a substantial number would have passed on, also the younger generation who are overwhelmingly remainers will have come of age, and it is believed that people are now fully well of the full problems with Brexit and it is not as easy as Boris and others said it would be. The change in population dynamics and the problems associated with Brexit, will according to them be more than the 2% margin, that the Brexiteers won by.

Although Labour eventually won, because the person was able to convince the audience that they did have the interest of the populace at heart. They had an alternative to the current mess we are currently in. They promised to go ahead with Brexit if the people wanted so, and they will further negotiate with Europe. Personally, I did not agree with the speaker and thought that Labour policies are more of the same and the leader belongs to Old Labour and might mess up the economy and growth by taxing businesses and mismanaging the economy as they have done in the past. Before New Labour which is more business conscious. However, it was an excellent debate and well presented.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The seedling of doubt - Merchants of Doubt

Doubt is the product What this book says, and the film elucidates is there is a selective specific group of "scientists" who have a particular playbook to discredit, confuse and "muddy the waters" against scientific research for their sponsors. What these group of people or interest groups have learned from the days of dealing with the tobacco industry, is that they need not concern themselves with trying to prove anything or to disprove the scientists. All they need is to seed doubt and confusion in the market of public opinion, their main motto is "Doubt is our product". As, when people are confused and the policies are difficult to interpret because they are complicated, ambiguous, inconclusive, etc then there will be great difficulty in organizing widespread opposition to it. They deliberately frustrate governments into inaction, blocking them by using their lobbyist and "experts" and hence stop all ways of finding effective solutions...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Machines are here

  I do not want to be seen as a prophet of doom. Nor do I see myself as a modern-day Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah or Daniel who constantly warned Israel about their behaviour, their worshipping of other false gods, and trying to be like other surrounding tribes until they were conquered by Assyria, Babylon, or Rome. But the issue of AI is evident to me, and I must see it in the face, as I am working in that area. I use it regularly to do my work, and it makes my job more effective and easier. A simple example, I had a meeting with my boss recently, and we talked about technical and other topics. An AI was taking minutes of our more than one-hour-long meeting. In the minutes, the key points we discussed were neatly laid out, including the main points and actions to be taken. The non-work-related stuff was summarised as "discussed weekend plans and shared updates about families, while also discussing the similar nature of political parties and their tendency not to fulfil their promises...
Post a Comment
Read more

Further explaination of the universe

  Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author, has always tried to explain complex astrophysical phenomena in simple language that everyone can understand. The subtitle of this book is "a further explanation of a science classic made more accessible". To his surprise, his book A Brief History of Time was a bestseller and was on the top ten list for 237 weeks and sold one copy for every 750 people on Earth. The book was a remarkable success for a modern physics book. Many people were asking for a sequel to the book. A Brief History of Time explained how Newtonian Astrophysics described the laws that control planets and stars' movement. This book takes into consideration the most recent theoretical and observational results. How light speed is finite and constant at 299,792,458 m/s. Since the speed of light is constant, to explain the different observations for different observers, time must be relative. Producing the twin paradox, i.e., time slows d...
Post a Comment
Read more