St Mary’s Hosts Regional Final of Debating Matters

Six schools gathered at St Mary’s University, Twickenham on the 1^st May to debate with one another on some hot topics in the South of England regional final of the Institute of Ideas Debating Matters Competition. The students debated four topics through the day to decide who would be regional champions. The topics discussed included whether compulsory voting in elections should be introduced, the future of the UK’s drug policy, censorship of artistic expression, and legalising physician assisted suicide. The students faced tough panels of judges, which included Programme Director for Tourism at St Mary’s Peter Smith, Journalist at the Independent and Channel 4 Kunal Ditta, and Rabbi at Maidenhead Synagogue Dr Jonathan Romain, amongst others. The six schools that competed were Chenderit School, Banbury; Esher College; St Mary’s School, Gerrards Cross; Worthing College; The Piggott School, Reading; and the Godolphin School, Salisbury. Godolphin School ended the day as victors and will compete at the National Final held at the British Library at the end of June. Debating Matters Partnership Manager Jason Smith said, “It was a real privilege for us to be able to hold this Regional Final at St Mary’s, as the debaters were taken out of their comfort zone by tackling these topics in such a prestigious venue. The quality of debaters from the South of England this year was again exceptionally high.”