Roel Becker and Floris Holstege, winners of the Delft Open 2017 – © Helena Hecke

The grand final of the first Delft Open ever was won by Leiden A(rrogant) (Floris Holstege, Roel Becker) from Opening Opposition on the Motion This house would introduce a Social Credit System in liberal democracies.

They debated agains UDS: Sharpay and Ryan (Pieter van der Veere, Angela Portocarrero – Utrecht) in Opening Government, David en Simone (Simone Landman – Trivium, David Metz – Leiden) in Closing Government and Brandeis ST (Ravi Simon, Sagie Tvizer) in Closing Opposition.

The final was chaired by Lennart van Laake, who adjudicated together with Daan Welling, Harish Natarajan, Linsey Keur and Helena Hecke.

Winner of the Pro-Am final was Bonaparte: Zeno en Lana (Zeno Glastra van Loon, Lana Moss) in Closing Opposition.

They won over Mona Lisa (Mona van der Pas, Lisa Eijgenhuijsen – Roosevelt Middelburg) in Opening Government, Almelo A: da’s pech, fiets weg (Daan Spackler – Trivium, Mike Weltevrede – Cicero) and Make the Netherlands Spain again (Myrta Hollander, Beatriz Melendez – Leiden) on the motion This house would abolish prison sentences for all juvenile offenders.

The Pro-Am final was judged by Helena Hecke in chair, who adjudicated together with Albert Santoso and Samuel Scheuer.

Floris Holstege and Roel Becker were shared best speaker with an average of 80.

Lana Moss, best Novice Speaker at the Delft Open 2017 – © Helena Hecke

Best novice speaker of the tournament was Lana Moss with an average of 75.2.

CAs of the tournament were Harish Natarajan, Bionda Merckens, Albert Santoso, Daan Welling and Olivia Sundberg Diez.

The tournament was the first tournament ever organized in Delft by the TU Delft Debating Club and it was convened by Niels Buijssen and Karan Suresh Narayan.

The Open Break

1. Leiden A(rrogant) (Floris Holstege, Roel Becker) – 14 team points
2. David en Simone (Simone Landman – Trivium, David Metz – Leiden) – 11 team points
3. UDS: Sharpay and Ryan (Pieter van der Veere, Angela Portocarrero – Utrecht) – 11 team points
4. incrowd (Marike Breed (ironpersoning) – Amsterdam) – 11 team points
5. Brandeis ST (Ravi Simon, Sagie Tvizer) – 10 team points
6. The Backup 2.0 (Pelle Keulen, Becky Mikova – Erasmus Rotterdam) – 10 team points 
7. Cicero Novice B (Jos Buijvoets – Cicero, Anastasia Grishkova – KCL) – 10 team points
8. Instant Covfefe (Petr Gongala, Tomas Sakal – Masaryk) – 9 team points

The Pro-Am Break

1. Bonaparte: Zeno en Lana (Zeno Glastra van Loon, Lana Moss) – 8 team points
2. Almelo A: da’s pech, fiets weg (Daan Spackler – Trivium, Mike Weltevrede – Cicero) – 8 team points
3. Make the Netherlands Spain again (Myrta Hollander, Beatriz Melendez – Leiden) – 7 team points
4. Mona Lisa (Mona van der Pas, Lisa Eijgenhuijsen – Roosevelt Middelburg) – 5 team points

The Judge Break

Albert Santoso, Angela Caredda, Bionda Merckens, Daan Welling, Davy Fung, Harish Natarajan, Lennart van Laake, Linsey Keur, Martin Devenney, Olivia Sundberg Diez, Samuel Scheuer

The Motions

R1: This house supports acts of civil disobedience and sabotage* aimed at combating climate change (*examples include illegal protests or vandalism of deforestation machinery).

R2:This house opposes the classification of literary works as belonging to a “literary canon”.

Info Slide: A literary canon refers to the classification of reputable works by experts as work of great literary value and societal importance.

R3: This house believes that South East Asian countries should grant China the long term right to develop and run underdeveloped land

R4: This house believes that it is legitimate for the President of the United States to put ‘America First’.

Info Slide: America First’ is broadly a foreign and international economic policy doctrine that prioritises the material interest of the United States over all others.

R5: This house would actively promote conservative academics in disproportionately liberal and left-wing dominated humanities and social sciences departments

Pro-Am and Novice Final: This house would abolish prison sentences for all juvenile offenders

Semi Final: This house believes that the West should join Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt in severing political and economic ties with Qatar.

Info Slide: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have placed sanctions on Qatar for the stated reason that Qatar financially supported extremist organisations including the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar disputes this rationale.

Final: This house would introduce a Social Credit System in liberal democracies.

Info Slide: A Social Credit System combines a wide variety of indicators to produce a rating that reflects your usefulness to society.
Indicators include, but are not limited to: propensity to give to charity, law-abidingness, holding a socially beneficial job, and civic and political engagement (e.g. voting).
The indicators are controlled for socio-economic status. For instance, a nurse who voted would likely be deemed more useful than a corporate lawyer who goes on three holidays a year and gives nothing to charity. A higher Social Credit score gets expanded access to public services such as welfare, hospitals and schools. This System would still guarantee all citizens a social safety net.