Oxford TS (Andrew Seow and Teck Wei Tan) won the Newcastle IV 2017 from Closing Opposition on the motion “This house supports the increasing secularisation of the world”. The Newcastle IV 2017 took place on 25th and 26th November 2017. In the Open Final Oxford TS debated against St Andrews Sausage Bean and Cheese Melt (Ruth Batten and Duncan Bowyer) in Opening Government, Manchester was out of team spots (Jacklin Kwan and Rudolfs Treilis) in Opening Opposition and Sheffield SS (Areeb Sherwani and Leon Stone) in Closing Opposition. The panel came to an unanimous decision.

The final was judged by Chris Paschali, Sam Manchester, James Atkinson and the Chief Adjudicators Rory Flynn and Roel Becker. The three-head Chief Adjudication team also included Tim Squirrell.

The Pro/Am-Final was won by Who (Eric Sargent and Sangdo Lee) from Opening Opposition on the motion “This house prefers a world without alcohol”. The CA-Team strongly rejected all assertions that this motion arose from happenings at the foregoing social.

The 10 best speakers after the preliminary rounds were:

1. Teck Wei Tan                  (84.5)
2. Andrew Seow                 (82.5)
3. Jacklin Kwan                  (80.5)
4. Duncan Bowyer             (79.5)
5. Ruth Batten                    (79.3)
5. Rudolfs Treilis            (79.3)
7. Zannah Muir                (78.8)
8. Eric Sargent                    (78.5)
9. Areeb Sherwani              (78.3)
10. Noémie Gauthier      (78.0)

The 5 best ESL speakers after the preliminary rounds were:

1. Rudolfs Treilis                (79.3)
2. Areeb Sherwani              (78.3)
3. Noémie Gauthier           (78.0)
4. Sebastian Su                 (77.8)
5. René Geci                       (77.3)

Open Break:

1. Oxford TS (Andrew Seow and Teck Wei Tan) – 12 points
2. Manchester was out of team spots (Jacklin Kwan and Rudolfs Treilis) – 9 points
3. St Andrews Sausage Bean and Cheese Melt (Ruth Batten and Duncan Bowyer) – 9 points
4. GUU B (Zannah Muir and Sofia Simola) – 9 points
5. Sheffield SS (Areeb Sherwani and Leon Stone) – 9 points
6. GUU A (Noémie Gauthier and Julie Nyerges) – 8 points (and 620 speaker points)
6. Leeds A (Sebastian Su and René Geci) – 8 points (and 620 speaker points)
8. Jamie and Cary (Jamie Johnson and Cary Godsal) – 7 points

Judge break:

R1: This house welcomes the increasing automation of labour.

R2: This house supports the use of extra-legal and illegal methods to provide wider access to knowledge (e.g. sci-hub, hacking Jstor, unauthorised distribution of files and copies)

R3: This house, as a progressive individual, would not consume the works of artists who have committed or been accused of serious crimes.

R4: This house prefers a higher education system with a large variation in education quality over one in which there is a low variation in education quality.

Info slide: Some nations have far more variety in the quality of their higher education system than others. Nations like the United Kingdom and the United States have a high variety in quality: some universities confer degrees considered among the best in the world, whilst many others are of significantly lower quality. On the other hand, countries like the Netherlands and Australia have very few to no excellent degrees, but the education at all universities is of a good quality.

SF: This house believes the state should lace our water supply with a chemical that homogenises people’s intelligence to the intelligence level of an average university graduate.

Pro/Am-final: This house prefers a world without alcohol.

F: This house supports the increasing secularisation in the world.

rg./lok.