Contrary to the saying “The devil takes the hindmost” John Engle and Declan Meehan from Trinity College Dublin won the final debate of the SSE Riga IV 2010. John and Declan only made it to the bottomof the speakers’ tab because their flight was late to arrive in the Latvian capital which is why they missed the first two prelims on Friday. But the chief adjudicators were indulgent enough to let them have the chance of one extra round after lunch on Saturday. A team from London who had missed a prelim, too, was also allowed in.

Tricky: It was the DCAs Jens Fischer (currently president of the EUDC Council) and Will Jones (former Worlds and Euros winner) the Londoners and Dubliners had to compete with. Jens fought as ironman, i.e. he was the only speaker in his team. However, there’s no cure for Will. But still, the speakers from the Irish capital won all other regular prelims. Only when it came to the individual speaker points, they ranked at the bottom of the tab since they had missed one round completely.

The tournament in snowy Riga showed high standards and was comfortably organized. Most of the teams were from the Eastern parts of Europe, but some made it to Latvia from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and of course England and Ireland.

The motions of the SSE Riga IV 2010 read as follows:

• Round 1: This house would criminalize women that drink alcohol during pregnancy.
• Round 2: This house believes that developing states should make English the only language of education.
• Round 3: This house would forcibly settle the Roma.
• Round 4: This house believes that the USA should stop all support (including military) to Israel until it unilaterally withdraws from all illegal settlements in Palestine.
• Round 5: This house would introduce quotas for rich and poor children in all schools.
• Semifinals: This house believes that the state should approve all loans.
• Final: This house believes that in emergent democracies, all political rallies and mass gatherings should be banned.

The Tab is availabe online.

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