This article is satirical and should not be taken as defamatory, nor does it reflect any political stance of the Oxford Student.
The Oxford Union’s term card is here. After the last article required a disclaimer that OxYou does not reflect any political stance of the Oxford Student, judgment on it will be reserved. This report is impartial, and exclusively reveals the transcript behind their latest calendar. With the chamber bugged, and freshers in camouflage, the first few minutes of the meeting were captured. When clocked, our team were asked once to stop, before being told to leave on the second occasion. This means that only a short extract is available, but it speaks for itself.
“What ideas have we got for the term?”
“How about we have no debate in week one, but then two in week five?”
“Why would we do that?”
“For a laugh.”
“It would give us longer to find proposition speakers for week two.”
“And come up with a topic for week three.”
“Have we decided on week six yet?”
“We could do something topical. Like Star Wars day, or pride.”
“Yeah let’s talk about how it’s everywhere.”
“Star Wars?”
“Pride.”
“But who can we get to say that?”
“We could let Peter Tatchell out of the basement.”
“Didn’t we do that last year?”
“And?”
“There’s the policy that guests only come once every three years.”
“We have no week one debate, no proposition for week two, no theme for week three…”
“Point taken.”
“Let’s move on, we need about 25 guest speakers.”
“Let’s get, say, 20 men. And five women.”
“Do you think five is representative?”
“Depends who we ask.”
“Two starred in adult films, one is known for her husband and one is Kathleen Stock.”
“OBE.”
“That’s perfect. Who else should we try?”
“What about former presidents?”
“Obama’s book is like 800 pages so don’t ask him.”
“We could just get random ones.”
“We could ask one from Colombia.”
“Let’s try the former president of Estonia. From 2006.”
“Smart. Say three more countries.”
“Switzerland, South Korea and Taiwan.”
“We’ll get their ambassadors to the UK.”
“Well that’s one week sorted. Who else?”
“We could get someone from the Apprentice.”
“Lord Sugar came last year.”
“Karren?”
“She’s at the football.”
“Oh, well like get whoever came seventh in 2019.”
“Yeah, that should be fine.”
“I got a response from Derek Jacobi.”
“Who?”
“He was in Titanic.”
“Oh cool, see if he knows DiCaprio!”
“No, the 2012 series about the construction of the Titanic.”
“Oh must’ve missed that, anything else?”
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
“Oh, that’s a certified Disney classic!”
“No, the 1982 live-action version.”
“Wasn’t he the narrator of In the Night Garden?”
“Oh yeah. I used to love that show.”
“I saw we got Bugzy Malone, but I think we could get another Northerner.”
“Yeah, we already have John Bradley so one more should be enough.”
“I heard that the Mayor of the Tees Valley was on LBC’s ‘Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives’ list once.”
“A true hero.”
“You better pick us to ask him a question.”
“I was thinking that we could remove the Q&A feature.”
“What would we do instead?”
“We could reverse it and make the speaker ask people questions.”
“We could all play that game where you close your eyes and try to count to ten.”
“We could just start singing and see if the speaker joins in.”
“No let’s make them debate.”
“Their favourite people? I prefer the second idea.”
“But we could give a box of cookies to the best debater.”
“What if they don’t like dairy?”
“Give them 5% off when they spend £80 on pasta at Bella Italia.”
“That’s good.”
“Where are we with drinks? Cocktail ideas?”
“Just got one for Stormy Daniels.”
“Let me guess, Pornstar Martini?”
“imPeach Vodka Cocktail?”
“Oh, they make more sense than mine.”
“Do we need coronation drinks?”
“No, we can just reuse that old bunting, and chuck a couple of quiches at people.”
“I have the blanket Peter Tatchell was using to keep warm in the basement.”
“Ok well that’s one event sorted.”
“What others do we want?”
“We need to do something with another society.”
“Yeah that’s true, strengthen our reputation.”
“Maybe asking Conservative Society will help.”
“Yeah, and people could pretend they are politicians in parliament.”
“Is that not what this has been all along?”
“No, this is a celebration of free speech.”
“The last bastion of empathetic dialogue.”
“Oh right, I must’ve missed that part.”
Image description: The Oxford Union Building
Image credit: http://www.barkerevans.com/ – Barker Evans, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17180304
