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2012

Queen's Wins Inter-University U.S Presidential Debate

5 November 13

Queen’s Students’ Union hosted and won the fourth Inter University US Presidential debate between Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster. An audience of over 150 arrived at The Space in Queen’s Students’ Union on the evening of Wednesday 24 October to watch Team QUB’s four debaters earn a well-deserved victory over their UU rivals. Both teams debated in front of a judging panel of five MLAs: the UUP leader Mike Nesbitt, DUP’s Alistair Ross, Conall McDevitt of SDLP, Jennifer McCann of Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party’s Chris Lyttle. The BBC’s William Crawley took on the role of Moderator for the event.

This debate takes places at Queen’s, in conjunction with the US Consulate in Belfast, every four years ahead of a US Presidential election. Team QUB, arguing in favour of Barack Obama retaining the US Presidency, UU argued in favour of Mitt Romney winning the US Presidency. 

Both teams debated over the candidates’ plans for the US economy as well as their respective social and foreign policies and tweets by the audience using the hashtag #POTUSNI were displayed via a projector screen. 

Andrew Carruthers, Team QUB captain stated, 'The event was marvellous - the US Consulate and Queen's Students’ Union did an excellent job organising and hosting the event. The opposition team from the University of Ulster were fantastic, defending Governor Romney to the hilt, and the questions from the well-informed (and aggressive!) audience certainly kept all the competitors on their toes. All credit to my team-mates - Julian Andrade Rocha, Sam Donaldson and Stephen Goss - for putting up an excellent argument in favour of President Obama. '

Jason O'Neill, President of Queen's University Belfast Students' Union who attended to support Team QUB said, ‘We were privileged to host such a successful event in our Students’ Union.  Both teams were excellent but I was delighted to see that Team QUB came up trumps!  I also want to congratulate Ulster Debate Team member Garreth Quigley who was named Best Candidate on the night. The debate was a great opportunity for our students to showcase their talent to all politicians and prominent figures who attended.’