The month of January was consumed by A2 modules, getting adjusted back to school and towards the end, another debate. Davin and I were presented with the motion "This house would welcome being governed from the playing fields of Eton" and were positioned in the opposition. Here is a near final draft of what I had wanted to say in my first speech:

Ladies, gentlemen, esteemed adjudicator, members of the proposition and of the audience. Mr Clarke and I vehemently oppose the prospect of being governed from the playing fields of Eton. We, the opposition, understand the motion to be focusing on the prospect of a Conservative election victory come May and evaluate the term 'govern' as the overseeing of this prospective government of continued devolution in Northern Ireland. With this, the values propounded by Mr. Cameron and his entourage of Cameroons is up for scrutiny. Indeed the feeling of desire towards such a prospect reeks of a politically parasitic Anglophilia which we, the opposition, wholly detach ourselves from. I will begin by addressing the issues of our current predicament, the economy, and a possible unwelcome return of sectarian politics. Davin will build on this by dissecting what we are allowed to know of Conservative policy and tell you what these actually mean when the rhetoric is decoded. With this we will show you why neither we, nor you, should welcome being governed from the playing fields of Eton.

Ladies and gentlemen, Davin and I do not want to appear politically apologetic for the Labour government, but too often is it the case that the opinion of the people is formed purely from the recent negative come election time. We are all so disilusioned that the positives are shaded over and forgotton. But it is important to give credence, when it is due, to where Labour have succeeded. Such as the lowering of crime levels by a third, the drastically improving education system, more students than oever, the disability discrimination act, devolution here in Northern Ireland, civil partnerships, record levels of child benefit, the minimum wage, the first ever climate change act, to name but a few from a Gordon Brown speech in '09. Our disillusionment overshadows these major steps. The Labour government though, it cannot be denied, have faced the global economic crash, the expenses scandal, the fumblingly poor handling of Gulf warfare, and a debatably sluggish response to green issues. We hear this in every speech from Dave Cameron, they are in fact, his main electoral push. What we don't hear though, is whether there was Tory disapproval of Labour's laissez faire economic approach during boom years. What we don't hear though, is of the continued support of the Conservatives for Gulf warfare. What we don't hear though, is that the party of Green scepticism, is the Conservative party. My point being ladies and gentlemen, is that we don't hear solutions, only criticisms. Because of this, the Conservatives appear both empty of oppositional ideas and organisationally hollow. David Cameron's youth, intelligence, Etonian plausibility, and career drivin politics seem starkly devoid of political or personal substance for which to even justify the possiblity of an electoral victory.

Focusing on the economy, it is oft debated that Labour have driven us and the world into a bleak and dark economic dystopia, wherein they secretly plot to drive us deeper into it through evil public spending. With that in mind you would assume that the Conservatives have a consistent and coherent ecomic policy, lauded by economists of all stripes as the saviour of the free market. This is simply not true. Davin will speak in detail about more intricate economic plausibilities under the Cameroons but the key point being made is that the deficit needs to be cut, and cut soon, whether or not the 0.1%GDP growth really is enough to dignify the stagnation of public funding, in order to reduce this deficit. David Cameron does not care, it seems, that this model is firmly rejected by most if not all major world economies and in fact China, who did the polar opposite and pumped continuous funds into the economy, came out of their recession quickest and strongest. They are now arguably the world's strongest economy alongside the USA. On this important question of consistency, I will describe a brief Tory timeline. In 2005, when George Osborne first become Shadow Chancellor, he endorsed flat taxes, which was dropped because even it was too right wing a policy. At a conference in '06, the Tories said there was simply no scope for tax cuts, and Mr. Cameron endorsed Labour's new spending plans. At the very next conference, tax cuts became the Tory defining policy, and Cameron denounced these same spending plans. Last summer the Tories tonally implied swingeing public spending cuts, but only last week Cameron squirmishly said that 'only a start' could be made to said cuts during year one of an Etonite parliament. The only pattern here ladies and gentlemen, is the distinct lack of one. If this sycophantic Toryism is what it means to be governed from the playing fields of Eton, it is no basis by which to agree with the motion in question.

On the issue of sectarian politics, how can the proposition stand on this podium and glibly indicate, with the sort of atrabilious and arrogant reciprocal self-righteousness which sadly is commonplace for their assumed position, that our newest Eton-bred embodiment, Dave, could produce progress? The truth lies starkly anti-thetical to this claim. Having already made an electoral alliance with the UUP, the Conservatives have shacked up with the DUP. Cameron has not denied accusations of wanting to create a pan-unionist front if the event of a hung parliament requires it. This is obviously, unless your political naivity is matched only by your refusal of political objectivity, a move of power grabbing pragmatism, rooted in the detached pathological competitiveness of his Eton days. We, the opposition, deem this as a possible external imposition of sectarian partisan politics, which we do not have time for, unlike the proposition.

Ladies and gentlemen, we can't go on like this. We can't go on making a scapegoat out of our current government who have, since 1997, brought us here in the North of Ireland as close as we have been to political independance than would have seemed plausible only a generation ago. We can't go on placing sole blame for our economic woes on a government whose opposition raised no qualms themselves. Most of all though, we can't go on looking to David Cameron as a plausible solution. We may be very sorry come May if the proposition get what they propose. Ladies and gentlemen, vote against this motion, this house would not welcome being governed from the playing fields of Eton.

Davin and I won the debate and somehow have now advanced to the quarter finals of the competition.