The recent speculation and hyperbole surrounding the
vulnerability of British democracy following the ever-so
dangerous attack of a flour-filled condom found its parallel when
140 Union hacks assembled on Sunday, appropriately at the
invitation of the President, to debate why they would rather be
‘pretty than witty’. The IRA really should have been
told. “University politics are so vicious precisely because the
stakes are so small”, as some Yankee villain once said, and
student venom never can be so full of bile as a literal mass
debate in the attempt to qualify for Union election. The first to step forward is Tobi Rufus, who continues in his
vocal impression of a twelve-year-old girl by imploring the House
to “Consider David Beckham”. Indeed it is extremely
difficult to consider Mr Beckham when one is looking at Rufus,
but at least he brings a degree of coherency. Much unlike the
string of pretty young blondes who followed his massive presence
– pretty, but certainly without wit. ‘Um, yah…um, yah…um, yah…’ they
twittered away for the necessary two minutes. “Rah…rah…rah,’ shouted their old school
chums in encouragement, as if speaking for a couple of minutes
was some sort of challenge. Not that anyone was there to listen to these double-barreled
bits of fluff. Feeding time at the zoo descended into complete
farce as the anti-Rah opposition poked at legislative loopholes
to stop one presidential candidate’s friends from qualifying
in time. ‘Hoorah’ and ‘Hear, hear’, they jeered and
booed, with occasional neighing to those pashminas and up-turned
collars opposite, once assured that they could bring this
spectacle to an end. The Commons has nothing to offer this comic pandemonium as
young Tories aspirant for safe Conservative seats practice the
waving of paper and artificial heckling. Events may not have been pretty, Union hacks are far from
witty, but with many of these hacks destined for those green
leather seats in Westminster the school boy antics in Parliament
look secured for one more generation at least.ARCHIVE: 5th week TT 2004
Hoorah a d hyperboled at the Oxford Union
