The World

As I boarded the 5.50pm train from Paddington to Oxford yesterday, I regretted my foolish agreement to speak at the Oxford Union that night. I was never a debater as a student. I had found the formality and self-importance of the Cambridge Union in the 1980s unattractive, and instead put my spare energies into student journalism. But now, at last, I was going to have to clamber into black tie – and go through the whole rigmarole of “points of information” and “Mr President, I beg to oppose the motion”.

I think I only agreed, months ago, because I was aware the debate was taking place just before my book is published (it’s out on Monday), and I was working on the “any publicity” principle. But now I found myself heading for Oxford – knackered, unprepared, not even sure which side of the motion I was speaking on, and with my head full of images of jeering hoorays in white tie.

The Oxford Union building itself is beautiful and impressive – with its library, its bars, its committee rooms and the private rooms of the president. I arrived just in time for pre-dinner drinks and to get changed into black tie. I was reminded that I was opposing the motion – “This House Believes that the Channel is Wider than the Atlantic”. In other words, I was on the pro-European side of the debate. And my opponents were, as well as the student speakers, Daniel Hannan (MEP), who I last encountered at the Tory Party conference and Viscount Monckton.

The viscount is an interesting character. He once worked in the policy unit at Number Ten under Lady Thatcher and is now deputy leader of the anti-European UK Independence Party. More recently he has become famous as a vociferous climate-change sceptic and for fighting a Quixotic campaign to gain entrance into the House of Lords. I was seated opposite him at the pre-debate dinner, and initially I found his conversation rather unsettling: a blizzard of statistics and anecdotes on everything from climate to Europe, all delivered with supreme confidence and a slight gleam in the eye.

I began to think that Viscount Monckton might be a formidable opponent during the debate. Then he told me that he has discovered a new drug that is a complete cure for two-thirds of known diseases – and that he expects it to go into clinical trials soon. I asked him whether his miracle cure was chiefly effective against viruses or bacterial diseases? “Both”, he said, “and prions”. At this point I felt a little more relaxed about the forthcoming debate.

At 8.30 we filed into the debating chamber. Rather to my surprise, it was packed. I can see why the Union has been the training ground for so many former future prime ministers, because the whole thing is pseudo-parliamentary in nature. The two sides sit on benches opposite each other. There is a central table, with a lectern to lean on when you speak. There is the formal, slightly archaic, way of speaking – with the president of the Union cast in the role of the speaker. When the students vote, they file out through “yes” and no” lobbies – rather like in parliament.

I was the last speaker of the night, so I had a long time to wait. There were two undergraduate speakers on both sides – a couple good, a couple not so good; interventions from the floor, and then the invited speakers. Hannan was polished and entertaining. Monckton went into a sort of vaudeville act, where he delivered “To be or Not to Be”, as re-written by a Brussels bureaucrat. I couldn’t quite see the point of this, but it seemed to go down well with the students. On my side, Emma Reynolds, a new Labour MP gave a brisk and confident defence of the EU, largely avoiding Union-style flourishes.

At about 10.20, I rose to my feet – conscious that I had only had three points scribbled down on a piece of paper and that the last train to London left at 11pm, so I had better get on with it. Speaking without notes is always a tricky thing. On the plus side, people are often impressed if you can pull it off. On the minus side, there is the terror that your mind will go blank.

Fortunately, I usually find that once I’ve got through the first minute or so, I tend to relax – and then it’s all fine. And so it proved last night. I don’t know if I made much sense – and I certainly won’t inflict the arguments I made on the readers of this blog. But the students seemed to listen, they laughed in the right places and they clapped at the end. So that was that.

Unfortunately, I then had to sprint for the station, so I don’t know whether we won or lost. Also, I was unable to go to the drinks in the president’s rooms, afterwards – which looked like fun. Next time – if there is a next time.

Late update – Added on November 9th. Viscount Monckton felt that I had unfairly misrepresented our conversation. I am happy to print a response and clarification from him, which appears below:

Lord Monckton has pointed out an inadvertent inaccuracy and unfairness in my account of the medical invention on which he is working. Though there is a substantial body of theoretical and empirical evidence that his invention may prove efficacious against multiple infectious and auto-immune diseases, he did not and does not make any claim that the invention will prove efficacious. That is precisely why, as he told me when we met at Oxford, a series of appropriately sceptical clinical trials will commence shortly in the United States.