posted 2nd June 2025
When should you do something the hard way, even though there is an easier way? When you’re a debater, that’s when.
This is especially true when it comes to deciding which of your opponent’s arguments to rebut. As a rule of thumb, you should spend no more than 20% of your speech on rebuttal (Whips in BP and summary speakers in Mace are different; they should spend 50% of their time on rebuttal). This means that, unless you are a Whip / summary speaker, you are unlikely to have time to rebut all of the arguments of the immediately preceding speaker without either making your rebuttal too superficial, or leaving yourself insufficient time to make your own arguments.
So you have to make a choice. Which arguments should you rebut? The strongest ones.
Why? Because, while attacking your opponent’s weakest arguments will be easy, it will also not be very persuasive. The audience - particularly the most important member of the audience, the judge - will probably have seen through the weak arguments already. Taking them out won’t achieve much in advancing your case, because they didn’t achieve much in advancing your opponent’s case. Moreover, even if you knock out the weakest argument with a single blow, the strong ones will still be standing. If, on the other hand, you can convincingly attack your opponent’s strongest arguments, you will impress the judge no end, and will leave your opponent with nowhere else to go.
Let’s take an example. You’re the opposition for the motion This house believes immigration is good for the UK. The proposition speaker makes two main arguments. First, that immigration provides us with nannies, cleaners and builders who are very cheap (they perhaps mention their parents’ lovely Polish cleaner who will work for less than the minimum wage). Second, they argue that we have a moral duty to accept immigrants who come from terrible conditions in countries torn apart by war and famine.
The first argument is weak and can be easily attacked. You can point out that if the main beneficiaries of immigration are rich people who can afford nannies, cleaners and builders, rather than less rich people who actually have to work as nannies, cleaners and builders, then it is obviously a bad thing. It reinforces social inequality by rewarding already privileged people, giving them easy access to underpaid workers; it takes work away from British people; and it drives down wages for people doing vital jobs.
The second argument is much stronger. Turning away desperate people who have fled life-threatening situations is hard to justify; the humanitarian case seems unanswerable. But don’t give up and accept the argument. Instead, find its strongest point and then turn it against your opponent; the judo move.
Yes, we have a moral duty to people fleeing poverty and war. But rather than taking them away from their countries, their communities and their families, bringing them into an alien culture, we should be intervening in the crises from which they are fleeing; making peace and sending aid. Treat the causes of their countries’ sickness, rather than manage the symptoms. Don’t bring their doctors and teachers over here - keep them there, and help them build more hospitals and schools. Make this argument well, and you will have taken the highest moral ground from the proposition. All they will have left are the low lying fields of cheap nannies, where they can be easily finished off.
It takes courage to attack at the strongest point; but it is also much more likely to bring victory.
