[SCIE web news, Jan 18th, 2019] On December 19, a special house event was held in the garden room. Unlike previous house competitions, this event organized by the politics club simulates the questioning session of the British parliament to the prime minister.
Every Wednesday, the prime minister has a half-hour question-and-answer session from 12:00 noon to 12:30 p.m. Meanwhile, the prime minister is questioned about his policies by the opposition and needs to fight back. Of course, ruling party MPS can also help the prime minister gain more support by asking her favorable questions.
After a few simple arrangements, the glass room’s modest space is divided into two distinct camps: sitting behind the prime minister (Tiger) are the ruling party’s MPS; Sitting opposite Jeremy Corbyn (Billy), the shadow prime minister, are opposition MPS. Since this is a house competition, not all participants are members of the politics club, thus before the questioning session, everyone watched a short video about the prime minister’s questioning session to ensure that all participants understood the procedure of this activity.
With a resonant announcement from The Speaker, the proceedings began. The event focused on the topic of Brexit, which has been garnering attention recently. When asked “question one”, the prime minister needs to update the parliament on her official schedule for today. After that, Jeremy Corbyn will lead the opposition to attack the prime minister’s Brexit policy and the Brexit situation under her leadership.
As the leader of the ruling party, the prime minister was clearly confident. The prime minister responded coolly and sharply to a barrage of questions from the opposition. The MPs sitting behind the two leaders occasionally cheered for their leaders or booed the leaders of the opposite party. The atmosphere was as heated as the actual prime minister’s questions.
Even though they were not members of the politics club, representatives of each house actively participated in the whole process. The quality of their questioning showed that everyone was prepared. Even though they may not have known much about the British political system before, they were well-prepared, standing firmly behind their party leaders and acting as dutiful MPs.
The prime minister’s questions ended with another resounding announcement from the speaker. The two groups of “party members” shook hands and made up again. They happily shared the pizza prepared by the political club and marked the successful ending of the event. Finally, I would like to thank all the members of the political club and Mr. Richard Driscoll for organizing this event and Leo Wang for his photography!
(Report/Tina; Photos/Leo Wang)
