On 21 January 2016 the Oxford Union staged a debate with the proposition This House Believes Holocaust Denial Should Not Be Criminalised. As with many such debates it is worth watching in full. I have and so can you, starting by following this link. The first thing you will learn from the first speaker is that both sides of the house are fiercely opposed to holocaust denial; so the debate is purely about the best means to counter it.

There are six speakers and, though I found all the arguments interesting, I lament at the almost universal use of paper. If you are going to debate, it surely makes sense to learn how to be a proper speaker and dispense with a script.

I have chosen to cover two of them in postings on this blog. Today we look at one of the speakers for the proposition, Professor Deborah Lipstadt.

Kicking off with a stupendous opening, consisting of an immensely powerful ethos, this speech is excellently argued. It would all be even better if she did not read it.

And she doesn’t need to. The clarity of the structure and the expressiveness with which she relays what she has written is all the evidence I need that she has all the points she wants to make lodged firmly in her head, and had her script accidentally been lost her speech would be just as good and probably better. That is despite some of her arguments being, perforce, counter-intuitive and needing to be expressed in very precise wording.

It is for that reason that I shan’t try to précis or summarise her arguments. I just urge you to listen to her. And while you are about it you may notice the bearded young man behind her right elbow, concentrating fiercely and towards the end nodding in satisfaction at the arguments she delivers. He faithfully reflects me and my reactions.

She closes with a naughty pun, and harvests a well-deserved laugh.