"Shorism is a political philosophy that holds that progressive political parties should tightly configure their campaign messaging and policy prioritization to positions popular with the general public, rather than attempting to run on policies popular with just their base or activists.

The "Pact of Forgetting" (Pacto de Olvido) was a political decision by both left and right parties in Spain to deliberately not confront the legacy of the Civil War or facism under Franco after Franco's death in 1975. This gave amnesty for crimes during the civil war or under Franco's regime, but also did not valorise the Francoist regime (for example, no longer using public memorials or celebrating the ""victory day"" of the civil war). Public discussion about the regime was avoided. For the purpose of this debate, it is limited to internal conflict in the country

AI chatbots and models such as GitaGPT, TalkToHim, AIJesus. Pastor Justin Lester of Friendship Baptist Church in California creating a custom GPT trained on his own sermons to automatically build small-group study materials and lesson plans for local leaders.

OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an intergovernmental group of major oil-producing nations, founded in 1960, that coordinates petroleum policies and production levels to influence global oil supply and prices. The UAE announced that it was leaving OPEC and OPEC+, ending a 59-year membership effective May 1, 2026.

 "On September 16, 2026, EU Chief, Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament she wanted to work on ""opening the door"" for Canada, which would involve closer ties on various key sectors. 

The 'associate membership' tag will be an entirely new framework designed to create a ""unique alliance"" without full integration into the single market or subordinating Canadian law to Brussels. Under this new framework, manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security are listed as key areas for cooperation."

You are a scientist who has developed a virus "the Hive" which allows individuals to merge their consciousnesses into a single collective mind. Within this collective, people can directly access one another's thoughts, emotions and memories, dramatically reducing loneliness, misunderstanding and interpersonal conflict. The collective is significantly happier and more cooperative than conventional human society. However, members surrender some privacy, independence and ability to separate themselves from the collective.

"Imagine a procedure that permanently divides a person's consciousness into two distinct identities: an “outside self”, who lives their ordinary life, and an “inside self”, who exists exclusively at their workplace. Neither identity has access to the other's memories.

The outside self experiences all the benefits of employment but never experiences the work itself. The inside self experiences the entirety of the working day but never gets to experience evenings, weekends, relationships, holidays, or life outside work.

Both identities are psychologically continuous with the person who underwent the procedure, but neither consented to the arrangement from their own independent perspective after the procedure."

Context for Motion 3 - "Marjane “Marji” Satrapi grew up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran–Iraq War. Marji’s family was politically outspoken and critical of the regime, and several people close to her were imprisoned or killed. As the war intensifies and Marji became increasingly rebellious, her parents send her to Austria at the age of 14, hoping she will be safer and able to receive a better education.

Marji initially saw Austria as an opportunity for freedom and independence. She had far greater freedom over her clothing, relationships, sexuality and political expression, and encounters lifestyles that would have been impossible for her in Iran. However, she struggled to integrate. She facesda language and cultural barrier, had difficulty making friends, and often felt that other Europeans saw her primarily as a refugee from a war-torn and repressive country, rather than as an individual. She also eventually became increasingly disconnected from her Iranian identity while trying to assimilate into Western youth culture.

Her situation eventually deteriorated significantly. Relationships with friends and her boyfriend became unstable, she developed problems with drugs, and after being accused of stealing by her landlady, she became homeless and spent months living on the streets. She also then came to be seriously ill and was hospitalised."

"Shorism is a political philosophy that holds that progressive political parties should tightly configure their campaign messaging and policy prioritization to positions popular with the general public, rather than attempting to run on policies popular with just their base or activists.

The "Pact of Forgetting" (Pacto de Olvido) was a political decision by both left and right parties in Spain to deliberately not confront the legacy of the Civil War or facism under Franco after Franco's death in 1975. This gave amnesty for crimes during the civil war or under Franco's regime, but also did not valorise the Francoist regime (for example, no longer using public memorials or celebrating the ""victory day"" of the civil war). Public discussion about the regime was avoided. For the purpose of this debate, it is limited to internal conflict in the country

AI chatbots and models such as GitaGPT, TalkToHim, AIJesus. Pastor Justin Lester of Friendship Baptist Church in California creating a custom GPT trained on his own sermons to automatically build small-group study materials and lesson plans for local leaders.

OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an intergovernmental group of major oil-producing nations, founded in 1960, that coordinates petroleum policies and production levels to influence global oil supply and prices. The UAE announced that it was leaving OPEC and OPEC+, ending a 59-year membership effective May 1, 2026.

"On September 16, 2026, EU Chief, Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament she wanted to work on ""opening the door"" for Canada, which would involve closer ties on various key sectors. 

The 'associate membership' tag will be an entirely new framework designed to create a ""unique alliance"" without full integration into the single market or subordinating Canadian law to Brussels. Under this new framework, manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security are listed as key areas for cooperation."

Feminization refers to an emphasis on characteristics, expectations, and forms of presentation associated with traditional femininity. Within this debate, feminization includes but is not limited to how athletes are expected to present themselves (kits), how leagues market women’s sports, the kinds of narratives built around female athletes, and how the sport itself is packaged for audiences. 

For instance, WNBA tunnel fits are pre-game arena walkways where players showcase high-fashion, streetwear, and personal style before tip-off. 

Communal conservancies are granted rights to manage and profit from wildlife on their land, including trophy-hunting quotas, under Namibia's CBNRM (Community-Based Natural Resource Management) program. There are currently over 80 communal conservancies across Namibia. The logic is that if local communities directly benefit financially from wildlife survival, they have an incentive to protect it rather than see it as a threat to crops/livestock or a resource to poach. Namibia's government credits this model with real recoveries in black rhino, elephant, and mountain zebra populations. Positive impact has been seen in South Africa's white rhino population as well. Ater hunting was legalized, landowners had an incentive to reintroduce and protect rhinos on private land, and numbers increased dramatically.

Double materiality is a sustainability reporting principle requiring companies to disclose information on how ESG issues affect their financial performance and how their operations impact people and the environment. It combines financial and impact perspectives to provide a comprehensive view of sustainability risks.

Double materiality includes:

1.⁠ ⁠Impact Materiality: How the company's activities, products, and operations affect society, people, and the environment.

2.⁠ ⁠Financial Materiality: How sustainability issues, risks, and opportunities create, diminish, or change the company’s enterprise value and financial performance.

The UNEP Plastics Treaty is a legally binding international instrument currently under negotiation by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to end global plastic pollution. Initiated in 2022, the treaty aims to address plastic pollution across its lifecycle, from production to disposal.

Fossil fuel and petrochemical companies are currently allowed to participate in treaty negotiations as stakeholders, alongside states, NGOs, and scientific bodies. Industry representatives argue that their technical expertise and role in implementation make their inclusion essential.

The treaty was supposed to come into effect in 2025 but it collapsed without agreement due to deep divisions, particularly around limiting plastic production.

The treaty remains under negotiation.

The United Kingdom is a single sovereign state made up of four nations - England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each have their own devolved government with control over areas like health and education, but Westminster (the UK Parliament) retains ultimate sovereignty, along with control over defence, foreign policy, and macroeconomic policy.

On September 14, 2026, the First Ministers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, for the first time, all led by pro-independence or pro-autonomy parties, signed a joint declaration in Cardiff demanding the right to hold referendums on their nations' constitutional futures. 

Westminster currently manages significant costs associated with holding the Union together: fiscal transfers to the devolved nations (via mechanisms like the Barnett formula), recurring political and legislative attention spent on constitutional disputes, and post-Brexit friction with Northern Ireland in particular, where the Irish Sea trade border has repeatedly strained power-sharing arrangements. At the same time, Westminster derives significant benefits from the Union scuh as a larger tax base and territory and greater global diplomatic and economic weight than any of the four nations would hold independently

Keir Starmer resigned as UK Prime Minister and Labour leader in June 2026, after Labour had spent much of the year polling in third place, behind both Reform UK and the Conservatives. Andy Burnham, previously Mayor of Greater Manchester, re-entering Parliament via a by-election, took over as Labour leader and became Prime Minister in July 2026, uncontested by the parliamentary Labour Party.

Since taking over, Labour's polling has improved dramatically and consistently, moving from third place to regularly leading or tying with Reform UK across multiple pollsters (BMG, Opinium, YouGov, More in Common, and others), something Starmer never achieved in his final 18 months. Many attribute this less to genuinely new policy substance and more to a change in tone and positioning: Burnham has leaned into a ""down-to-earth,"" ""red wall""-friendly persona and pushed a rapid drumbeat of cost-of-living-focused policy announcements."

On September 12, 2026, two crypto entrepreneurs, Christopher Harborne (Reform's long-time biggest donor, based in Thailand) and Ben Delo (BitMEX co-founder), each gave Reform UK £36 million, within about a day of each other. Of the £65m-ish spent in the last (2024) elections by all other parties, less than a 10th was used by Nigel Farage’s party (Reform UK). The government has responded the £72 million could fall under amendments to the Representation of the People Bill, which cap overseas-elector donations at £100,000 a year, applied retrospectively, meaning Reform could in principle be forced to return the money.

While Reform UK has been vocal in its arguments that the sudden £72m windfall from billionaires merely “levels the playing field” with the bigger parties when it comes to funding, this may undermine Reform's ""man of the people"" branding.

Examples 

GEO Group and CoreCivic operate contracts involving per-diem payments linked to daily occupancy

Ravenhall Prison in Australia offers performance-based bonuses for lower reoffending, while the Peterborough Social Impact Bond in the UK linked investor returns to reductions in reoffending.

A plea deal allows a defendant to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are state-owned investment funds that manage and grow a country’s wealth over the long term, often using revenues from natural resources or other government surpluses. They typically invest across a diversified range of assets, including stocks, bonds, real estate, infrastructure, and private companies, with the aim of generating returns for current and future generations. 

For example, Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global invests the country’s oil revenues in thousands of companies and other assets across the world, while Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has increasingly made large investments in technology and emerging industries as part of its broader economic diversification strategy.

In recent years, “girl’s girl” has become a popular social term, particularly among younger women, as a counter to the "pick-me girl" stereotype, where someone puts other women down to seem more appealing (often to men). Being a girl's girl is roughly the opposite. For some, this represents a meaningful form of solidarity and mutual support, cheering on other women's successes, giving honest and kind advice, having your friends' backs, and not gossiping or undermining them, especially over things like looks, relationships, or career wins. Others see it as creating social expectations about how women should behave towards each other. It can imply that women owe each other unconditional support, or that criticizing another woman makes you a ‘bad feminist’. These tensions have become more visible as the idea has spread through social media and popular culture.

Advances in robotics and generative AI have made it possible to build humanoid robots that look, move, and feel close to human. These robots are powered by AI that can hold conversations, remember past interactions, and express affection. They can be customised to the owner's preferences in appearance, personality, and behaviour, and are designed to provide romantic companionship and sexual intimacy.