Rory Allan Memorial Prize Friends and teachers of the late Rory Allan (03-10) recently established a writing prize in his memory, kindly supported by the ONA. Rory was a prolific writer, with a natural gift for the comic and the polemical, be it in the form of an essay, a letter, or a text message.
Presentation by Luke Hughes (05-10), Rory’s friend to runner-up Rachel Rees (Lower Sixth) and Phillipa Sanders (Year 11)
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e asked RGS students to submit up to 1,500 words on the question, Should Politicians Tweet? We were hugely impressed by the quality of the responses. Prizes were awarded to ‘the most intellectually stimulating, the most amusing or the most opinionated’ of the entries. Here we publish the winning entry by Philippa Sanders (Year 11) with congratulations also to Rachel Rees (Lower Sixth) for winning the Runner-Up prize.
Should Politicians Tweet? The simple answer is most probably no. First of all, I’ll address the already-present elephant in the essay: President Donald J Trump. In the past year, Trump sent 2,608 tweets. He has been critical 135% more than he has been complimentary. So far, Trump has called one of the most dangerous tyrants in the world ‘Rocket Man’, claimed that his nuclear button was ‘bigger’ and ‘more powerful’ than the aforementioned man’s, and has informed the world that he is a ‘very stable genius’. That was just this week on Twitter. Twitter’s cardinal abuse outline is that exhibiting behaviour that harasses or intimidates a person or a group of people will result in the offender being suspended or banned. Trump has intimidated both individuals and groups
