TomPhil

The sad thing is that that is completely true.

__________________
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."

In Labour we trusted and now we are busted... again. It's the economy, stupid.

spaman

YES - we do need a regular paper - monthly would be good - but we should use a little trick of the trade and number them rather than dating them......and get them sold/pushed throughout the month
No reason why we can't get advertisers to contribute to the cost, but what we really ought to be doing is getting an EU grant for this....

Does anybody recall the INFORMER magazines that came out in the 80's - at least they started then... they were an irreverent approach to life with articles by various amatures and they were a great fun read - what paid for the magzine were the job adverts for contracting jobs in IT
If we could produce something of this ilk, with a front cover joking about some issue, but with serious content, then that would be ideal...

8)

Cyburn

Was this idea mentioned at Lechdale 4

BASILDON BOY

Look at the BNP and the National Democrats (NF) monthly newspaper. Simple to the point - Bold headlines, photos of activists, letters section - above all a carefully prepared propaganda tool - to show the political parties in the best possible light, using spin, facts and figures to promote their cause.

People don't want waffle, too many boring facts and figures, 1,500 word articles etc...

It has to be written like a tabloid - bring the argument down to the lowest and simplest possible level so anybody can understand what is trying to be said.

Somebody at HQ should get hold of these parties propaganda newspapers and analize exactly how they are put together - every month they use basically the same type of template.

Our MEPs are awash with dosh - surely a monthly contribution to get things rolling would help! Lets have them in UKIPs colours - when we have a bye-election then they can be distributed. If we have a street stall with a petition they can be handed out.

They should be sold per 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000.

Active branches can place monthly subscriptions for bulk purchases.

They should be used as a tool to promote UKIP, sell the anti-EU pro-British independence message, rubbish the EU, expose EU waste, fraud and incompetance - recruit members, raise funds.

Each edition can repeat the same facts and figures.

We would need good quality photos of members - staged photos for use in publications - some I have seen show disorganised groups of people. Again look at the LibDems protoest photos - or Labour and Tory group photos.

The letters page should have short and to the point letters making specific points - not loads of waffle.

The newspaper is a propaganda tool - it should not contain and internal wrangling or anything negative - it is a propaganda tool to sell the UKIP brand.

Branch news should be positive - demonstrations, petitioning, public meetings, fundraisers, stalls at fairs etc.

Somebody somewhere should be seriously looking at this and the cost of printing etc. In advance they should get pledges from branches and individuals who want to purchase the newspaper - once the thing gets rolling it will take off - if the product is good then people will buy it in bulk.

Just my thoughts!


PS Although not wanting to promote the BNP - if you want to see how their newspaper is put together visit:- http://www.bnp.org.uk/freedom/

Surely with our resources we could initially print a similar newspaper?

Tom Wilde

The Morning Star is actually owned by the Communist Party, not the SWP. It is indeed daily, and is sold in newsagents alongside the other daily papers (though its circulation is very small compared with theirs).

The SWP rag is called the Socialist Worker and is sold by their activists standing on streetcorners.

This is interesting because we need to be clear which of those models we want to follow. We could go for producing a magazine or newspaper sold through newsagents. This would be quite possible, though expensive. I wouldn't recommend going daily - I'd suggest starting monthly and then go bi-weekly if we ever had the resources. It might be possible to simply expand Independence and sell that through the newsagents. The balance of material in it would need to be shifted so there was slightly less about the internal workings of UKIP and slightly more of interest to non-members who simply sympathize with our ideas. You would reach people who aren't currently members and are simply browsing the shelves in their newsagents when they stumble across it.

Alternatively we could go for the model Basildon Boy suggests - a tabloid style news sheet which can be given away from stalls at events or even shoved through people's doors. In the later case, you could have a newspaper of (say) 8 pages, where the middle four pages were the same everywhere but the outer four pages (ie pages 1, 2, 7 and 8 ) were printed separately and could therefore cover more local news. This would enable us to swiftly produce an impressive "UKIP News - Middlethorpe Edition" if there was a by-election in Middlethorpe and so on.

BASILDON BOY

Agree 100% - its pointless trying to print something for sale in newsagents - you will need mega bucks - and think of the distribution network! And will newsagents WHSmiths etc allow political propaganda to be on sale?

The free give away is a better idea - purchased by members or branches and used in by-elections or election campaigns - at public meetings they could be sold to raise funds? or just given away!

Tom Wilde

I prefer the free giveaway idea too, but for the sake of completeness, I want to argue that the newsagent idea isn't a complete non-starter. It would be possible on a limited scale with only modest resources.

Printing a new publication from scratch would need mega bucks, but simply increasing by a few thousand the print run of a mag you are printing anyway (Independence) would be pretty cheap. Most of the printing cost is always in the set-up.

Newstrade distribution in Britain is organised like a pyramid. You simply have to supply one out of a very small number of nationwide distributors (eg Seymour, Comag, Diamond or MMC). Your distributor in turn supplies about 80-100 local wholesalers around the country. Each wholesaler in turn supplies the newsagents in their area. Therefore a limited number of phone calls to distributors could quite painlessly secure a modest nationwide distribution to newsagents, PROVIDED one of the distributors could be convinced that there was actually a possibility of Independence selling a worthwhile number of copies.

Yes they will. They already sell party manifestos (at election time), plus Morning Star, plus they have often sold very political mags like Living Marxism. The key would be to stress that Independence is a magazine of politics and current affairs which sits on the shelf next to the Spectator and New Statesman. Having said which, I don't think WH Smith would stock it - not because it is political, but because they rarely stock any new magazines unless the publishers pay them a vast "promotional fee" of around £10,000 to do so. But a lot of smaller newsagents would stock it, no question.

Sarumano

We already have a newspaper- it's called Independence, or summat like that.
Why not expand that with the reports that this forum gets from the Lechade Thinktank, with what each of our MEPs has got up to, with reports of what they get up to (anyone admit to reading 'The Sprout'?), with reasoned responses to foul calumnies, with responses to queries from the public*?

Free to members, 25p to the public; and we sell back numbers / current editions / whatever is sat in Ole Arthur's coal 'ole on every available public occasion where UKIPpers are gathered.

Is anyone with appropriate contacts prepared to ask NEC whether EU money is available?
Is there a definite answer to whether we can get a monthly on WHSmith's shelves?

*We could even invent a few members of the public? :twisted:

BASILDON BOY

Independence is aimed at members - we need to have a pure propaganda newspaper - no internal politics - no long detailed discussions on UKIP consitution rules - a pure simple propaganda paper.

Something that will inspire, sell the UKIP brand, be blatantly antiEU, bang the pro independence message, highlight how much cash is coming from our pockets to pay for the EU, plenty of emotive pictures of British fishing boats being dismantled etc.

We need to learn how such small parties such as the BNP wth their very limited resources, can produce easy to read tabloid stye newspapers.

Surely not beyond UKIP capabilities? It would need a team of people using a regular template style - the same font in each paper - hard hitting anti-EU articles - sensible emotive stories.

No bizarre conspiracy theries please!!!

Any newspaper should have a set of key words that describe the EU, Tories Labour ets.

It should also have a set of key words to describe British independence, UKIP etc

gimlet

I was sent a copy of The Flag last week, I was impressed with its format. Better than the Independent IMHO.