brian lee

Hypothetically, you chair a meeting by consent and you lead a party by consent. In the NEC for instance the Chairperson needs the vociferous backing of at least one person, the Leader needs more. However, if every meeting is full of confrontation, the Chairperson is in a very weak position. Unless you feel you are making progress there is not a lot of point of being involved at all.

(As a grass roots worker it has been clear to me for over ten years, that for a large part of the time the NEC and its various offshoots have been ineffective or incompetent).

So, whoever stands as Leader needs to be sure they have sufficient backing. Just having more votes from the membership is not enough. Both UKIP and other parties have shown the folly of leaders being elected by the membership, most of whom take no part whatsoever in the everyday running of the party let alone its management.

Anybody standing for leader needs to have public support from the people they will be working with on a day to day basis. Therefore the Party needs to devise a system of lobbying so that the number of candidates for the leadership can be reduced to two, and certainly no more than three. The election must be by STV.

Anybody standing for leader without knowing intimately the people they will have to work with if elected, are wasting not only their own time but everybody else's. Having supreme confidence in ones own intellect, political knowledge and with a track record in other fields is unlikely to make a successful leader.

Hartlepool

Getting back to the Monkey Nuts (Peanuts to you Denny) I mentioned earlier.

If I had the time to expand on the statement at the time I would have said that the money was nothing to a Branch or Region that wanted to support an able and willing Candidate for the Leadership Election.

That's all. :wink:

brian lee

Since my earlier posting I have just seen the Party Election broadcast by Dave. What a plonker! He is not even in the same league as Roger Knapman. The Tory faithful must be more afraid of him than of Tony Blair.

Anyway, to continue. Whoever does get the job of UKIP Leader will need a professional team of bright young researchers with good degrees.
Let's loose the amateur status. Those gophers who are retired should go back to their neglected gardens or whatever.

Of course it needs to be paid for.

Intbel

Agreed ... bright researchers are needed.
Young? Hmmm ... why young, specifically?

Oh, really? I disagree. Absence of a degree does not indicate any lack of research skills.

brian lee

Young because they will be cheaper and they are likely to have fresh ideas. I agree that an absence of a degree does not indicate lack of research skills, but it is a simple indicator. Given the right degree it should also indicate a reasonable command of English.

Intbel

Stinks of ageism ... and as to a "right" degree demonstrating one has a reasonable command of English - that may be true. One might hope that anyone attending uni would have a most excellent command of English -as a prerequisite for entering uni in the first place.

Or have standards in English become so low these days that it is not?

There is too much focus on degrees these days.
Folks should be assessed on ability, not paper qualifications, imo..

Britannist

I also saw the Conservative Party (local) election broadcast. It was highly unimpressive and will do nothing to increase the Conservative Party's appeal in key marginal seats. It was patronising and centred on the 'green' issue which is just not going to get 'floating' voters to queue outside the polling stations in order to vote for a Conservative Party that is chasing after the tiny number of 'green' voters.

However, I also saw the Lie-bour Party election broadcast earlier this evening and thought it was almost childish. The music and style was the 'Cool Britannia' theme which insults viewers' intelligence.

And the issues that voters want to hear about - crime, asylum immigration control, higher energy/water/council tax bills? Ignored.

I can't comment on party election broadcasts from the europhile Liberal Dimoprats - as I, fortunately, missed it or them :twisted: .

tamashi

Sorry Brian but I think you need to spend time in the garden yourself and I really resent the implication professional team of bright young researchers is the alternative to an amateur group of dull old farts!

I am graduate, postgraduate professionally qualified and with experience of running multi-million pound projects all over the world. I am also 47, so if the jobs market is anything to go by all I am fit for is unemployment or stacking shelves in B&Q.

In my stale and jaded opinion many of the “fresh” ideas that bright young things come up with are actually the same old ideas we tried when we were “young” the main difference being that experience has taught us what will and will not work.

How about an alternative to professional team of bright young researchers being a group of inexperienced smart arses who think because they have a degree they know it all! Politics in the UK really started to go down hill when it started being a career choice that bright young things made at University and the route to a seat at Westminster included thise with no real experience of what went on in the world outside the political bubble.

Young is not automatically bright and fresh and experienced is not automatically jaded and stuck in a rut.

Petrina

I agree look at the mess these school kids are making of the Conservative Party.Its gimmic ridden twaddle is driving its core supporters mad and probably failing to attract others to its ranks.

mkpdavies

As always, a niced balanced mixture would probably be best, with a good solid leader making the final call.

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