Rook

I think that it is more fun (and potentially profitable if the betting shops are willing to take bets on it) to predict who is going to join the list of critics in the coming months!

My predictions:

Piers Merchant - will be frozen out of political committee and have his name dragged through the mud for bringing the Party into disrepute by recommending that the MEP selection process be rerun in the Eastern and London Regions, and for not getting Paul Nuttall elected in the Northwest on the first try!

Christopher Gill - will decide that he has been used to give credibility to a rigged MEP selection process and will quit UKIP

Douglas Denny - will be reprimanded for posting on this forum and having watched Eric Edmond and others be disciplined for doing their job, will flip out, become Nigel's fiercest critic and will enter a civil union with GLW

David Abbot - next on the NEC hit list - not that the betting shops will be offering odds on this.

Bob Spink - probably wondering what sort of travelling circus he has attached himself to. Will finish his days as an independent MP.


This can be lots of fun - anyone else for some idle speculation?

Geoffrey Collier

Independent UKIP: It is very easy to make accusations against people who may not even exist. We hear much about malevolent Conservative being in our midst and also BNP infiltrators. They may exist, I don't know, but I was always taught that example is the only moral basis on which we can impose discipline. When our leader selects as his G.E. agent a former National Front regional organiser, does that display hopeless political judgement, or are those elements of party instability imported, not by the membership, but by those who should be protecting it? If serious explanations are being given, for our rapid decline, the investigation should not be confined to just one section of the party, but to all parts. That must be the paradigm for any professional appraisal.

Mark Croucher

BA:

The single issue perception is a problem, and there's no denying that. The party has been plugging away at that for years, and yet it is rare that we get reported for anything other than the EU, although it does happen. Believe me, I devoted considerable time and energy to attempting to break out of this mould, but it is not easy for several reasons.

Much of what is done at branch level is concerned only with the EU. We have a huge range of locally produced leaflets of variable quality and literacy which mention nothing but national issues, and these are the things which are pushed through journalists front doors while they are at home. We also have the a lack of local coverage for local issues, and this absense on topical actions in local newspapers tends to reinforce the impression of 'single issue-ness'; they are read by national journalists too! These things can be addressed at a local level, and however disheartening it can be to hear the same things from the public, it takes time to seep into people's consciousness.

Nationally I'd agree the party could do much more in terms of symbolism to broaden its impact. Yes, the imagery at local and regional rallies is excessively concerned with the EU, but against that, the realistics are that that is what is available: backdrops are expensive to produce, and there is a tendency for them to be recycled repeatedly simply because there is no budget for them. This is where a proper management structure would help, because there'd be one individual with responsibility for it, instead of the current ad hoc arrangement of using whoever is spare or, more often, whoever you can dragoon into doing it. Once again, we come back to the boring, non-conspiratorial issue of resources and structure.

Then there is the difficulty of gaining support for such a departure from what has gone before. It occurs to me as I type that a UKIP Local Government Conference would be a good idea, but against that you have an entrenched section of the party which disagrees with local campaigning outside of the core issue at all, under any circumstances, some of whom are in a position to block or at least seriously hold up such measures. As an example, I'd point to the SW region, which I think I'm correct in saying put up few if any local election candidates this year. The problem is not an excessively strong central party, but, and I can already imagine the howls of derision, an excessively weak one which lacks the political clout and the means to force branches, counties or, indeed, regions to comply with national policy.

So, what to do? We have tried training branch press officers time and time again, but the results have, I think, been disappointing. Lots of people turn up and listen, and then we never hear from them again. Although this is an implied criticism, I can fully appreciate the reasons. For most UKIP members, the idea of thrusting themselves into the limelight runs contrary to their natural inclinations - I think it does for most people who aren't wannabe celebrities. There is the fear of making a fool of themselves, the fear of being misquoted, the fear of not being taken seriously, the fear, generally, of the unknown. But from a strictly political point of view, there is no point in running local campaigns if no-one ever knows about them, or about the successes you've achieved.

Then you have problems with the mechanics of taking a local story regional. I remember one particular one which caused a terminal breach between the branch and the region. What the branch was after, while a good idea, was simply not realistic, and while the issue as a whole was newsworthy, it was being mis-handled at branch level. Of course, as soon as the regional and national press officers got involved, the branch got the ar5e, because as professionals we knew how to get the publicity, but not with the campaign as it stood, and the branch objected to what they saw as interference, but what we saw as realism. Added to that, the local journalists immediately began contacting the national and regional press offices, because they'd rather deal with a fellow professional than an enthusiastic amateur. To what extent would you accept 'central' assistance if that meant compromise over your desired outcome, and to what extent do you feel the centre should be enabled to overrule branches? A proper discussion and resolution of issues such as these would dovetail with the requisite management overhaul, and also go some way to making the party more governable and disciplined. The problem with such discussions as this is that they tend to get hijacked - on here it would be decried as an abuse of power, the 'cabal' ignoring branches and overruling chairmen, etc, etc. But this is a fairly fundamental issue on which there needs to be a clear understanding of who does what.

With your own experiences, I can not comment, because I simply do not know. I'm not trying to evade answering, and believe me, I know from experience what a thankless task it is, but without first hand experience I can't tell you what you were doing right or wrong, or why it failed to work as anticipated. I would say that there does need to be realism, and you have to understand why you are running a local campaign. By this, I mean a successful campaign should be a by-product of the publicity, not vice versa: a very cynical outlook, I'm afraid, but a realistic one.

As to the summer of 2004, yes, there was a certain measure of 'now what'. There were other problems too: the party was exhausted - I know I was after 6 months of working between 12 and 20 hours a day, 7 days a week. The party was also completely broke, because we'd spent every penny we had on the campaign. A lot of key staff and even MEPs had holidays booked, because they'd never expected to get elected. But I do think you underestimate the problem caused by RKS, despite all this. You'll understand that there are some things which I am not prepared to comment on publicly, and I know that 'I know, but I can't tell you' sounds like a cop out, but that, unfortunately, is how it is.

Rgds

M

SponPlague

Oh yes: Didn't UKIP Southampton say that if elected to a position of power, they'd install Linux on all the council computers?

Millennium3

Well it does seem that DD has been reprimanded for posting here, but he has not reappeared, yet, as NF's fiercest critic - I don't know how his relationship with GLW is developing.

SponPlague

You lost the bet on David Abbott...

Bett Nwar

Odds on Piers?

Millennium3

According to this thread:

Nigel Farage's Night of the Long Knives

David Abbott
Del Young
Eric Edmond
John West
Alison West
Lynnda Robson
Geoffrey Collier
Martin Harvey
Piers Merchant
Gerard Batten
Geoffrey Kingscott
Roger Knapman
Greg Beaman
Bruce Lawson
Peter Cole
Robin Page

Are soon to be added to the list!

Millennium3

How are Rook's predictions doing?

Peterc

Anyone else willing to speak the truth so that they can go on the list?