douglas denny

I should probably have said: new Chairman in early 30s, new general secretary in 20s; Harry Alridge in teens ( he looks SO young).
Dunno why I said 41! Getting senile. Sorry. Mebee it was the lack of cranial hair that made him look older.
Hmmm I was on the balcony a long way off. Must see an optician: get some new glasses.

DED.

Anthony Butcher

I agree. His analysis work on the elections was very good.

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Anthony Butcher

er... UKIP did not get 4.6% of the vote in the mayoral elections, it got 0.91%!

BBC NEWS | Election 2008 | London Mayoral Election 2008

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Anthony Butcher

BBC NEWS | Politics | UKIP must change message - Farage
They have updated it now:

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SponPlague

Who does he report to? Shouldn't they have made him party secretary as well, like they agreed to do (then welched) for Geoffrey Kingscott?

Good luck, Jonathan, you'll need it!

douglas denny

WRONG ! You are continuing a fallacy which was at the heart of the matter at the time.

The whole question of Geoffrey Kingscott and the Party Secretary position was unfortunate for Geoffrey himself; and caused embarrassment and difficulties to him; which I suspect, helped in his decision to resign the position of general secretary. Which is a pity if so, because he is a good chap, and was very efficient at the job.
It appears, however, that he thought the position of Party Secretary was somehow offered when he was first employed. If so, this should not have happened in the first place. Further, later-on, he had supporters who also seemed to think he could be made Party Secretary by some dictat from the NEC if there was enough support for it. Those supporters included Suchusorski; Abbott; Del Young; Tony Butcher; Gill Chant and probably one or two I've forgotten.

What they all seemed to forget (and which amazes me even to this day that GK seemed to be unaware of, or just ignored - and he knew the exact position eventually as I had to make it clear) - is that the Party Secretary is a titular postion in the party - defined by the constitution, with specifically defined role. It has to be an elected member of the NEC.
Party Leader has to be elected too - by the whole membership. Party Chairman does not - he/she can be elected by the NEC only if it so wishes.

DED.
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Barboo

Tut, tut, Douglas!

What you have written was true of the previous version of the party constitution but the current version, adopted March 2006, states (10.1): "The Party Secretary shall be appointed by the NEC from amongst full Party members in good standing. He or she will be an ex-officio member of the NEC if not already a member of it".

Geoffrey Kingscott's memo to colleagues, posted to this forum by Anthony on 19 September 2006, states: "At the July NEC meeting it was agreed that I should replace Douglas Denny as (unpaid) Party Secretary, but at last night's meeting it was decided that this resolution was 'unconstitutional' and it was 'struck down'".

Whatever the supposed constitutional grounds were for overturning the July resolution, they did not include a requirement for the party secretary to be an elected member of the NEC. Mr Kingscott and his supporters were absolutely correct according to the constitution in place at the time, and you were wrong.

gc

"In a speech at the party's conference in Bournemouth, he said next June's Euro elections should be a referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU"

Declan Ganley spoke very similar words in Brussels on Tuesday... before explaining that the we should seek to reform the EU from within. Which party is Farage speaking on behalf of, exactly?

douglas denny

Not so. Explain then: why was it 'unconstitutional' and 'struck down' ?
answer - because the PS had to be an elected member.

That was my advice and endorsed by the specific advice of M.Zuckerman who made the point (as I did prior to the meeting) that it was a point in law and an anomaly in the new constitution which was in conflict with another part of the constitution. (The constitution is still full of legal anomalies).

The PS has to be according to the constitution the person in charge of the disciplinary committee. You cannot have someone in charge of the DC who is not an elected member as they might in theory be in charge of possibly removing an elected member who is under disciplinary 'charges'. You cannot have a paid employee in charge of that process. It would be challengeable by judicial review and very weak. That is one of the reasons it was deemed unconstitutional.

I was not wrong. In any event the NEC thought my argument correct at the time, so that made it correct !

You will note the next party secretary after me is an elected member of the NEC. This is not just co-incidence.

The constitution incidentally, is in need of overhaul, as it was originally full of problematic difficulties and anomalies hindering good management and due process of the party, and they were never ironed-out properly at the last time there was a re-vamp of it under Roger Knapman.

Another anomaly for example is the fact that party policy is under the final control of a single person -the party Leader, without final endorsement by the NEC - a collective body. This is quite fundamentally wrong in my opinion. I opposed it last time - and voted against the changes to the constitution because of it - but lost the vote.

DED.
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SponPlague

And yet, 2 years on, they STILL haven't sorted out the constitution?