The Unity Party - Local Elections Reaction

Day 275, 12:02 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Alain Bates

Well, the local elections are now over and we know who the countrys mayors will be for the next month. As some controversy arose relating to the nomination of Angelfeather as a candidate for London mayor and also pre-election gifts being sent out by some of the TUP candidates, I've decided to post my views on these matters.

First of all, I believe that the reaction from one or two people to me selecting Angelfeather as the TUP candidate for London was a little over the top. I clearly stated in a previous press release, a newspaper article and on the TUP forums that I wanted the party to contest as many regions as possible in a bid to increase activity and get us moving back in the right direction. When I received a pm from angelfeather requesting to run for London, I allowed him to do so, as no other candidate stepped forward. I believe in giving the new guys a chance and denying somebody the opportunity to make an impact would have been against my beliefs. Plenty of other "quiet players" will have been nominated for local elections (including London) in the past and there were 2-3 candidates of a similar stature to angelfeather in the most recent election. I did however notice that there wasn't much comment about the decisions of the other party leaders to select their candidates. Certainly, none of them were branded a "discrace" (not my spelling error). I assume that was more to do with the fact that the other candidates weren't leading and threatening PCP's power, so there was no issue with the other leaders decision making.

I believe that the current London council will continue working together to keep things running smoothly and even if the worst comes to the worst and angelfeather does completely disappear from the game, I know that London will survive and no hard work is about to disappear. I read on the forums earlier that Squiddy (one of TUP's most active and promising new members who I think should have won the Bristol election) is contemplating moving to London to help with the situation and I think he'd be a fabulous presence on the London Council and is capable of covering many of angelfeather's duties if things go wrong.
As a further offer of support for the running of London, I will be willing to offer any assistance if necessary, although those of you who say local elections shouldn't be about party politics may disagree with this. I'm currently giving advice to help Alan Hammond with the running of my home region Leeds and would do the same for London if angelfeather or squiddy ask for assistance.

Moving on, I admit that I gave 20GBP to four of my party's newest members to allow them to purchase some gifts for their region's citizens before the local election. Some of you will say this is an underhand tactic, but in order to attract votes in the current political climate where sheep voting and party politics is prominent, I decided that this was a way to give some of my strong candidates an edge. By doing this, it demonstrated to the electorate that the Unity Party candidates in these regions knew how the gifting system works and I saw it as a guarantee to the citizens that if they voted in a TUP mayor, that the NHS system would operate fully and that all citizens would be regularly gifted. In many past elections, the mayors have failed to achieve this and I just wanted to prove that the four mayors in question wouldn't be the same.

Now, I accept that there are many people who've been quoted as saying that party politics shouldn't be used in local elections, but the fact is the party of a lot of the candidates was hugely important in settling some of the results. I picked some strong candidates and helped them out, because I knew it would be a struggle against the PCP and UKRP sheep who vote mayors in based on political party. Despite my efforts, TUP only won 2 seats at the regional council and I'm very disappointed at some of the results, as i believe that we had the best candidate but didn't win. Nottingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham were elections where I think TUP fielded the best man for the job, but didn't get the votes. I hope that the mayors who did get voted in can prove me wrong by doing a wonderful job for their regions, but naturally I will be disappointed if any of them fail to deliver.
One benefit to come from this so far is that Squiddy is now free to help the London Council and take on some extra responsibility there if he chooses to move. I think he'd have been a great mayor and deserves the chance to take an important role in the eUK. I hope that Chrissetti, Eadie and Cball will also be given the opportunity to help out in their regions by the new mayors as I think they have a lot to offer, as do the other defeated TUP candidates in their respective regions.

Feel free to comment and I'll reply if anybody brings up any points I've missed here. Assuming no more controversy breaks out, my next press release will hopefully be the Unity Party general election manifesto, which should be prepared during the next week.