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Three weeks ago I sent Iain Keers and Goku Jones a PM asking them to compete in a debate over 5 round with the following rules
No atacks on players only on policies
Full sentences
The word 'Elitism' is banned
They both agreed to take part and the first round was started with the question
How will your party help bring new people into the government ?

Iain
Well like I said in my last article we put a lot of effort into promoting our young members into junior government roles. The only way to be a Minister is to work your way up from the bottom, make the contacts and get the experience organically. Our party has a huge focus on working with the government, so even when it's not a TUP President a lot of government members are workers are from TUP. For example BoerCharel the current MoD worked his way up through as a supplier, and since he came to TUP we gave him a lot of help from past MoD's so he could make the contacts and learn the job so he could easily step up into that role.

Saying that as national leaders we try to pick the best people for every job. We have members of UKRP, ESO, TUP and UKPP in government right now, all of which have worked hard to get their positions. We don't discriminate based on party, everyone who is willing to work together with us for the good of the UK is welcome. Ideas are always taken on board, we are always keen to hear from new players their experience of the existing system so we can try and improve it. One of our favourite methods is to listen to other people's ideas, then give them the chance to implement them. For example the citizenship committee idea I posted reflects the ideas of a lot of people over the past 3 months. I tried to include as many of their ideas as possible and it passed by a big margin with 85% of congressmen voting on the issue, including people from all parties. That's an example of us taking ideas from new people and using them to improve government. It's likely that the bulk of the committee will be new congressmen too, though that's incidental really.

Our Party President Bohemond is only a month and a bit old. We saw he had potential as an organiser, was trustworthy and active. You can see the results- he ran for election and won the support of the party.

Goku
1) 70% of our congress shortlist are players who started the game in 2012, the other 30% are older but haven’t been involved in government yet. 60% will be first time congressmen with the other 40% second time congress who, while still new, can help guide the others.

2) Our congress shortlist is designed to get new players active and on equal footing with older players. You may have noticed lots of our new players posting articles over the last week to get up the list and many have started posting already for next month.

3) We also support the new faces in smaller parties who normally don’t get a chance. All smaller parties were offered congress slots and WRP accepted, earning 3rd spot with their hard work

4) We are working with UKPP to bring new parties and new faces to the top job. Last month we ran new face Richard Feist and I’m sure our candidate next time will be a new face outside of the current elite. It hasn’t been discussed yet but as a New Era member you will have a say in this!

5) Our congress shortlist was most on media activity this month but as it has been such a success next time it will be more sophisticated have government activity included. Party Positions will be given out for this also. Expect to see our new players hitting government jobs just like they hit the media.

6) If a New Era supported CP wins: From last month’s cabinet offers with Richard Feist, we know that some long term ministers will step down if a new party takes over government. I also think that one or two ministries need some new blood and new ideas, so there will be new faces there.

7) If New Era is to support a CP candidate, we would ask that they either have a new face as minister with a more experienced one as deputy to support – or if an older player is minister that their deputy be a new player so they can learn the ropes

😎 We are developing party meetings every sunday at 7pm on IRC with write in opinions/votes via mail if you can’t make it. Everyone’s voice counts for the same and so a new player destroyed my tax policy last week 

9) I hope that I can give everything I have to New Era this month and step aside for a new face as PP next time, just as Hannibal did for me. People know who I am now so I don’t need anything else from the party – now we can use these positions to boost other players up

Iain
I guess I'm supposed to put forth a counter argument? I'd say most of that is fairly generic stuff, other than two points I'd like to refute-

Firstly the idea of the "old elite". Talon worked his way up to the top by volunteering in Ministries over the course of a year. When he finally became CP he was Minister of Finance, one of the most trusted players in the country. He's been re-elected in a popular vote four times this year because of his good qualities. Labelling anyone who works hard to get where they are as "elite" and people who are new as "suppressed" is silly. Obviously you want your leadership to be experienced and skilled. There's nothing stopping new players getting involved in government if they want to, working their way up like all our Ministers (from all parties) have done. I also find it funny hearing you throw "elite" round Goku, since you're a lot older than Talon and have been in government a lot yourself. One of the big problems at the minute is New Era effectively boycotting the government (because Talon is TUP) meaning their members gain no experience and skills, and are isolated from the other four parties.

Secondly ranking members by activity is a good idea, but this has led to some daft tactics. The top ranking New Era congressman is a RL Serbian who used to play a year ago or so. He has spent the last month mass-adding Serbian MUs as friends and spamming them with New Era articles to vote. I've had complaints from the leaders of several MUs about this, including the Serbian Special Forces- one of the top MUs in the world who helped save our asses last time we were invaded. Plus how many friends you have is such an arbitrary measure of activity- surely being involved in government would be a much better way to measure it?

In short at TUP we are more concerned about what we do for the country than what we do for our party, so our focus is on involving new members in government not just ejecting the "other" party .Basically TUP will work with any government, whoever they are. New Era will just boycott any government unless they win the election. What's funny is that the likely NE/UKPP candidate BigAnt was elected once already under the ESO banner, and we all served in his government then.

Goku
I actually asked to be in the current government in the MoD and gave my daily stike ideas as an application. I was told that it was a good idea the government would do, but there "wasn't any point" having me in the MoD to help as there was "nothing to do". This refutes and contradicts a few of your points Iain.

On the other hand, Kraaven refused to be MoFA for Richard Feist.

I don't think that I said the word "elite" once in my answer.

I already said that we will include government work next time for the shortlisting.

I think we should stick to just talking about our own party, policies and plans Iain. That way we won't say anything that is innaccurate.

The inaccuracies where:
1) New Era isn't boycotting the government, I offered to be in it.
2) A TUP minister refused to be in a New Era/UKPP government last month.
3) I didn't mention "The Elite" in my reply.

Which is why I won't think we should attack each other, and just focus on our own stuff

Iain
"4) We are working with UKPP to bring new parties and new faces to the top job. Last month we ran new face Richard Feist and I’m sure our candidate next time will be a new face outside of the current elite. It hasn’t been discussed yet but as a New Era member you will have a say in this!"

Sure looks like you said Elite to me. Seems you can't help yourself 😛

I think the reason you were refused was probably more to do with the fact that last time you were involved in the MoD you stole 70g of taxpayer money. And Kravenn is entitled to not work in governments if he doesn't want to, but TUP as a whole has no objection to working with anyone

Goku
Oh so I did 🙂 I didn't say that was a bad thing though, we were talking about new faces. You make it sound like I said it as an attack.

When I was refused I was given a different set of reasons so either you are misinformed or Boer lied to me.

See we are getting into attacking each other now. Is it really nessesary? Can't we just focus on our own policies?

All I can say is that it's one thing to say nice things and another to do them.

I think that New Era has shown that we can and will do them and the evidence is in the game to see from article activity to members elected.

What I've seen from the government is that all of the ideas and rhetoric don't nessesarily filter down to the players playing the game, which is why New ERa exists.

Iain
All I said was that Goku stole from the MoD, which is something he has admitted to. That might be one reason the MoD are not willing to involve him again. If I can't even state facts as a response to arguments I'm going to be a little bit constrained.

TUP aren't about doing "nice" things, we're about promoting and protecting the UK internally and externally in the world. We have a very strong moral code- it's all about honesty, loyalty, playing fair and keeping the UK safe. If you don't do those things, you get kicked out - Goku himself was a member for a while before his expulsion.

I'm not going to try and flatter people into joining us, bribe them with money or whatever. We obviously aren't going to represent every view in the UK which is why there are other parties. There has never been a UK government with all TUP members, and most are a mix of all parties. They have different views and attitudes and always have done.

What is quite annoying is that we're portrayed as a party that hates new players, stifles ideas and so on. UKRP and ESO are also labelled with this because they're conveniently older parties, despite the fact TUP has fought with them for years we're all labelled as the same. It's a bit silly really

Goku
The MoD gave me a different set of reasons, been through this Iain. I have no reason to think that Boer lied to me.

FINAL STATEMENTS

Iain
Just what I said already- TUP actively promote and encourage our members to go into government. Almost all our young members get placements within a few hours of getting onto IRC. If we can't find them a job to do in the area they want to go into, we encourage them to help the Ministry of Home Affairs which always has work. Putting people high in congress lists is easy, and being a congressman in itself doesn't offer much experience. A true measure of a party's youth policy is the actual experience they give their members, and TUP clearly does well in this area

Goku
All I can say is that it's one thing to say nice things and another to do them.

I think that New Era has shown that we can and will do them and the evidence is in the game to see from article activity to members elected.

What I've seen from the government is that all of the ideas and rhetoric don't nessesarily filter down to the players playing the game, which is why New Era exists.

All I can add is that TUP players may get given jobs right away by the government but several NE members have not been so lucky - some have been ignored, a Youth First minister wasn't told he got the job and wasn't given anything to do and some have been told that there is nothing for them to do.

We think that it is important to fight for all new players to get the same treatment no matter what party they choose to join, if we include everyone then we will keep hold of more players.

Results from round one
I have to award this round to Iain on the basic principle that getting young members into ministerial roles is more important than getting them into congress as it grants them more experience.

Upcoming rounds
1.Youth
2.Citizenship
3.The role of older citizens in the UK
4.How tax money should be spent
5.The future of the UK

If anyone has a better idea on how to format this please PM me