[Jhorlin/jamesw] The Home Front

Day 1,167, 21:58 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Jhorlin

Countrymen,

Building on the experience gained during my time as Country President in December 2010, I'd like to set out some plans for domestics if elected. I'll deal with the economic aspects of my plans in the next article. I'd also like to mention that cabinet applications are open, and anyone is free to apply either by going to the application website > here or by sending me a private message.

Cabinet Structure
I'll be tweaking my cabinet structure slightly, based on my prior experience as CP. As the previous system of a three-tiered MoHA led to the senior MoHA (who incidentally is running for CP too) choosing the easy option and doing the bare minimum, I'd seek to split the Ministry of Home Affairs into 2, with the senior MoHA concentrating on Education and the junior concentrating on Entertainment. I've also dropped the Cabinet Secretary, and the Minister of Legislative Affairs (as the Speaker of the House now assumes this role).



Ministry of Home Affairs
As I have mentioned, I'd seek to cut the MoHA down into Education and Culture, as the two-tiered division of labour seemed to work well previously. The MoHA will be responsible for ensuring that informative articles are produced for new players, mentoring and private messaging ensure that everybody is kept aprise of game changes and that new players are given a helping hand into the game. The MoHA will also help to maintain the welcome message to new players. In a nutshell, I envisage a MoHA designed around ensuring that young players understand the game and can therefore be on an equal footing to the rest of us in terms of game mechanics.

I see the Minister of Culture, the junior minister in the MoHA as a retention based role. The aim is to keep people entertained, to encourage forum activity, organise fun and festivities, and to run the National Newspaper Association. In a nutshell, I envisage a MoHA Culture designed around keeping players active and interested in the game.

Gifting
To my mind, gifting needs to be done sparsely for 2 main reasons. Firstly, we need to hold back as much as we can in terms of government spending, in the effort that we can lower taxes for everyone. Secondly, government needs to be focused on helping people understand the game, as much as possible as being preventative of the problem rather than reacting to it. However, I do recognise that gifting players who do make those mistakes does have a useful feature. Accordingly, I've found a middle groun😛 The Unity Party offer a food programme to new players who do fall prey to low wellness, and through a government partnership with that programme we can ensure that players who need help are able to get it, without any cost to the taxpayer. I'm quite happy to give some advertising space to my "rival" political party if it's for the good of the eUK, which I believe it is.



Government Articles
I think the obsession with other governments to create a Ministry of Communications to give a cabinet job to somebody is unnecessary. I'd also add that the introduction of the Cabinet Secretary in December was not as successful as I had hoped. Accordingly, as an active CP candidate, I will personally oversee the flow of news and that each government article is put into the top 5 so that it can be seen by everyone. This means I will generate a timetable of news articles to ensure that people are kept informed.

Congress Screening
Over the past couple of months, it's become particularly worrying that foreign parties are able to get a foothold in our congress system. This is worrying because the worst case scenario means we could lose control of our country. Accordingly, I've come up with a solution to mitigate such risks. Enter the Cross-Party Congressional Committee. It is my hope that because it would only involve the top 5 parties, and they would have to be completely in agreement, that such a system would protect our democracy.



STAGE 1 begins with a cross-party discussion about potential problem candidates. If they are identified early, and agreed to be a problem by all top 5 party presidents, then if available, the Army will offer up candidates to act as "blockers".

STAGE 2 involves government generating reports on every single congressional candidate for the top 5 parties, and then offering advice to the top 5 party presidents. If they all agree that a candidate is a problem, that candidate will be publically named as such on the forums and in-game, and an Army ATO group will be prepared to deal with such threats. This will be optional for Army soldiers, and if they prefer to vote for their affiliation they will be free to do so.

STAGE 3 involves the active management of ATO voters to oust the threat, if required. This can be organised through the MoD, as it was in the previous election. The likelihood is that we'll have spare MTs from Army suppies to fund the scheme. I might also add that voting out of the less desirable candidate will be in favour of the alternative with the most economical choice, rather than down any party lines



Aside from this, I'd also like to see congress continue the Citizenship Committee, which has proved a very useful asset in the past.

Ministry of Recruitment

Having reintroduced the Ministry of Recruitment in December, I'll be keen to see this continue. The slight tweaks I shall make however is that I'd personally oversee the success of the ministry, generating reports weekly on their success by looking at the real numbers of citizens.



As usual, please contact me if you have any of your own ideas about domestics, or if you would like to offer your comments on my plans.

I hope that on February 5th, you'll join me in standing up and declaring that we want to make this country great again. I hope that on February 5th, you'll join me in voting Jhorlin.



Jhorlin & jamesw
CP & Deputy Candidates for February 2011