Join the new world

Firstly, I don’t apologise for the extremely long nature of this report, so much so that I expect most will be too lazy to read it – which is fine. I feel that I need to provide feedback on each aspect of government this term, and have not held back in doing so. I also think I’ve been fair providing positive feedback where deserved, and critical appraisals where I feel they are due. All in all, I think I’ve had a reasonably successful term, certainly militarily where my strengths lie. So, report, here we go:

Ministry of Finance Thatcher

Military costs have dropped substantially from the costs that were spiraling out of control under the previous government. There’s the potential to drop them further (the GBP cost) as the minimum wage change went through, but for retention issues I didn’t want to hit the Army with wage cuts twice in my term.

In my manifesto I suggested exploring the idea of Money Market traders. This didn’t happen in the end, due to security difficulties and the admin announcement of the discontinuation of orgs. The potential is still there for a future CP, although I’d recommend only dishing out gold to the most trusted of citizens.

The GBP prices have also seen some craziness during my term. I’ve left this to Thatcher, as he’s far more experienced than I in this regard. Actually when looking at the value of currency in real terms, GBP is not at such a bad price right now. RMs are cheaper than many places abroad, just many of us older citizens are used to the older prices. Still, we’re working hard to improve the value of currency, and I’d expect to see this continue into the next CPs term.

As far as personnel go during this term, Thatcher has run things single-handedly. He’s frankly excellent – dependable, autonomous, intelligent and proactive. He’s incredibly organized, and ensures that things are done on time. He’s also a subject matter expert. I couldn’t have hoped for anything more from a MoF. I have no hesitation in recommending Thatcher for a position in government again.

Cabinet Secretary temujin94

The Cabinet Secretary was charged with 2 main endeavors during my term. The first of which was the formation of an experimental Shadow Cabinet. The second of which was to liaise with the various ministries regarding the publishing of government news articles to ensure that they are voted up and that the government does not clog the media.

The Shadow Cabinet has been a failure. It seems that there has been a combination of not enough to discuss, and an unwillingness from people to take it seriously or get involved. It’s a real shame, because if the amount of complaints that have been filed at me this term were put constructively into the Shadow Cabinet, I daresay it would have been a great success. Regardless, I’d recommend that it’s either overhauled so that people take part, or scrapped into next term.

The News Management system that I personally set up seems to have been ignored too. I suspect that this was poor communication between the Cabinet Secretary and the ministries. Accordingly I’ve found articles released in the media that haven’t appeared on the News Management googledoc I created, and have just been thrown up by uMs or Ministers. I’d recommend that government is much firmer in enforcing this if it is to continue into next term.

As far as individuals involved, both Lap12345 and Andy Milward were involved in helping out the Cabinet Secretary. Due to the minimal workload actually engaged with by the minister this term, I can offer no feedback on either this term.

As far as temujin094 is concerned, I am in two minds about him. The failure of both tasks assigned to the Cabinet Secretary this term indicates that he is perhaps not resolute enough. In our discussions he has argued otherwise to me, and I would say that he was incredibly pro-active in getting involved with the inci situation. I’d suggest that he is very good at showing initiative and reacting quickly to events, but probably ought to work on being more assertive in future positions of authority. He is still active and hard working when he chooses to be, and so accordingly I don’t see why he couldn’t continue to operate in a functional government.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs keram10

As far as MoFA goes this term, the only real policy I wanted to push through was the continuation of activity, particularly the UK hosted summits. Foreign Affairs are harder to predict, but I feel that government has reacted well to a changing situation. As far as summits go, we’ve held a military summit just near the end of my term, on Monday 3rd January. This has been a great success, and has proved informative for all involved as well as building relations with friendly countries.

Keram and GGRyan have both pressed the change of ambassadorial reporting to a bi-weekly schedule, which has greatly boosted activity. Keram has also dropped the number of regional co-ordinators, to try to counter the top-heavy nature of the department. This has been a great success and the whole department is run far more smoothly. Next term, a complete overhaul of ambassadors would be a useful activity.

The MoFA has also been of great utility in preparing us and exploring our options with regard to alliances. With the gradual collapse of Phoenix, the UK has been forced to consider alternatives, and through the Ministry’s hard work, we’ve got a great deal of options on the table for the next CP. We’ve also worked hard to maintain a good selection of MPPs, with a view to maintaining relations and ensuring good value for money.

Right now we have a particularly good relationship with France which is worthy of note, and I’m a great admirer of Koratos personally. We both hope to see this friendship continue to flourish, and to see the 2 great countries working together more and more often.

As MoFA is a relatively hands on ministry, there have been a number of supporting personnel this term. Cohen Nazar, Temujin94, JohnRupertMiranda, Sigfried Zachariesen, Michael Crookes, Lap12345 and JerryGFL are all on the ballot sheet.

Cohen Nazar stands out as being particularly prompt and punctual with reports. JohnRupertMiranda is well rated, and Temujin094 is a good solid performer. Lap12345 and Sigfriend Zachariesen have met the required standard.

Keram10 has been absolutely top notch for me this term. He always knows his stuff, and has a tendency to be available whenever I need him. He’s demonstrated that he can think on his feet, and is reactive to changing events. He’s also incredibly reliable and a great organizer of men and materiel. I would recommend him without any hesitation to another position as Minister.

Ministry of Home Affairs Kevy

Splitting the MoHA into two departments seems to have worked very well, as it has in the past. Each with a clear remit, there’s a clear division of labour. In future however I would recommend against operating a senior and two junior ministers for this, as it seems excessively top heavy.

My primary aim for MoHA was to cut down gifting to a minimum. This has been a success – gifting has dropped off a great deal, and shifting over to The Unity Food Programme has saved government costs. Without TUfP statistics, it’s hard to know whether gifting on the whole has dropped off or whether we’ve just offloaded from government. Either way, government costs have dropped and this can only be a good thing.

After assuming office, it took a long time for the welcome message to new citizens to change and be updated. This was poor organisation on my part, not realising for a good week that it needed doing, and then it took a little time to process the update through MoHA. I’d suggest that the new CP do this immediately as a matter of course. If you’re running for CP, I suggest you have your modified welcome message prepared so that you can propose it right away.

Mentoring seems to have worked very well for the most part. There was a Christmas void, whereby staff took a leave of absence and Thorrold was unable to cover the period adequately. It’s hard to know just how this might have affected mentoring over the festive period, however it’s key to ensure in future that such busy periods are covered.

I’ve had a great idea through from McAffee01, about providing a food reward for the successful completion of the mentoring programme. This would be relatively cheap to run (estimates suggest 30GBP/week), but provides an incentive for people to complete the programme. It’s always possible to withdraw food from army surplus stocks too, in order to cut the possible costs further. I’d suggest that the incoming CP expore the option – it may help to aid the mentoring programme and therefore retention.

The suggestion has also been passed up to make advertisements in game more permanent. The difficulty attached to this is cost, and it’s a difficult decision for the incoming CP to weigh up. I’d suggest against it, simply because adverts are relatively expensive. However, it would certainly aid publicity of MoHA schemes.

As far as entertainment goes, I think with Horice we’ve had as expected, a fairly entertaining term. King Woldy Day will take place next term, rather than this term, simply because we’ve been hit fairly hard by admin changes, and by the holiday season. Activity in the forum games section has been driven up – so Horice seems to have been fairly successful in this regard. Obviously this is dependent on the level of activity and retention from MoHA generally, so a wider active player base would aid this. It does get rather chicken and egg.

As far as MoHA personnel go this term, we had a rather extensive selection, which was good to see. I placed in two junior ministers, to run each department. Thorrold ended up running Education, with Horice responsible for Culture.

Thorrold took the role amongst other things that I had him doing in government. He was certainly active throughout, although it was his responsibility to cover the break over Christmas, which wasn’t done. Despite this, he was available throughout and made himself receptive to feedback along the way. In terms of his MoHA performance, I’d rate it as rather average, however it is important to note that his overall performance this term has been good.

Horice was my natural choice for Culture. Having worked alongside him in various Army regiments, I know he’s great with entertainment. He’s also got good experience running the NNA. This term, I feel that Horice really did perform, lifting spirits and rising above a lot of the partisan nonsense that goes on in the forums. He was reliable, and got things done. I’d be more than happy to recommend Horice for another role such as this again.

Kevy is more difficult for me to assess. He’s been about in-game – I know he has due to his population statistics articles. But he hasn’t really been about in government recently. Perhaps this inactivity is due to my structure – assigning a junior minister to each department. Still, I was very surprised to see him slip into inactivity, at the start of my term I almost expected him to be the next CP. I know he’s good, and I know he’s capable, but based on this terms performance I wouldn’t be able to recommend him to another CP, unless he’s able to drastically increase his activity.

Goku has done good work this term with the wiki page. He gets on with the job in hand and has good productivity. Stefan1992 it seems was not informed of the news management system by the ministers, but wrote good articles covering a good area, and seems to have been a reliable worker. Betafoxtrot worked well at the start of term, but seems to have been hit by burnout towards the end. Sammy11234 wrote a good article covering elections. McAffee01 has been a great worker, solid throughout and incredibly organised. Painkiller789 has been a good worker too, especially on messaging which is a gruelling job. Siegfred Zachariesen has been a background worker, but always responded positively and enthusiastically. Diakun has done some good work in information about his mentors. Simon Hind is a very new addition to the team, but has already pushed the boat out and seems very eager to continue in this vein. Mr Bull did some good work in the games section while he had access, but losing his access makes it hard to know throughout. Helia also joined the MoHA team, probably too late to do a great deal, but showed that she’s willing to do her part.

As the list of names is huge, it’s hard for me to provide any great measure of individual feedback on all of these guys. What I will say is that these people all volunteered their time for MoHA, and accordingly each has demonstrated initiative and selfless commitment. Thank you to all of you who helped in MoHA this term.

Ministry of Defence Artela

As far as my policies for defence this term, they revolved around getting our regions back. I inherited 3 open wars, and the admins kindly changed the war mechanics such that any open war created an open battle within 24 hours. When fighting a superior enemy force, a well matched enemy force, and an inferior but determined enemy force, this was not the kindest inheritance I could have got. My priority was to close these wars as fast as possible, but I wasn’t able to get permission from Phoenix to close the Canada war for days. Peace with the USA was strictly contingent on peace with Canada. I hit Ireland very hard in the early phases, to wipe them and absorb their companies, and to close the war. Ireland was MPP’d with the USA and Canada, who could have used the extra front to punish us harder. Having closed Ireland, our focus was on holding out until Phoenix support arrived, which I was told it would. By the time we got to SEoE, Phoenix was able to send some support, but told us we had to buy ourselves out of the war anyhow. Accordingly, we spent a great deal of gold tanking the fight. Hindsight is really a beautiful thing here – if we were going to spend, we ought to have spent at the start before losing regions. As it happens, winning the final battle seemed to prove to the USA that we weren’t going to sit back and get wiped, which promulgated a peace agreement. Perhaps doing this earlier would have been more useful, however with the breakdown of communication with Phoenix, this did not happen. I also can’t help but wonder that if we had spent more at the beginning of the campaign, perhaps the USA would have not relented and would have driven down our reserves, if not to London.

Once the wars were closed we became fairly secure. The threat of a Natural Enemy always loomed over us, but we were able to start stockpiling again, and this has been fairly successful. The lack of any defensive battles also made the UK more useful to our allies, whom we were able to support in their operations.

One of the criticisms leveled at me was about the lack of any UK open war. I do not see this is a bad thing – the population have had access to MPP battles for every second of every day, and so have not missed out on the ability to fight. Open wars are only useful if we are winning them, and the smaller countries around us are not only protected by their powerful MPPs, but also by their powerful allies, who could retaliate with a Natural Enemy unto us. I’ve also been criticized by the lack of a Natural Enemy proposal on our front. The above reason for not wanting to open a second war is my justification for this, and previously in my term, when we were trying to close wars, having one locked open for 7 days was not ideal. Especially for a meager 10% increase in influence.

The option of war remains available for future CPs, and will in all likelihood depend what happens when the world Alliance structures shift. I’ve manage to negotiate the military position of the eUK such that war is a real possibility, should a CP want to do it.

The migration of the Chief of the General Staff to Minister of Defence seems to have worked rather well too. We were able to drop the Armed Services Act, even before my term, simply because of the promises from both candidates to introduce the MoD. In my eyes, it’s only a name change, but it’s a name change that reinforces that the CGS/MoD is accountable to the Prime Minister, which is I think what the crux of the matter was. The military is operating just fine without congressional interference, and I’d like to see this continue.

Those in the military will also note that I cut wages for those working in the UK. We were paying 3x the minimum wage, as a “bonus” to soldiers. Frankly, when soldiers were getting free food well beyond what they produced, this was a vital area to cut costs. Our wage bill dropped to one third of what it used to be. Artela also moved RM production back into the Army, which reduced costs further. Right now, I’m happy with the efficient value of our military. With the successful change of the minimum wage, the option exists for a future CP/MoD to drop these local wages further. It’s something I wasn’t happy to do during my term, as I feel one wage drop is unpopular enough. The option remains available however, and may be a good way to cut some costs.

While I feel that I have no business in military leadership affairs, as Country President, Artela is theoretically accountable to me, and therefore I feel I ought to provide feedback. Artela, as expected, has excelled in her sphere of influence. She is hugely active and readily available, and devotes a great amount of time to ensuring the highest standard in all of her activities. She’s also able to adapt to situations, and has shown initiative in liaising with the MoFA, and at a higher level to Phoenix HQ in order to ensure the UK is always fighting in the correct place. She’s incredibly easy to work with, and commands the highest of respect from her subordinats within Army command. I have no doubt that she will continue to operate as an exemplary MoD.


Ministry of Recruitment Terribletiger

This ought to have been one of the easiest ministries to track success, however we’re not really at that stage. It’s also very difficult to track what success might have been had by the Ministry, and what by chance or other players.

Nevertheless, we set out with some great ideas for MoRec. These included national newspapers (>The Times, The Telegraph, etc), TV (>BBC Click) which never happened for various reasons. I’d also suggest to the next CP that MoRec needs to operate with careful forethought – baby booms are great on the one hand but also difficult to manage. A steady stream of recruits (nay, a torrent perhaps!) is far better to allow the economy to adjust.

The idea also existed to use RL cash to buy out of the BoE, that the eUK might generate funds to be used for external advertising. This is quite a dangerous and risky path, but could work as an option for the next CP.

As far as Terribletiger goes, he seems to have lived up to his name. I’m not quite sure how much he’s been doing this term, as he seems to have approached his work with a “can’t do” attitude. I had some great ideas for Recruitment, but they all depended on the tenacity and drive of the Minister. Unless he is able to really come out of his shell, I’m not able to recommend Terribletiger for another position in government until he can find himself.

Ministry of Trade Rory Winterbourne

The MoTrade is a relatively new addition to the UK domestic ministry family, but I feel that it continues to play an important role. This term, I had the MoTrade absorb the MoWork/MoProfit, however with the admin changes to organisation productivity these have been shut down.

The updates from MoTrade, and Rory specifically have been incredibly detailled, and this is the primary purpose for which I felt the MoTrade was suited.

Within the MoTrade there has been a reasonably good turnout of helpers. Big-Joe Pryde has been creating a database using the API, which should in future serve to help reduce the load on data collection jobs. JEngland has been doing a good solid job.

Rory Winterbourne has been top notch, the reports have been very detailled and arrive promptly. He’s extremely reliable and dependable, and can work autonomously. His knowledge not only of the economic game mechanics, but also of statistics is excellent. I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Rory for another job in government.

Ministry of Legislative Affairs bowen199

From the MoLA this term, there were 2 key areas I identified as important. The first was reporting – both the monthly reports, and weekly in-game reports to identify the actual work carried out in congress. It has been very difficult to produce reports this term, because congress has had relatively little to do. Most of the laws passed have been executive (MPPs, money granting, welcome message change etc.). We’re now starting to see a few slightly different things going through the House of Commons, but this is at the end of term.

The second area of focus was the formation of a citizenship committee. This has now happened, and I think the idea of taking a representative from each top 5 party works rather well. It’s not truly representative, but having a member from a cross-section ensures that there’s not too much of a partisan involvement in citizenship requests. I think it’s also important that congress are doing this, and are seen to be actively managing citizenship. After all, it is congress who are particularly at risk by granting out citizenship.

One area where future governments can focus is the actual candidates fronted by parties. This month, we had a bit of a citizenship scare due to 2 PCP congressmen. Perhaps closer liaison between the MoLA and the Party Presidents to screen congressional candidates may be beneficial. Given that a relatively low number of mobile voters is able to influence candidates in such a way, we need to be more mindful of those risks.

Bowen has performed as expected this term, he’s a fairly experienced and reliable MoLA by this point, and it has been good to have somebody to rely on. The job may well be underwritten by a Speaker of the House, which is going through Parliament at the time of writing this. I still can’t emphasise enough how useful it has been to have somebody such as bowen in cabinet, able to keep me informed on what legislation can and can’t do, as well as what current provision we have for bits and bobs. Bowen has proved incredibly useful in this regard, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him for another such job in the future.

Prime Minister Jhorlin

Perhaps the most difficult of reports to write, as I’ve always done what I think is best for the eUK. Nevertheless, based on feedback I’ve got, I’d probably have a few things worth noting. The first is that I seem to have been to aggressive with people who attacked government. I probably ought to have sat back and let others defend our decisions. It’s really not in my nature, however, I’d certainly advise the next CP to do so.

As far as my leadership style goes, it seems to have worked well for some ministries and less well for others. The experienced ministers whom were granted the freedom and autonomy to flourish seem to have done just that. The hands-off technique in this regard seems to have worked very well. Where I ought to have got more involved was with the younger ministers, who perhaps lacked the confidence or experience to do flourish in the same regard.

As for popularity, again I seem to have mixed reactions, which was to be expected. All in all, I’m happy with my term. I closed the wars and kept us safe, as well as pushing in and wiping Ireland at a useful point in time. I see these as my key successes: I’m a military CP, and was always going to be. We’ve also navigated ourselves into a good international position – developed a great working relationship with France (which I’d never have expected), and painted ourselves in a very good light for future alliance discussions.

Thorrold, as my deputy has been most useful to me this term. In reality, he probably hasn’t needed to do that much, because I’m quite hands-on with critical tasks. Nevertheless, he’s always been there to pick up tasks as I need them, and carried them out quickly. He’s precisely what I needed in a DPM – reliable and dependable. I have no doubt that he will make a great CP if he so chooses.

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Tldr: thanks to everybody who helped this term. Good luck to those getting involved agin! Thanks to everybody who voted for me, although I don’t see myself running again any time soon, it’s been a great learning experience, and I’ve achieved most of what I set out to achieve. And fear not, I’ll be about from place to place, I can’t be got rid of that easily 😉 I’ll also be about to help advise the next CP, should he want that advice.

Prime Minister signing out!

Regards,



Jhorlin