The Unity Party - Local Elections Reaction
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.
Comments
It\'s good to hear a proper press release from the TUP regarding these recent events - I respect that. Regarding the London Council, I\'ve contacted Angelfeather about it but have yet to receive a reply. The Council will continue its job as best it can, but it has always, and should always, be led by a strong mayor, and I hope Angelfeather can provide that.
I\'ll admit London wasn\'t one of the regions I expected the party to win. I assumed it to be safe PCP territory as did a lot of other people, hence me being more concerned about 4 or 5 of the other candidates. I will do all I can to support Angelfeather and I hope he\'s up to the task.
Good article mate, I think it definitely addresses all of the recent criticism. Thanks for the kind words too 🙂
I should be moving to London too, as soon as Angel responds and accepts..... : /
Your candidates gifting citizens and saying it was from NHS program is not only underhanded it is a dirty tactic and should be punished imo.
You call it giving them an edge (which backfired anyway), I call it a cheat.
Always nice to see a proper statement explaining a controversial decision. I am new to both the Kingdom and this party, and I strongly hope that AngelFeather, as Mayor of my Region, will give an exemplary performance as it\'s chief representative.
“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.”
The point was it is London. Is bad enough in any region but London cannot afford to have an inactive mayor.
Is it so hard to ask your candidates to post manifestos before you put them up?
“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.”
1. You didn’t help you candidates out much or angelfeather would have had a campaign.
2. PCP and UKRP sheep voter lmao every party has sheep voters and its something that we can only discourage but to say our parties only win because of sheep votes is an insult.
“Nottingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham were elections where I think TUP fielded the best man for the job, but didn\'t get the votes.” That’s your opinion but those that did win those regions had shown to be liked by some.
IMO London was won by the wrong man and this has some backing as Stan is a great mayor who was liked and angelfeather seemed to have no vocal support.
You put up some good candidates and I commend you for that but I’m really not happy that nothing was done to get angelfeather know. This is not an attack on him as I also get many asking to be mayors but its bad politics not to prepare your candidates.
Also London was never a PCP stronghold. It was a UKRP stronghold but we managed to win it due to Piperbunnys popularity and mayor skills. Ever since then its stayed PCP because we have always fielded a strong candidate that has a good campaign or previous months of experience behind them.
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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.
You gave new members the money, yet you seem to say that you did that to give strong members an edge. Am I missing something here?
Just so you guys know if Stanwephen walks away from the council now, London would burn.
The new members that I gave money to had proven themselves to be strong candidates, despite being new to the game because of the quality of their forum posts and newspaper articles over the past week or so which showed them to have plenty of ideas and enthusiasm. In these cases, I believed them to be stronger candidates than their experience would suggest and wanted to support them to maxmise the chances of the voters sharing that view and helping these candidates get the positions I believe they deserved.
On the angelfeather issue again, I sent him a pm replying to his request and I would have sent him some information in that message. Unfortunately my outbox has filled up since then so I can\'t find it to check back and I\'ve actually forgotten exactly what details I sent. As I\'ve been dealing with a lot of other issues and wasn\'t really targeting the London election (I didn\'t think we had a chance), I didn\'t really consider the importance of it at the time.
Also, I think that to get to the bottom of this issue once and for all, it would be a good idea to start asking some of the citizens of London why they gave angel their vote. Even Sherlock Holmes got 11 votes and PCP\'s vote share was a surprisingly low percentage, so clearly a number of London citizens wanted a change.
Congratulations TUP!
It\'s good to see TUP and UKRP are starting to recover from the recent trough and are both starting the threaten the ruling regime again.
Can i just say Alain prepared me for the election and also his continued support will be much valued. I cant speak for Angel but please don\'t questions Alain\'s faith on preparing candidates, i was fully prepared for what lay ahead
Yes Alan but you were also on the forum weren\'t you?
I think it is good to see TUP and UKRP recover but not with a 5 day old citizen in London as mayor, that is all.
Stan has moved about 40 people out of London, and the people who listen to him are presumably the ones who actually vote, and most probably for the mayor who can do the job. Still haven\'t heard a peep out of Angel.
\"Your candidates gifting citizens and saying it was from NHS program is not only underhanded it is a dirty tactic and should be punished imo.\"
I did NOT say that it was from the NHS program. I said that I would be more active than the current mayor at gifting and that several gifts were on the way to them as a token of good faith.
Any implication that the NHS was involved was a misunderstanding and I\'m sorry if that was the way it came out.
Chrissetti, whether NHS was mentioned or not it is still bribing citizens for votes, hence cheating.
I respected you as a fellow candidate, but I find it highly offensive that your party decided to bribe Birmingham citizens.
It was a fruitless expense since you didn\'t win anyway, but would you not have preferred to run for mayor based on your views rather than based on bribery ?
I just hope TUP learn a lesson from this and publicly pledge never to attempt to bribe citizens for votes in the future.
The PCP never apologises or stops doing the things it\'s criticised for, and TUP have done nothing wrong. Gidting is a good thing: it increases the wellness of the recipient.