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Note that membership has declined yet again today.

Watching the match I thought I had a few minutes to get in an evening article for my paper. I would like to take a few minutes to reflect on the role of a leader, a manager in any group.

People might say as an e😜arty president I'm not entitled to have an opinion on current party affairs, I would say this is rather ridicoulous. As a normal, regular citizen, and member of a party, I am still entititled to have a private opinion. The same people went radically against party policy to oppose the house of Lords. These people wanted Lords to remain in the political landscape, yet they don't want a past President expressing his opinion or concerns. The House of Lords is genetically not part of Social Democrat ideals.

Why am I mentioning this ? The de facto leader of the party, which is not really the actual president, told me when I considered the chase after popularity was not what politics was about, he told me I was a poor politician. And it is strange to see people who are really conservatives be members of a Social Democratic Party.

Why am I mentioning this ? Again... I don't believe that elections are leadership for a simple popularity contest. I don't think you can be a good leader if you are searching for popularity. Having managed people in real life, and in a few games as well, I have noticed that the ambition of pleasing people to win their loyalty never works out. This for many reasons. The first is obvious, you can never please everybody. The second is that if you conceed something to someone just to be popular, there can be a backlash effect from other members of the group. The third one is, you can not manage a group and have an ambition for the group if you give everybody what they want.

I think it is a fact of life that chasing after popularity ends up blowing up in your face. False interested loyalities because the leader gives you what you want fades when you can not give them what you promissed.
This is true wherever you go. If I were to take an ingame example, you can easily spot out those in the SDP who are not loyal to people or ideas but to advantages. All Social Democrats in Congress are not Social Democrats in their heart. I am not insulting anyone, or trying to stigmatise anyone. Without being partisan, look at KaisKais's manifesto for Congress. Not only does he not mention social Democracy, he barely mentions SDP without stating what it means.

Maybe I'm old school in management, I will listen to peoples concerns, I think I have already proved this on hundreds of occasions. But I stand my ground and think that TRUE POLITICS are about VALUES not popularity.

You can not ignore the basic principles that are the heart and soul of a party. The heart and soul of the Social Democrat Party are Social Democrat values. And in Kaiskais's case reading his manifesto, you do not notice anything Social or Democratic.

It gets even worse with Rory Winterbourne that never bothered to publish a manifesto that we know of...

This new group that is supposed to be leaders of the Social Democrat party, let's take a look at the only manifesto opposing the official candidate Eric Ross.

The following points are not KaisKais bashing, he is the only person to have enough time and courage to print articles. And therefor I am allowed to quote his article. The people following him closely probably share the same point of view.

KaisKais wrote Well, I spent the first 7 months of my eLife at the RFA, but after the change to Spectrum, I saw that the SDP were on the rise and I thought they might be a good change. I think we've done great in our first month in the top 5 Clearly enough he never joined SDP because he was a Social Democrat, but because the party was in the top 5, the opertunity to get elected there were interesting. What is his definition of Social ? We don't seem to have a in-party social section at the moment. eFootball and all that is great, but I think a separate forum section for Entertainment would be a good idea. For him, the Social in Social Democrat Party is entertainment. This is so wrong. The Social values at the core of Social Democracy is solidarity.
What does our Social really mean ? Social for Social Democrats is solidarity. This is what the party companies I promissed to set up in my first term serve as role. The basic wage is 3.8 GBP regardless of skill level for Social Democrats and people who share a common ideology, this offer was extended to the Socialist Party, then lead by Daniel de Vito, the INGSOC party lead by Rory Winterbourne and The People Voice's lead by Heaugentor (if I spell that correctly). On top of these 3.8 GBP a day, all staff got healthcare benefits in the form of gifts. The youngest could count on a weapon fro mtime to time on top of healthcare. There was also a housing scheme to get housing for decent prices without fear of being scammed for SDP members. For me this is what Social means. Of course I also did some entertainment, I created SDP United Football team with HerefordUnited, and invest 10 gold to get the team up and running.

What did Kaiskais say about these companies ? The Org 'SDP Party' does not deserve that name, as it is in no way linked to the SDP, as it does not correspond to the party's members' wishes. So unilaterly, he claimed that SDP members do not wish to work in the party companies because their are no advantages ? So he is asking Social Democrats to give up Social values.

He also claimed about Democracy I think we should hold forum votes on all big issues in the party e.g. who we back for CP. Maybe even smaller things like current amendments and proposals through congress to give us an idea of the whole party's opinion. Well, Eric Ross's opinions, who got 25% of the last PP vote wre not listened to. He was forced out of the party after continued harasment on the forums. Isn't this a bad way of being Democratic ? You come foward with 25% of the party wishing an increase of the minimum wage (we are not hear to discuss if we should or should not) and you are pushed away and out by constant nagging. What about my case ? Removed from the usergroup like that over a whim ? I remember my last electoral result, 88.5%. Yet I'm not entitled to express an opinion. I wonder where the Democracy is there. This is suprising coming from a person who was a former Radical Free Thinker. He did not win the Party Presidential Election, KaisKais got 30% of the vote and did not win. I give him his due, when he speaks he represents 30% of SDP members. But how many of them floated in from elsewhere to vote for him ? And even if they were permanent party members, 30% is not a majority from which you command a party.

All this ends up on a Party Companies - I'll leave this up to the companies manager, but there is more than one way to use the party companies. We can go for a straight money-maker, or we can offer newbs a higher wage than normal, but only if they join SDP, come on the forums etc. I thought he did not wish for party companies earlier ?

And conception of values ? At the moment, we're centre-left, but I'd like to propose a switch to centre. Why? Because not all our members our left-wing May I remind Social Democracy is centre-left. By forcing out the left-wing of a centre-left party, you are forcing out the majority of the party.

What is my point ? If politics is a question of values rather than popularity, I am pretty sure the current Melophore-bashing put in place will die out as soon as we see the person pronning popularity blow out on his promisses. 225 members ingame by the end of my term / 5-6 MPs Membership has dropped from 188 to 179, and we have 2 MPs out of the 4 we had when he moved in.

My point is on the long run, it is better to have a few faithfull friends in a party defending the core values of this party rather than flatter a few people who flip-flop on the first occasion. When the tide turns, they will turn against you as quickly as they turned against me.

Even if I lose, I know I can still count on my true friends. I still know there are people in this party that feel close to the social and democratic values the party was founded upon, on principles of solidarity and a certain sense of humility. Even if they are not on your forums, and you call it pathetic to rely on "two-clickers." I quote Melophore starting to appeal that the 2-clickers support him now, that is desperation.

Empty threats based on having no values Rory ran against me for PP, and Maddog is going to run against me. Is that not the person who is banned for a little while for having insulted me ?

To conclude, because time is short. the Social Democrat Party must either return to Social Democrat values or change its name so Social Democrats can once agin hope for a fair representation of their ideas. I will be a leader on basis my authority on values, on true social democrat ideals. You can not claim to lead the Social Democrat Party if you are not a Social Democrat yourself. Would you image Bob the Terrorist being UKRP Party President ? Or Dishmcds President of the Communist Party ? I really do not think so.

If you had the courage to read through this, thank you.