End of the Argument?

[cc]

Yeah, you're right cc,
I can just see where this is leading;
What proportion of our financial resources should be allocated to the Scottish elections?
Should members that live outside Scotland have a say on how the campiagn is run?
How relevant are regional elections when copyright law is controlled by Westminster?
All questions that are going to need answered soon, but until those who are ignorant of how Scottish politics and Scottish law work have the specific differences explained to them, it's not going to be easy for members to make their own minds up and vote on the changes to the manifesto for the Holyrood elections.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you on all those points.
Matters such as copyrights and patents, consumer protection, data protection and so on are out of Holyrood's control.
(You can refer to this document for a brief description of the Scottish parliament's powers vs Westminster's.)

Still, if our Scottish members feel they can come up with a worthwhile manifesto, which is still relevant to our main party policies, then we have no reason to in any way deny them the opportunity to contest the election.

If, however, their manifesto becomes something the party can't agree with, or which is totally irrelevant, or which will not raise awareness in the party, then their budget will be reduced accordingly. I trust our Scottish members to be mature enough to understand that it is not unreasonable because, after all, we are in this together and using our resources wisely is important!

Edit: Reading back, we seem to be saying the same thing, more or less, except I expect to see a draft of their manifesto after they've had a chance to think about it and you want to know what they plan to put in it beforehand.

[Hamish]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you on all those points.
Matters such as copyrights and patents, consumer protection, data protection and so on are out of Holyrood's control.
(You can refer to this document for a brief description of the Scottish parliament's powers vs Westminster's.)

Which is why the manifesto for SE2011 should be changed and not include such policies.

[cc]

Fair enough, but let me tell you in advance that I can't and won't support any completely random policies on healthcare, agriculture or fishing...

That said, I'm curious what you guys will come up with.

[Finlay_A]

Fair enough, but let me tell you in advance that I can't and won't support any completely random policies on healthcare, agriculture or fishing...

That said, I'm curious what you guys will come up with.

We won't have any policies on non-pirate issues in the pirate manifesto, for obvious reasons. Any non-pirate issues would be covered on the same "candidates make up their own mind" basis that we ran GE2010 on.

[azrael]

We should tone down the (c) reform stuff, but we should still make sure we say what we stand for...

What do you have in mind in terms of toning down the copyright reform parts of PPUK policy?

[cc]

What do you have in mind in terms of toning down the copyright reform parts of PPUK policy?

The Scottish Parliament doesn't have the power to change copyrights. Copyright reform cannot be a major theme in this campaign.

[scottishduck]

This discussion can probably be put to rest now. We seem to be going in circles.

[rancidpunk]

I've been doing some research tonight and I haven't been able to get any specifics about what needs to be changed, all three of our core policies are covered by UK wide policies controlled by Westminster.
The Human Rights Act covers freedom of expression and privacy. Copyright and Patent Act covers the rest. Apart from differences in the process of law that enforces these acts there is nothing that we can use to persuade Scottish election voters that a pirate candidate is relevant to Holyrood.
Which does beg the question of why we are proposing to stand for the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly when neither body can affect the changes we want?

[azrael]

What do you have in mind in terms of toning down the copyright reform parts of PPUK policy?

The Scottish Parliament doesn't have the power to change copyrights. Copyright reform cannot be a major theme in this campaign.

Surely the manifesto needs to present who we are and what we stand for. By saying that the Scottish parliament can't do anything about copyrights therefore we need to tone down where we stand on copyrights seems uncomfortable to me. I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean tone them down to be less scary but still keep them - as by your own comment here any copyright policy would be irrelevant. But I don't like the idea of the PPUK producing a regional manifesto that didn't present our core policies to make it clear what we stand for.

I am worried at the bigger (or perhaps smaller) picture. If we drop policies from the manifesto where they are not relevant to the level of election, does that mean our manifestos for local government will not include anything at all about copyright or patents? If so I think we miss a serious chance to educate the constituents (at local and regional elections) about what we stand for nationally.

This discussion can probably be put to rest now. We seem to be going in circles.

It's ok to talk ourselves in circles for a while. To abuse metaphors it's like only one half of the ship is rowing, we won't get anywhere by all of us just stopping rowing - we just need to work this through until we all start rowing in the same direction again.

[Finlay_A]

I disagree with rancid, if there's no point contesting the scottish or welsh elections, then by the same reasoning there's no point contesting local elections either. To get people elected to Westminster (even if the lib-dems grow some balls and demand STV) we will still need to have built up to it. There are intermediary steps, like getting councillors elected. We shouldn't neglect this.

As for the manifesto, there's nothing stopping us writing what we believe as well as what we propose to legislate. For example for copyrights and patents say paragraph 1 will be about what we believe about copyrights and patents. paragraph 2 will be about what in particular we would do about them. I'm sure it won't be empty. We won't be able to make the fundamental change in this particular policy area, but we can still get some things done I'm sure: It'll just be a case of digging around to see what can be done. We have control over legal and criminal issues it might be possible to make the law less harsh to filesharers.

I think what we need to do is get researching and get down exactly what we can implement in each key area. If it turns out there is nothing we can do in Holyrood (which I'm sure won't be the case) then we can always run for council elections coming up

So I propose we have an informal meetup in Glasgow at some point next week, somewhere we can get some work done, eg library. Any pirates nearby pm/text/skype/whatever me and we'll arrange a manifesto research/writing session. Sound good?

[azrael]

As for the manifesto, there's nothing stopping us writing what we believe as well as what we propose to legislate.

Absolutely agree with this. I was concerned what 'toning down' might mean. On the basis that we're all broadly agreed that our core message remains our core message, irrespective of the level of election, it absolutely makes sense for manifesto policies to target the specific election.

I think the broader concern is to try and avoid producing a manifesto under the banner of PPUK that then makes a significant proportion of the membership uncomfortable. It's one thing for a single candidate to pair up the generic PPUK manifesto with their own personal policies, and a very different kettle of fish for a particular election's PPUK manifesto to contain 'personal/regional' policies that the wider party cannot support.

None of this presumes the regional policies won't be supported more widely in the party - and I believe the only way to determine that will be for the Scottish region to produce the manifesto they want, hoist it up the flagpole and see if the rest of us salute.

Where do we draw the line between a manifesto containing permissable personal non-core policies, and a manifesto that has to solely reflect the wider party views? I think this question needs answering across the nation and across all levels of government - it is not a Scottish-specific issue.

[rancidpunk]

If we had a lot of financial resources available to us I wouldn't hesitate to agree that we should field candidates in every possible election.
I still don't think we should have fielded more than one candidate in the GE2010 because the FPTP system meant we had very little chance of gaining much from doing so. Yes, we got the experience of the process but I still don't think that we gained much of a return on our investment in terms of gaining members and publicity. Probably it would have been better to spend the money on some newspaper advertising.
As our membership is so widely dispersed around the country it would seem more logical to save our resources to field candidates in the next European Parliament, where members can campaign wherever they live and any votes they can win us will count for the party as a whole. Local council elections I see as free publicity, no deposits to pay, so even just putting our name on the ballot paper is worth doing.
It is not a pleasant pill to swallow, but we just aren't going to have the money to do everything that we want, so some cold strategic planning is needed from the exec to decide what the party is going to do with it's money. I would suggest that we field just one candidate for Scottish and Welsh regional elections, get our names on the ballott paper for free in council elections and put the rest of our resources behind the campaign for the European Parliament.
As far as manifesto changes go it is difficult, for me at least, to see how we can do much to the pirate manifesto that we have now without becoming something other than the pirate party. As you have all probably seen on these forums, I am very much against claiming that we have any more or any less policies than the three core policies that are common to the pirate movement worldwide. These policies are our identity as a party, I just can't see any way round that and I've got to say that I really don't want to as they are the reason I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I feel more loyalty and passion for a cause than I ever thought I could.
I hate the way the world is run for the benefit of the few and I really do believe that in the future our party can make a real difference to the world as more and more people become victims of their own governments simply to protect the incomes of the rich.

[epriezka]

If we had a lot of financial resources available to us I wouldn't hesitate to agree that we should field candidates in every possible election <snip> I would suggest that we field just one candidate for Scottish and Welsh regional elections <snip>

I don't agree with John, but his arguments deserve respect. We need to deal with the issues raised.

It is inevitable that there will be many differences of opinion, amongst our supporters, on how to spend the money raised by the party. Inevitable! The solution to this is not to have lots of internal arguments about how to spend one single UK-wide pot of money. The solution is to have multiple pots of money, for more specific goals. So if PP Scotland wants to field a large number of candidates it should be up to PP Scotland to raise a separate campaign fund for that purpose (and ditto for Wales). Keep the money distinct from the rest of the money raised by the party, and then we can get a true picture of how much our supporters really want us to put up candidates in Scotland. If they really want candidates, they'll donate. If they're not that bothered, they won't donate so much. And, most crucially, it lessens the need for unproductive arguments about how many candidates should be fielded and avoids causing internal tensions between supporters. A stout supporter like John has no reason to grumble if some other pirates choose to put their money into a specific pot for candidates in Scotland. What is more, all fund-raising experience suggests that having specific pots leads to more fund-raising in total, as people will be motivated to give to both the general cause and to support the specific goals they also care about.

So please, pirates of Scotland and Wales... don't make the mistake this party has already made once with respect to the General Election. The General Election campaign was less effective than it should have been because of a lack of administration and organizational capability, not because of a lack of debate about policies. We spent too long debating policies and what should be in the manifesto, and not enough time gearing up an organization to actually field candidates and run a campaign - and hence people like John have a point when they ask if the money that was spent on fielding candidates generated a good return for the party. Pirates of Scotland and Wales, set up separate campaign funds now. Open bank accounts now. Set up separate campaign web pages now. Ask for donations to your campaign funds now. Start allocating roles and responsibilities for managing the Scots and Welsh campaigning activities now. Don't go down the easy route of debating policy and debating policy and debating policy and.... oops another election goes by where our organization and administration was too amateurish and left everything too late, but hey look at the great policies we have and nobody will read about because our campaign machine was ineffective.

[Hamish]

It's worth noting that in a region, one deposit pays for 7 list candidates. Although I do think we should only stick to 2 or 3 regions (out of 8), and pool our resources there.

And yes, we need to srsly get started now, and STOP DEBATING SUCH TRIVIAL ISSUES.

[cc]

Surely the manifesto needs to present who we are and what we stand for. By saying that the Scottish parliament can't do anything about copyrights therefore we need to tone down where we stand on copyrights seems uncomfortable to me. I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean tone them down to be less scary but still keep them - as by your own comment here any copyright policy would be irrelevant. But I don't like the idea of the PPUK producing a regional manifesto that didn't present our core policies to make it clear what we stand for.

I am worried at the bigger (or perhaps smaller) picture. If we drop policies from the manifesto where they are not relevant to the level of election, does that mean our manifestos for local government will not include anything at all about copyright or patents? If so I think we miss a serious chance to educate the constituents (at local and regional elections) about what we stand for nationally.

I said:

We should tone down the (c) reform stuff, but we should still make sure we say what we stand for.

[azrael]

It's worth noting that in a region, one deposit pays for 7 list candidates. Although I do think we should only stick to 2 or 3 regions (out of 8), and pool our resources there.

And yes, we need to srsly get started now, and STOP DEBATING SUCH TRIVIAL ISSUES.

In terms of the Scottish elections, unless I can help, it's you (plural, aimed at Scottish regional members) that should get started now as far as debating these issues, if you can't do both, then sure, stop debating these issues. I am making the time to debate what I regard as important and I'll stop when I either (i) don't have the time or (ii) see no further value in the debate.

[epriezka]

It's worth noting that in a region, one deposit pays for 7 list candidates. Although I do think we should only stick to 2 or 3 regions (out of 8), and pool our resources there.

And yes, we need to srsly get started now, and STOP DEBATING SUCH TRIVIAL ISSUES.

In terms of the Scottish elections, unless I can help, it's you (plural, aimed at Scottish regional members) that should get started now as far as debating these issues, if you can't do both, then sure, stop debating these issues. I am making the time to debate what I regard as important and I'll stop when I either (i) don't have the time or (ii) see no further value in the debate.

I think we're now debating whether we should continue to debate something. A meta-debate, if you like.

Somebody might disagree with my last statement. Then we could argue about that and have a meta-meta-debate.

Meanwhile, has anybody opened a bank account in the name of the Scots party? Is anybody going to? The procedure for opening a bank account is different to the one for debate because (a) it involves somebody being decisive and filling out some forms without first needing to share their opinions on the forum (b) it would represent some real progress (for a change).

If somebody did that, I can foresee an amazing new opportunity opening up... people could put money into the bank account and then everyone might learn how many candidates the party can afford to field. That could be a pretty useful datum for the debate about how many it should field...

[Hamish]

It's worth noting that in a region, one deposit pays for 7 list candidates. Although I do think we should only stick to 2 or 3 regions (out of 8), and pool our resources there.

And yes, we need to srsly get started now, and STOP DEBATING SUCH TRIVIAL ISSUES.

In terms of the Scottish elections, unless I can help, it's you (plural, aimed at Scottish regional members) that should get started now as far as debating these issues, if you can't do both, then sure, stop debating these issues. I am making the time to debate what I regard as important and I'll stop when I either (i) don't have the time or (ii) see no further value in the debate.

That's why I said 'we'.

I'll pm Pete and see what the deal is with an account. See if we can get it opened soon as.

[rancidpunk]

I'm enjoying this debate, so I'll keep going until someone gives me specifics on a Scottish manifesto, i.e. drafts one.
Then I would like to know why the PP is in any way relevant to regional elections for bodies that have no bearing on our aims.
I don't care if the questions are annoying, I think they are important enough to pursue.
I'm not anti anything and I'll do whatever I can to help a Scottish campaign, so good for hamish for taking charge of getting the ball rolling.

[cc]

Then I would like to know why the PP is in any way relevant to regional elections for bodies that have no bearing on our aims.

Two things quickly come to mind:
1) Campaigns help us raise awareness in the party. Brand familiarity is good.
2) Getting someone elected will give us credibility. It will also get us a lot of publicity.