My report on Oldham East & Saddleworth by-election

[cabalamat]

The fact is that PPUK would be lucky, in coming years, to save a deposit, let alone win seat in parliament.

If we concentrate on PR elections -- such as devolved assemblies, and the European Parliament -- then the hurdle to get elected is much lower.

We can also concentrate on local elections, where it doesn't cost anything to stand. Scottish and NI locals are particularly good for us because they are fought under a PR system (STV). We don't currently organise in NI but if we can do so, we should.

For £500 in a Westminster election, we get a mailshot of the constituency. For £500 in the Scottish parliamentary election, we get a mailshot of a region equal to 7 Westminster constituencies. Furthermore, the cost of each leaflet should be lower, because (1) we're ordering a larger number, and (2) we know when the election will happen a long time in advance, so don't have to pay extra for prompt printing.

[scuzzmonkey]

Philip you're thinking far too far ahead - Scotland is "lucky" in the sense that you have a group of very, very passionate people pushing everything through in a (relatively) close proximity - there is no point in us specifically targeting certain election types, and areas if we simply do not have enough actives members to do it.

The GE is a perfect example of us just saying "fuck it" and getting as much done as possible, my efforts with the press team on top of any other party work and work-work meant I was sleeping maybe 3 hours a night, and by no means do I wish to imply that I was the only person that had this experience - but the point I'm making is that we need more active members...and be that through simply engaging currents, or increase the member base I don't really care.

We need more members.
We need more members working.
We need to increase our local profiles.

These 3 things are all required if we ever want to poll higher than 0.5% - or heaven forbid break the magical 1000 votes barrier.

[danbrett]

We should think about what the Tunisian activists have gone through for standing up for freedom of speech and freedom of information. When I think of them, I think of how easy it is for us to set up stalls, run petitions and campaign for votes.

[Vanders]

On the subject of engaging existing members, perhaps I can provide some feedback? I was involved, minimally, in the early days, before PPUK was even registered as a political party. I am a fully paid up member and recently donated toward the expenses of the recent by-election. Other than that, I have not been active in the party. Partly this was due to various party members who were disruptive and caused disenchantment within the party: I shan't name names but most people will probably be able to assemble their own list. Since then I have simple maintained a loose association with the party, on the basis that getting involved via. the forums or IRC is simply too much effort for too little gain. My main contact with the party has been via. the infrequent emails which are sent out, which contain little information but which occasionally entice me to check the forums. However, the emails rarely contain much detail.

From my point of view, at the moment the forums and the active members of the party seem to be very focused on the political minutiae rather than the bigger picture, which will naturally put off those of us who are not politics majors. There doesn't seem to be very much visible constructive discussion about policies or the direction of the party, nor much discussion about important topics such as how we get our message out. It's no use worrying about a 0.3% vote in a by-election when there has been almost no attempt to establish a core campaign which lays out our policies and goals in a pure English. The leadership (and sadly I'm including Loz here) don't seem to engage members enough, and do not appear to offer much in the way of leadership on the bigger issues. As an example, what is our strategy for the May elections? What is our strategy if the AV referendum is delayed by the House of Lords? There seems to be very little forward planning. By rights we should have had a solid strategy for the May elections in place long before New Years, yet all I've seen so far is a thread on the forums asking for potential candidates.

I don't want to type away criticising when I've hardly been heavily involved myself, so please accept that this is my opinion and may be highly subjective. Yet there it is.

[ajehals]

Thanks to glambert for the post. I would just like to add, very briefly (as it is now 3am..) that I can't disagree with anything that he has said here.

The party needs to up the level of activity it does outside of the forums and IRC etc.. That is useful in all sorts of ways, but it is essentially an echo chamber. We need people out there, which probably means we need to expand membership, which again means we need people out there, then we need to push our message (or some subset of it) out to people. Hell, it isn't even just in the real world where advocacy seems to be an issue, I read a stack of politics related online material daily, I read reddit constantly and, apart from what I submit on occasion I almost never see anything PPUK related.

The party bureaucracy needs to move faster, people with roles within it need to do them (I remember this being a bit of an issue when I was helping tim in Gorton last year too) and we need to be more organised.

Lastly, I wasn't a member during the general election, I wasn't a member during the by-election, I am now and I intend to do what I can to make sure that this party moves forward.

Edit: Oh and as to 'proportions of membership' with regard to turn out, it's not comparable. Just as when it comes to cash or media access or anything else, we need to work harder and smarter, not whine about a lack of resources. What we should be looking at and being vary aware of is that if the BNP are out mob handed, bussing people in from Liverpool and elsewhere, then maybe we should try and make as much effort as possible..

And as a last thing, even if nothing else, being at a count and pushing an agenda in an election is quite an intoxicating thing, it is addictive, it is fun and it is memorable. This was a historic by-election and we watched it from the hall the count was taking place in, that is something. Hell, I got up at 6 the morning of the election and got back to Sheffield after 7 the next day (then had a day of looking after kids and finally got to bed rather late..), I was knackered and it was definitely worth it, even with just 97 votes (but hey, that's 97 people who walked to a polling station, took a pencil, looked at the ballot and, after some thought, one hopes, put a mark next to the PPUK option...).

[scottishduck]

Thanks for your thoughts Graham. I think a number of us feel the same frustration about how active members are. I had hoped to make it down for the count or even some campaigning but my job is being extremely inflexible for time off. I fully intend to quit it soon and find something else, I want to be able to give more time to the party and help it grow.

Speaking to organisations like BPI and ORG is a very positive move and one I wish I had thought of. If we could position ourselves as the primary go-to for all the issues we stand for, then it would open a large number of doors for us, interest prospective members, all good stuff.

It may interest you to know that for the Scottish campaign it is likely we will not be doing a mailout as the effectiveness is questionable for the size of our party and cost involved and there is talk of doing a national tour (of sorts) so that we can maximise the help available to each candidate.

The important thing with each election is that we do as much as possible, whether the effects are positive or not, it will give us much needed knowledge and experience.

Oh and finally, of course, a big thanks to everyone that worked so hard on this campaign, to Loz and Graham, you did a great job with the resources available to you. For me something that stood out was a comment (I believe from an MP) on twitter that said we did "very badly". While this would appear negative, my feelings were that this person believed that we should have done significantly better, that we were deserving of votes, that we were a legitimate party. This filled me with hope for the future, we just need to hope we can hold on to active members and don't become demoralised.

[Finlay_A]

Billboards are surprisingly cheap and UKIP plastered themselves across many billboards and had beermats and signs at most pubs in OES.

Something I hope to try out in the Scottish elections. Pubs are relevant to UKIP becasue they had a "save our pubs" campaign. PPUK is less obviously relevant to pubs (unless they offer free wi-fi), but more relevant t other things, including anywhere with wifi for customers, internet cafes and computer shops. Getting them to display a 'vote pirate' sign and a stack of leaflets for customers, or both, would be good, especially if we make a relevant leaflet.

As far as billboards go I will be starting a thread shortly for that, and aim to have a couple for the Scottish elections.

I once fought for a council seat for the Greens back in 2001

We also shouldn't forget that we have got a few members who have done things like contest elections before, but we haven't seemed to be able to use their experience and knowledge. We should also be encouraging such members to contribute to developing strategy and also to stand for the Pirate Party if they wish, and I hope you can stand in the locals coming and that we can give you more help too!

(if they won't leave the computer, then how can you maximise their computer time for the party's benefit?).

This. There are many members that can't or won't do street work, and we shouldn't make them feel unwanted. There are many ways to help remotely, as Graeme pointed out some in the OP.

My thoughts are mainly towards the Scottish Elections, I know many of you will be thinking about local elections in England, but Scotland has to wait a year for its locals (which I am also looking forward to). In Scotland I hope to run a high-visibility campaign on a low budget, and I'm trying to learn as much as possible from OES, and from people like Graeme. We'll know if we have been successful in Scotland because we'll have results from accross the whole country, rather than single constituencies (some which are more favourable to us than others). Hopefully we can get this more or less right, and then use what we learn in London in 2012, building on that further for the EU elections in 2014.

I also hope we can get more street stalls going!

[danbrett]

I would be willing to help compile a candidate support pack, so that members can stand for local council seats with the minimum of effort. This should include:

* Advice on collecting signatures of electors, submitting expenses and communicating with the returning officer
* A form press release, communicating with the press and potential subjects for letters to the editor
* A form leaflet, if the candidate intends to distribute literature
* A basic manifesto based on PPUK principles that is relevant to the local authority tier being contested (metropolitan district, non-metropolitan district, unitary authority, county council, etc)

[azrael]

danbrett: I think this would be an incredible idea. I have a few SEers who have indicated willingness to stand in local elections, as RAO I want to support them as much as I can but I've never stoof for local election nor supported anyone who has - so the more help I can get (selfish me ) the better!!

[tempest3k]

Danbrett - you might find this useful as a starting point: www.beacouncillor.org.uk

[Andy_R]

I really wish I could have been there to help campaign, but it really was the worst possible time, since my university's hand-in dates for coursework all fell in the first half of January (and I'm on a no-exams 100% coursework degree).

I think it's important to bear in mind what was actually achieved in Oldham and Saddleworth. We've told a lot of people who we are, and what we stand for. We've convinced a lot of people that we are a serious party, we will have impressed the other parties with the effort we've put in given an absolute shoestring budget (the English Democrats, for example, have a LOT more money than we do) and we will have impressed the other parties with the quality of our arguments at the hustings.

The work put in and the money spent is an investment in getting Loz and the party more widely known, and taken seriously. When the DEA next flares up, Loz will be person a lot more journalists turn to for a quote, so the publicity pay off from taking part in this by-election will be big, and on-going.

Yes, we've got a lot to learn... but we can only learn by doing.

[samgower]

We will continue to fail to win votes, gain members or keep current ones if we cannot explain why they should vote for us, become members or stay members. (A rather persuasive argument to this effect can be found in a TED Talk by Simon Sinek.)

We have no document that clearly sets out what our political philosophy is. Our manifesto was horribly rushed for a good reason, but it shows like a black eye. We need a group of people who are dedicated to piracy to sit down over a few months and work out why our policies are what they are. I'm sure we all have a vague idea of what piracy is and why we support it, but we need to be able to tell other people.

Take the general election. What did Labour stand for? Why did they want your vote? Certainly not to further the cause of socialism; the universal perception was that they just wanted to stay in power. The Tories didn't get their expected landslide because they failed to explain what "the Big Society" actually was. Both Cameron and Brown concentrated on what they wanted to do, not why they wanted to do it.

On the other hand, the Liberal Democrats became famous overnight and increased their vote simply because Nick Clegg explained that he believed in a "fair" society and in getting away from "punch and judy" politics. (And whether or not you think the coalition government is a good thing or not, you can't argue that they went a long way to achieving that last point; a coalition of previously sworn enemies and a non-confrontational opposition leader is about as non-divisive as British politics has ever been.) Clegg largely avoided talking about specific policies and instead focused on his beliefs. When Brown or Cameron would spout on about this or that policy, Clegg would sweep in and reject everything they said just on principle. In many ways, policy isn't what matters, it's why you have the policy that does.

I agree that we need to get more feet on the ground, that we need to turn monthly meetings of a few people into weekly marches of dozens, and that we need to be better prepared for elections (danbrett's suggestion for local candidates is spot-on). But before we can gain this kind of support we need to be able to tell people, plainly and unambiguously, why they should support us. We can say that the DEA is bad and that ISPs spying on us is bad and that monopoly on information is bad -- but it's not enough. These things are bad for a reason, a reason that we all know deep-down but just haven't really discussed.

Soon I'll post a new topic to discuss how we might go about answering the question, what is political piracy? I've not really been helping out with the party much at all lately. The reasons for this are personal and, I think, justified. I do think however that instead of browsing the forum a few times a week I could be working on something PPUK-related for a good 90 minutes a week for a few months without bringing the rest of my life tumbling down.

[Vanders]

We will continue to fail to win votes, gain members or keep current ones if we cannot explain why they should vote for us, become members or stay members. (A rather persuasive argument to this effect can be found in a TED Talk by Simon Sinek.)

We have no document that clearly sets out what our political philosophy is. Our manifesto was horribly rushed for a good reason, but it shows like a black eye. We need a group of people who are dedicated to piracy to sit down over a few months and work out why our policies are what they are. I'm sure we all have a vague idea of what piracy is and why we support it, but we need to be able to tell other people.

Thank you. I was trying to say something similar but you've put it much more clearly than I did. We as a party need to be able to explain to potential voters what we stand for, clearly and concisely, and do it in a way that catches peoples attention. We need to explain what we think the problem is, why we think it is a problem and what we want to do about it. Other parties do this and many do it well. We do not.

Internal politics aside this is one of the biggest problems I personally see currently, and it's one of the areas that as a semi-inactive member I think I'd like to try and get involved in as a more active PPUK member. I'll look out for your thread on this topic.

[scuzzmonkey]

We need to explain what we think the problem is, why we think it is a problem and what we want to do about it.

Fuck think, we know - and have independently sources research that backs us up - that Copyright Length is far too long, and any trend back towards a 14 year mark is a positive thing.

We know the pay what you want model does work, vis Radiohead, NIN, The Humble Bundle 1/2, and countless other examples.

We have proof that whilst sales may have gone down, gig revenue - and the overall revenue of the Music Industry - is continuing to rise.

etc etc etc.

These aren't bullshit beliefs based on redundant rhetoric with no evidence to back it up - this party is not a religion.

We are continually telling people that we are different from the other parties, that we are a party of the 21st century, and if that is what we are claiming, then it is what we should be.

Fuck rhetoric.
Fuck belief.
Fuck spin.

We want to do A because of {B-Z} not because "well, I think this is a good idea". It is that type of mindless addiction to "the party line" and "belief" that caused Osborne to release a budget that has been condemned by every major Economics Institute, and anyone with half a brain and an Economics A Level.

Saying "well this is just how we want it because i beeeelieve in it" is not going to convince a sceptic to our position, and as proof of this I challenge you to find a single sceptic that has ever walked in to a Church and based purely on the sermon has completely redefined their views on the spot.

In the words of the Guardian DataBlog - "Facts are Sacred".

If we can show people evidence, and reason behind our arguments, we will turn them around - but you need to show them this, or...be a very good conman.

I don't care about what sounds good, or can be made to sound good, I just want what is actually right - based on cold hard science and numbers - not someone's gut.

[Vanders]

We need to explain what we think the problem is, why we think it is a problem and what we want to do about it.

Fuck think, we know - and have independently sources research that backs us up - that Copyright Length is far too long, and any trend back towards a 14 year mark is a positive thing.

Brilliant. You've just managed to provide an excellent example of one of the other problems with PPUK: the child like and over emotional posts like that. You managed to take one word in my post ("think") and turn it into an entire rant that is rude and unhelpful. *golf clap*

Your rant is entertaining, and to a certain degree it is correct: we have evidence to support our claims on Copyright length. That's great and all, but why then is a long copyright term so long? Apparently, there are other people who do not believe that a shorter copyright term is a good idea.

What about all the other policies? We believe that the current surveillance society is bad. It's a belief. Some people will disagree with it. Your rant doesn't apply.

Voters vote based on their opinions and their beliefs (mostly).

[scuzzmonkey]

yes, and you influence beliefs by facts, not solely by other beliefs - and thank you for proving that point by ignoring the rant and hyperbole and focusing purely on the length argument

[Vanders]

yes, and you influence beliefs by facts, not solely by other beliefs

As I said in my original post:

We need to explain what we think the problem is, why we think it is a problem and what we want to do about it.

Facts are the second part. Look, this is simple:

1. What we think the problem is: Copyright terms are too long.
2. Why we think it is a problem: Evidence and facts support a shorter Copyright term.
3. What we want do about it: Introduce a new, shorter, Copyright term.

You can't just steam up to voters, many of which have never heard of the Pirate Party, many of which who do not give a toss about things like Copyright, and say things like "Copyright is too long, here's 5 studies that support our claim, go read them!". Because they wont. I strongly doubt many people outside the party have ever read the PPUK manifesto, and as manifestos go it's short and concise.

Look at how the big parties did things in the last General Election: they had billboards that conveyed their manifesto with no more than one or two sentences. They had a core set of simple concepts that they could use to frame the debate (I.e. "Big Society"). They condensed their policies down into something everyone could understand. We currently, do not.

P.S: Your post was an excellent example of how not to "engage" with disenfranchised PPUK members. Why would anyone even bother to spend their time trying to help the party if that's the sort of thing they receive in return?

[scuzzmonkey]

At the risk of making mountains.

I know how we come up with policy, someone has an idea, we discuss it, have a look around, see if it's actually workable, if the evidence backs it up, if it does, yay! if not, we move on.

This isn't what I'm talking about though, the process of policy making is second to the "attitude" so to speak.

When engaging with the public, we need to be confident that what we are saying is the truth, and this confidence should be there by proxy as the research and the work has already been done before it has become policy. Rather than simply suggesting something that sounds good, with no backing, we are showing people why this is a good thing.

I know that you can't squeeze thousands of pages of "proof" on to a billboard, and without pushing this topic down the road towards billboard design, we still need to be able to - at all times - fall back on the facts, because that is our trump card - if what we are saying is the general consensus of learned academics, professors and Institutions then - by definition - anyone opposing is in varying degrees of wrong.

And going by the last election, personally, I'd say that that was proof of how not to do things - it was an election that Labour could only loose, and only the Torries could win, but they didn't, because people didn't buy the rhetoric of a "Big Society" and still don't.

People are not stupid, and any slogan that is designed to "make the povs remember it" or whatever the Harro Elite what to call it - think Big Society, Alarm-Clock Briton etc - is noticed instantly - so why not try something different?

The response from people on the crowd has mostly been - "well people were reluctant, but when I started explaining why we want to do this, they realised they agreed with us."

I think (lol, dammit!) that we need to actually treat people with a bit of respect, and genuinely be an actual alternative, and I know this is very utopian and "not how the real world works" but...why not? Tell the voters the truth, and keep the promises we make....if we actually do that (if we ever get the chance to show that) then I'm sure that would be the biggest boost the party could/would/will ever have.

[Duke]

Perhaps someone (looking at you Scuzz) could write a sort of "Pirate Bible" - a document not necessarily for the public, but for members, with lists of all this evidence, all the studies, all the facts - containing arguments that can be used, common counter-arguments, that sort of thing. I know it is something of a Herculean task, but it would be fantastically useful (I remember writing up a few things in an email for someone's interview a while back; that's probably floating around somewhere).

Obviously I would offer to do this myself, but then it would never get done, c.f. the press office, the law portal, consultation responses etc.

[scuzzmonkey]

I'll start pulling things together after my exams, and try to fit it in around my dissertation