Text of the email I just sent to Head Office:
Dear xxxx
I used to enjoy campaigning for UKIP, but over the past year or so, I have observed that UKIP is inexorably drifting towards the same sort of lowest-common denominator politics as all the other parties.
For sure, we'd be far better off out of the EU for all the reasons you give, but UKIP is not only trying to become the refuge for disgruntled old-school Tories (with whom I have little in common, if truth be told) but is also cheerfully going along with the consensus that the way to solve our social and economic problems is yet more "Home-Owner-Ism", which is my term for the vague belief that we can sort things out by bailing out banks, preventing new construction, cutting council tax (or worse, replacing it with a local sales tax) and generally doing everything possible to prop up land prices and the credit bubble, thus making it either difficult or expensive (or both) for the next generation to enjoy what the Baby Boomers had or have (and I count myself as a very late Baby Boomer and I have done pretty well out of it, but this was all at future generations' expense).
Take it from me, the damage wrought on our economy and our society by "Home-Owner-Ism" (which also indirectly leads to government deficit spending) is far, far greater than that caused by the UK's membership of the EU, and I don't see how I can continue to be a member of a party which focuses most of its attention on the smaller issue of the EU and gets it completely wrong on the much larger one. And simply blaming high houses prices on immigrants or muttering about "space not race" is to entirely miss the point.
Kind regards
Best wishes for the future
A grim document
1 hour ago
36 comments:
Well, there's a turn-up for the book. Join the club, MW, albeit for slightly different reasons.
I can understand you aversion to 'sales tax' as against 'LVT', however in my case it is the total disconnect of those 'in charge' and their refusal to discuss with those interested in furthering the cause of Ukip that'settled' it for me - and I suspect for you too.
As you may have surmised from my writing, I have even begun to question NF's motives for being where he is.
what's happening with the YPP? you seem to be posting stuff on that blog but is it actually going to become a serious political movement? I mean in terms of activity, not necessarily numbers at this stage
WFW, thanks for support. You have chosen different battles to fight, and you appear to be doing it rather more successfully that me :-)
J, YPP have now got the official registration with the Electoral Commission, but there are other bits and pieces to sort out before YPP actually 'goes live'.
What is YPP?
BTW I invented the term Homeownerism,not that it matters very much.
Best of luck now you've cut the ties with UKIP:you always struck me as a classic Liberal!
DBC, it's Young People's Party. Yes, you did invent "homeownerism". And thanks.
A very dignified email. All the best with YPP and keep us informed.
Lead. And Ballon, spring to mind. They won't give a stuff though.
All power to the YP Parties elbow. I take that is the best marketing name that you could come up with, but I assume that it will be 'classically liberal' overall?
AKH, ta, will do.
L, that's how we've started and that's how we mean to go on.
Good oh. So you expect to struggle then !!!!!
L, yes.
Seen this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_People's_Party
Is this you?
http://www.facebook.com/youngpeoplesparty
L, there are YPP's in several countries, so why not in the UK as well?
L, that second one certainly is not, that is a scam, I can't remember who's behind it.
Blimey, I wasn't expecting that, but understand the reasons. I let my membership lapse sometime ago - fully agree with the "refuge for disgruntled old-school Tories" bit
Mark, I've lost the link to the YPP web site. Please will remind me of it?
Young People's Party, or Young Peoples' Party? I think we should be told :-)
L, it's yppuk.blogspot.co.uk
FT, the former, of course.
There are lots of us classic Liberals and nowhere to go. I think they would have good voter appeal provided that policies were not watered down.
The Justice Party in Denmark is getting new life breathed into it by a new generation. In Sweden most people are tired of the old politics but I get no sense of there being another direction out of it.
"L, that second one certainly is not, that is a scam, I can't remember who's behind it."
I think they are using a different meaning of "party".
Who are you going to get to stand for your YPP?
The usual suspects would all be too old surely?
(Yourself included if I might be so bold: the-more-dead-than-alive people like myself being out of the question).
Anyway I'll vote for it (as long as it takes a very hard line on property price inflation).
BTW highly recommended:academic paper on Net by Francesca Modena and Concetta Rondinelli "Leaving home and housing prices.." Univ of Trento 2011 .(You need only the Intro;meat and drink to land tax recidivists but impossible to envisage being published in UK)
It would be a bit redundant to have a YPP youth section but would you consider a fogie section for those of us who are over the age of eighty ?
DBC, membership will be open to all, and whoever can be bothered to stand at elections can do so. That includes you.
D, yes, for giggle value, we might have a "Senior section" for over 45s.
Just read your manifesto - mostly good stuff. I see you have adopted the Liberal colour: in a few years' time all the old Liberals who didn't become Lib Dems will have died and you can adopt the name as well.
Hi Mark,
Fascinated by your ideology, and pretty much a convert to it, I have three questions.
1. Re the idea that gains tend to accrue to the least elastic factor of production (e.g. increased top football profits mostly go to the top footballers):
Is there a way to quantify elasticity, other than just the gradient of a demand or supply curve at the intersection? What are the units?
If so, is there a way to convert the number(s) to proportions captured, e.g. if we know the relevant elasticities, can we predict that say 90% of any increase in football profits will go to the players? If so, is there any way to do the reverse, i.e. if we observe that 90% of any increase in profits is going to the players, can we calculate the elasticities?
2. You've said that since land is the least elastic factor of production, gains from economic growth will mostly be captured by landowers. This sounds true, and seems to imply that it is very sensible to buy land because it will go up in value relative to everything else. However, surely if the return on land was higher than the return on capital, more people would buy land, pushing the price up and reducing the return? So there would be no advantage to purchasing land over capital: investing in land and investing in the stock market would both have the same average long-run return. Have I gone wrong? If so, where?
Which brings me on to:
3. You don't consider land to be capital. Why not? What is your definition of capital? How/why does it exclude land? It seems to me that even if land is not capital, it shares all capital's characteristics. If it looks like a duck... Even if you argue that people shouldn't be able to own land, a state certainly has incentive to invest in their land, to boost location value. Therefore, it seems reasonable to me for a state to refer to its territory as its capital.
Thanks,
Finally,
4. If the supply of land/locations is perfectly inelastic, why doesn't *all* economic growth get captured by landowners?
B, the old Liberal Party (which still exists) didn't use bright yellow, it was more orangey yellow. It's the SNP which uses bright yellow (as well as dark blue), but hey, there are only so many colours to go round.
JJ, I'll have to do a separate post on that, it would seem a shame to relegate it to the comments.
I'm leaning very much the same way at the moment. I am fed up of the junk that comes through the post bleating on about the bloody EU.
The ordinary working man / woman doesn't give two shits about the EU. They feel that taxes are too high, prices are too high, wages are too low. Small business owners get fed up of being persecuted by HMRC even when they straight as a ruler whilst government departments flout the rules and the taxman allows it!!
SW, long time no hear! How did the exams go?
Why Young People's Party?
Won't that put off sensible older people?
Just askin'
I tend to agree with Shiney.
My point was more: won't older people in the organisation put off sensible younger people?
I would n't vote for me ,for instance.
Shiney, DBC, that's a long story.
I think the YPP name is a good choice: as Lola spotted, it is a "classic liberal" party and, with lots of young people feeling shafted by the LibDems and generally disenfranchised, it's in a good position to start to gather support. I wonder if it is possible to find out how much of the LibDem support in the last election was from young people? More than Labour or Tories, I'd say.
Anyway, the surviving Liberal Party can't be getting many new recruits, so the name will most likely be up for grabs in a few years.
As long as the 27 unelected commissioners in Brussels dictate our law, it doesn't matter what anyone in the UK thinks...
Leaving the EU is a pre-requisite for the UK deciding its own direction (what ever that direction is).
PP, sure, so what?
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