Many moons ago I was working in marketing as a technical author for an engineering company in South Africa that was pioneering car alarm-immobiliser and central locking systems when the technology was new and exciting. We took on, but then lost, a huge contract with an overseas motor manufacturer. After successive retrenchments we were down to around 1/3 of our 1500 strong workforce.
One day, in the midst of all this, one of my colleagues, a very likeable but rather excitable fellow buttonholed me in the passage and asked: “Michael do you know what’s going on?”
Sensing that the question was rhetorical I answered immediately: “No, and if you find out don’t tell me!” I then scarpered.
During the crisis I kept my head down and carried on doing my job as well as I knew how, while studiously ignoring things I could do nothing about. As it turned out I was one of the lucky ones that stayed, the company survived and is still going strong to this day.
And this has been my approach to UKIP all along. When our election came along, after doing a lot of YouTubing, I voted for Henry Bolton. So, had AMW won would I have left? No!
I respect democratic decisions even though I sometimes (often?) don’t like the outcomes. To paraphrase Churchill I think democracy is, at best, the least-worse system.
However, it does have one thing going for it.
It’s fair. (And it beats the hell out of violence!)
I’m with UKIP for the long haul. I believe UKIP’s growing pains will pass. UKIP will sort itself out because it must. To make it happen all that’s needed is for each of us to play our part, however small or big that might be, and leave others to do the same without destructive criticism and condemnation.
Why the ‘must’? If one looks at Great Britain’s political landscape with all the crooked legacy parties infested with Marxists and others of their ilk, those who march to a distant drum, and of course let’s not forget the carpetbaggers, it is obvious that this leaves UKIP as our nation’s only option. I for one find it amusing to watch how, even with zero MPs, our mere presence concentrates Conservative minds most wonderfully. However, winning the war (i.e. Brexit) is only half the battle. After that we must win the peace. That’s where we must come in.
Of course, our opponents see the danger which is why the meme that UKIP is a ‘one issue’ party and that after Brexit we’ll become irrelevant is being stridently promoted.
But, but, but. The ‘one issue’ meme is a lie. Why? Anyone remember the ‘Keep the Pound’ campaign?
To summarise: 1. We kept the Pound. 2. We got the Brexit referendum which we won.
And 3? We must keep Great Britain free and make it greater than before.
Let us be the UKIP lion’s roar!
At the conference not everyone I spoke to reacted positively to our rebranding. This is entirely understandable. Having studied marketing and done it for a living I know it’s underlying principles are by no means intuitively obvious.
Although at its core much of it is based on psychology there is nothing airy-fairy about it. In business, when one spends a large sum creating and flighting an advertising and public relations campaign one can measure its success (or failure) in cold hard cash by watching sales go up (or down) after launch. One is ever-mindful of those ever-present, seemingly soulless bean-counters whose default seems to be that it’s all a frivolous waste of money and who are ever-ready, watching and waiting, like circling vultures, to go a-gouging with their sharp pencils.
That’s why marketing works.
The evidence that it does is all around us in the form of never-ending adverts and ‘news’.
In politics the effectiveness of a campaign may be more difficult to measure directly but over time those in commercial marketing learn quickly to recognise the common features of a good campaign.
And yes, I love the Lion! For me it conveys strength and power yet paradoxically, gentleness too.
For my money Mr. Crowther knows what he’s about. Listening to his speech at the conference, which I thoroughly enjoyed, brought me back to a happy productive period of my working life. As I see it we are lucky to have his talents in UKIP.
For those that weren’t at the conference here is the YouTube of his speech.
[Ed: Part Two of this essay will be published on UKIP Daily at the beginning of next week.]
A good article and don’t be annoyed but to put the record straight :-
I’m interested in your pioneering work on car alarms. I was a co-director of Linwood in the late 70’s where we thought we ( or our main competitor called sparkrite ) had done all that, as well as remote locking, Immobilisers, central locking, laser measures,electronic battery chargers, and several other electronic gubbins. We never patented anything and just kept ahead of the market by innovation.
I had already by that time run a South Wales steel company,employing over 2000,, and done a rescue job on a firm now a subsidiary of a household named hydraulics (amongst other japanese products )firm and several others . That wasn’t particularly exciting. What was exciting was 20 years earlier developing ( with others )semi conductors the worlds early diodes, and transistors, the worlds first electronic computer ( Leo, built by Lyons corner house ), in Hammersmith. Doing a couple of jobs for the MD of GEC ( 250,000 employees ) working on developing a fast menory for a new computer, and on and on and on in areas like agricultural merchants, cars, textiles etc.
In all this time I’ve never come across such a shambles as UKIP, and so many people with so little idea of what needs doing . I’ve wasted a lot of time making hints and guidance to no apparant purpose. I’ve watched grovelling idiots trying to do things they’re constitutionally incapable of, and I’m fed up.
Well said, Michael. The other post should have been a reply to John.
Douglas was the ONLY UKIP candidate to have ever one in a by-election or a general election – and he did both.
As for Godfrey, is hitting a journalist on tv REALLY acceptable?All the positive coverage went down the 0lughole in an instant ?
Carswell was a UKIP candidate, but does anyone really believe he was ever a true Kipper. Godfrey only clipped Crick with rolled up papers. A man who calls a spade a spade is much more preferable to me than one who pretends he is your friend. Reckless was elected to the National assembly of Wales on a UKIP ticket and now back with his mates in the Tories. Not to forget Suzanne Evans who was welcomed in from the Tories. She was a tory councillor in 2013, by 2014 she was deputy Chairwoman of UKIP. By March 2016 she was suspended from the party for disloyalty.
The point I am making is that those at the top of party who were part of allowing these people to come straight in as candidates and to high positions without at first proving their loyalty, should accept that they made major errors that have badly affected UKIP and it’s grass roots members, and move back to the ranks so someone else can have the opportunity to do a better job. would it be possible to make a worse job of managing UKIP?
Mike Hookem punched, knocked out and hospitalised a fellow UKIP MEP Steven Woolfe. Mr Woolfe subsequently left the party, but Mr Hookem was not removed and is/was still a senior member.
As for Carswell and Reckless, yes they were ex-Tories and were probably using UKIP temporarily to further their own ambitions, but don’t forget Neil Hamilton is ex-Tory, and Henry Bolton is ex-LibDem, and Anne Marie Waters is ex-Labour (as well as now being ex-UKIP).
I guess my point is that loyalties can change depending on peoples’ viewpoints changing; some are genuine, some are not.
Neil Hamilton is however doing an excellent job as leader of the UKIP Wales Group in the Welsh Assembly, regardless. Don’t forget that he’s been in UKIP since 2002, unlike other Tory carpetbaggers. He’s no Nigel, and he may not be much loved by Welsh (and English) Kippers, but he’s working hard and is gaining the grudging respect of the welsh Kippers. Not something we can say of Madame s. Evans or Mr P. O’Flynn, never mind Carswell and Reckless …
Very true, and I will reiterate the close of my comment, some are genuine some are not.
Tories are naturally seen as being obvious choices to ‘cross the floor’ to UKIP, being a fellow right-wing party, so I look forward to seeing how Mr Henry Bolton, an ex-LibDem, will reinvigorate UKIP, and perhaps he will reveal more about his switch of allegiances.
As I’ve commented here in another article, I used to naively vote LibDem until I had a political reawakening, and discovered UKIP was the only party that shared my opinion on the EU.
UKIP certainly has to be wary of those that seek to switch allegiances only to preserve their own self-interest, however it should be welcoming also to those that genuinely want to switch because their parties policies (Labour, LibDem etc) are taking them in different directions. (For example, any Pro-Brexit Labour MP must be worth tapping up!)
Dear Viv
If it’s any consolation, I happen to like Neil Hamilton. He’s got on with the job and has remained loyal as far as I can see.
He has much experience in Westminster and I feel that our party could make far better use of that experience. Instead, far too many people criticise him for something in his past.
I came across the following by chance
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-40340803
It’s on a subject close to many hearts, I think he put it across in exactly the right way and it’s well worth reading.
Kind regards
Brenda
The case against Mike was never proven – Steven left beforecawkward questions had to be answered.
Come on Rob -all Godfrey did was give Crick a well earned playful “bop” on the bonce, with I think the UKIP magazine.
As I remember commenting on the old forum at the time, his real sin was to “pee” on Nigel`s parade, just before his big speech at Conference.
Mind you, his “sluts” comment didn`t help him much.
But overall, I thought Godfrey was good for UKIP, at least we got publicity then.
Notice how we rarely get any at all nowadays – doesn`t pay to be non-controversial and squeaky clean.
IIRC Crick was quizzing Godfrey over the fact that there were no black faces on the front of the current UKIP manifesto and claimed that therefore the party was racist. Surely to select a black face to appear on the document purely because of the colour of his skin is, in itself … racist?
“We must keep Great Britain free and make it greater than before.”
Indeed we must, but it will not be achieved by appeasement of the enemy within who, by his behaviour over several decades, has shown (with few exceptions) that he will never integrate.
If we don’t get voters to open their eyes and understand that threat then our country will be lost to the enemy with the full cooperation of “our” government.
I hope that UKIP will live up to the meaning of the new logo.
If we do exit the EU, the job is only half done. The donkeys have been in control of Britain for far too long, with Blair as the asinine figurehead, and Cameron his heir. May is not much better than either of them.
UKIP is great on EU matters. I await developments on other matters.
“Mr Crowther knows what he’s about” – Am I correct in believing he was the party chairman who welcomed the likes of Reckless and Carswell into the party pushing existing candidates out of the way, for their by-elections, (which caused me to leave UKIP) who was again chairman when Godfrey Bloom was made to feel so uncomfortable that he left UKIP. That lot worked out well didn’t it?
John humans are complicated. My comment was about Mr. Crowther when wearing his marketing hat.
Being very much on the outside looking in I can only comment on UKIP personalities on the basis of what I see. Your comments seem to indicate that he may not have the skillset a good human resources manager would need to have to be effective in a party leadership role.
In my experience good people tend to excel in one or at most a few areas.
My thinking on this is that a leader needs to be someone who ‘has it all’ i.e. is reasonably good on a broad front without necessary being exceptional in any one area with the possible exception of being a good judge of character where excellence is a requirement. (Or at the very least have the judgement to know who’s advice to listen to and who’s to ignore in this matter.)