Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
Hilaire Belloc

The ethos of the Consensus as an organisation - or, 'playing the game'

A friendly guide to being a politician

Politics is a dirty business whose bottom line is the acquisition of power and influence. Political parties are a mixture of the idealistic, the ambitious, the unprincipled and the power-hungry. Other organisations have employees who generally see internal politics as detracting from the effectiveness of their business and their ability to do the job. In a political party politics, both large-scale and petty, is the job.

Naturally, the degree of infighting etc is a function of the success of the party. As soon as its income can support fulltime jobs and careers, and especially if it has access to rich sponsors and real power then the situation worsens. We would all like to be part of a friendly altruistic enterprise where trust is the essence and we all get on together. Where all are prepared to heed the quiet voice of reason and put personal ambition and selfishness aside for the common good. But it's not going to happen in any party that is other than insignificant.

Whatever you want this party to be, whatever you wish to do within the party, whatever function or position you want - you are going to have to fight for it. And once you have it, you are going to have to hold it against allcomers. Political parties are perfect examples of Social Darwinism. The essence of politics is that you can only have what you can take. You get nothing for nothing.

How you do it is up to you. Of course, we would much prefer it if your style was one of honest, intelligent, friendly competence albeit expressed in a forthright manner. But that is not going to be true of everyone. What is essential is a willingness to work in the party despite all the politicians! If you are the kind of person who gets offended and discouraged if they are ignored or slighted, then politics is not for you.

Unfortunately, if you are the kind of person who, when ignored or slighted, wants revenge and to force your enemies and detractors to eat shit, and will work night and day to make them - you are already a politician.

Political Donations

While we believe that ultimately political parties should be financed solely through party memberships and by the state we certainly do not intend to proceed with one hand tied behind our back.

We welcome all legal donations. Now, let me be clear on this issue - we will take money from anyone, even our ideological enemies. In fact, especially our enemies - better that we have their money than they do! We also have no qualms about taking money from morally dubious sources i.e. everyone from pornographers to tobacco companies, just as long as that money has been acquired legally. And legality is the bottom line. The rules of the game are laid out (in Britain) by the Electoral Commission. As long as we comply with legal requirements anything goes.

And what does one of our sponsors 'buy' within the party by making a donation? Well, they buy what they buy from other parties, namely access to party functionaries in order to express their opinions on various matters. And let it be no secret that if we disagree with their opinion we will say 'thank you very much for the donation' and proceed to ignore them in the politest possible manner.

Our Dress Code

We do not have one.
On second thoughts, we do. In terms of how we like our people to look, especially when undertaking any party functions that interfaces with the public, we are aiming somewhere between the Conservative 'Grey Suit' and the Green Party 'Dog On String Plus Piercing And Purple Hair'. When we are together anything goes, but public perception is substantially affected by how our 'officials' dress in public. Most definitely it should be smart, but not utterly conventional. Remember - half of all voters are below average intelligence.

Disreputable Members

Who do we allow to become, and remain, members of the Consensus? This is spelled out in the Constitution, but is worth expanding upon here in an informal manner. Basically, we will accept anyone who believes as we do and who is not a member of a rival organisation. Which sounds pretty reasonable - as it is.

However, it also means that we will accept for membership ex-criminals. Unlike many organisations we accept the notion that people who have committed an offence, and been punished for it, have a clean slate. In common parlance, we accept that they have 'paid their debt to society'. It is their present and future that interests us, not their past.

And what if the 'present' of a member involves criminal activity? This is a much more complex question. The short answer is that it depends on what offences they are committing or have committed. If the offences are ones that would not be offences in our ideal society we will ignore them. For example, it does not matter to us if they scoff ecstasy or drop acid in their spare time. We do not care if they get arrested for 'political' crimes such as obstruction or property damage on an animal rights demo. Being involved in a 'fair' fight down the pub is also not of interest.

On the other hand, crimes perpetrated against innocent victims will get the member kicked out. This ranges from various sex offences to theft to political violence aimed at individuals (as opposed to property). Whether any of the above will also get the member disbarred from standing as a Consensus candidate (assuming they are allowed to remain a member) will depend on the specifics of the offence and will be dealt with on an individual basis. In case this all sounds too liberal and high-minded bear in mind that we will unhesitatingly temper our judgements with political considerations. In those grey areas that we can all imagine the public image of the party will come first. The general rule being 'do not do anything that will allow your enemies to feed you to the dogs'.

On the question of members with a dubious background in extremist politics we also take a liberal approach. If they are not members of a rival organisation, or currently involved in activities inimical to the Consensus, there is no justification in barring them. One should also bear in mind that anyone who joins us must first express agreement with the Constitution. We do advise, however, that they publicly break with their past politics by recanting anything that goes against our philosophy, and also making this publicly known. This is best done by an archived post on Usenet under their own name and with the Consensus explicitly mentioned. Again, it is a question of defusing potentially embarassing revelations at a later date.

This isn't a social club.