I care about this issue quite a lot, and the central idea - Kickstarting a new party - is a good one.
Having said that, there are an enormous number of problems with this suggestion.
" There should be no need for local campaigning. I’ve never had a politician knock on my door to discuss who I’d vote for, but I have had plenty of leaflets and fliers put though my letterbox and they end up straight in the recycling. "
Good - because everyone else thinks the same as the OP, right? If we promote on Twitter and YouTube, everyone who matters will learn about the party?
Not so much. A project like this is going to need a marketing budget, and a big one - as well as volunteers on the ground, whether the OP likes it or not.
Most people don't even have a Twitter account. Most people don't follow YouTube particularly closely.
And as many, many marketing professionals over the years have noticed, you need to tell people about your product a lot more than once for them to buy into it.
"There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom."
And for each of these, you're going to need a candidate. That's 650 people you need to find, who can appear credible to the media (so, they'll need to be skilled public speakers who can handle a debating environment as well as a media interview focused on soundbites), who don't have any skeletons in their closet or non-standard lifestyle choices that the other parties can use to discredit the entire organisation ("GEEK WHO WANTS TO BE PM IN BISEXUAL ORGY SHOCKER!"), and who are willing to give up their current careers should they win.
One of the biggest problems the mainstream parties have is finding qualified candidates - and they've got 100+ years of experience and network to do so. For an upstart party like this, it's going to be a far, far bigger problem than finding the money.
None of which means that this idea should just be disregarded, but it definitely needs more consideration.
As long as the candidates are not batshit crazy some controversy might actually be a benefit in getting PR, as long as everyone knows to answer everything with "You know as well as we do that we don't stand a chance of getting elected and anyone trying to make a point out of that are just trying to score points; the point of this campaign is to give people an opportunity to show their displeasure with the big parties stance on privacy; [launch into info about the point]"
I would invite readers to consider just how non-trivial the following task is:
Here is a list of 650 people that are almost as geographically diversely located as it is possible to be while remaining in the UK. Demonstrate that none of them are "batshit crazy".
Having said that, there are an enormous number of problems with this suggestion.
" There should be no need for local campaigning. I’ve never had a politician knock on my door to discuss who I’d vote for, but I have had plenty of leaflets and fliers put though my letterbox and they end up straight in the recycling. "
Good - because everyone else thinks the same as the OP, right? If we promote on Twitter and YouTube, everyone who matters will learn about the party?
Not so much. A project like this is going to need a marketing budget, and a big one - as well as volunteers on the ground, whether the OP likes it or not.
Most people don't even have a Twitter account. Most people don't follow YouTube particularly closely.
And as many, many marketing professionals over the years have noticed, you need to tell people about your product a lot more than once for them to buy into it.
"There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom."
And for each of these, you're going to need a candidate. That's 650 people you need to find, who can appear credible to the media (so, they'll need to be skilled public speakers who can handle a debating environment as well as a media interview focused on soundbites), who don't have any skeletons in their closet or non-standard lifestyle choices that the other parties can use to discredit the entire organisation ("GEEK WHO WANTS TO BE PM IN BISEXUAL ORGY SHOCKER!"), and who are willing to give up their current careers should they win.
One of the biggest problems the mainstream parties have is finding qualified candidates - and they've got 100+ years of experience and network to do so. For an upstart party like this, it's going to be a far, far bigger problem than finding the money.
None of which means that this idea should just be disregarded, but it definitely needs more consideration.