The link to the Mercian Party Leaders’ Debate 2016
This opinion piece, from the Lord Spiritual of Mercia, His Lordship Richard 1st, is not reflective of the opinions of the Burnham Micropress as a business.
With the Mercian 3rd General Election looming large, Regal Telecommunications once again brought together the representatives of the political movements in Mercia, to a party leader debate of the nature held during the first democratic election held in Mercian history. This recent debate, held on a Wednesday evening in April, was a juggernaut by the standards of the previous debate; whereas the first debate was a forty-seven minute long duel between Baron Fionbarra Ó Cathail of the National Liberal Party (NLP) and Baron Callum Newton of the Humanist People’s Alliance (HPA), this second debate was a slow moving juggernaut of a performance; eighty-three minutes of discussion between four politicians.
Baron Ó Cathail returned as National Liberal leader, planning on entering his third term as First Minister with the NLP in government, and indeed, Baron Newton came back to the podium, albeit as a Green Socialist Independent after leaving the HPA because of ideological differences with his party members. The HPA, reformed as the People’s Democratic Party, was represented by Baron Newton’s former deputy, Baron Alejandro Whyatt, with a new platform that mixed the HPA’s stance on Church & State relations with a policy plan on increasing Mercian activity by discussing macronational issues. Finally, a total political newcomer to the Mercian political scene, the Social Democratic Party was initially represented by the party’s presiding officer, Earl Kit McCarthy, and in the later stages by party leader Count Adam Belcher, who both defended their platform of increased media activity, separating Church and State and not tying the Mercian economy to an intermicronational currency such as the Micronational Dollar (M$).
A Summary: Mercian Political Parties & Independents
The National Liberal Party (NLP):
1. Establish relations with former Würtige Imperial States, such as the Tsardom of Nolland and the Principality of Beacon City.
2. Devolve powers to provincial authorities by creating municipal governments with powers to levy tax.
3. Creating private company law and introduce the Micronational Dollar (M$) to the Mercian economy.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP):
1. Institute a Mercian central bank.
2. Hold regular debates on micronational and macronational subjects to keep activity high.
3. Hold a referendum on the separation of Church and State in the Mercian government.
The Social Democratic Party (SDP):
1. Create a Mercian national currency backed by the Great British Pound.
2. Encourage and increase citizenship numbers by engaging in a media campaign to make Mercia open to the Micronational world.
3. Establish a 10% tax rate on Mercian business earnings, with no tax on the first £5 earned.
Baron Newton, Independent Green Socialist:
1. Establish a national bank that will use quantitative easing to issue bonds for national investment.
2. Focus on finding greener energy sources for the Mercian nation.
3. Continue to oppose the close relationship of Church and State in Mercian politics.
I will divide this review of the debate into four sections, each dedicated to one of the candidates at the debate, and how they performed against their political rivals.
Baron Fionbarra Ó Cathail – More Reactive Than Proactive, NLP Embattled.
The incumbent First Minister, Baron Fionbarra Ó Cathail, has every intention to win a third term of government for the National Liberal Party. The first two governments have been easy wins for Ó Cathail; it was more a matter of having a strong right wing base unified under the NLP banner rather than his charmed Irish accent in debates. Other Mercian political parties have been small, with no potential of winning enough seats to challenge a National Liberal majority. In this 3rd election, however, with the risk of a People’s Democratic/Social Democratic coalition that could unhorse the NLP hegemony, the pressure on Baron Ó Cathail was keenly noticeable.
While other leaders were keen to open their discussion points after each question with their own ideas and manifesto policies, such key moments where NLP proposals could shake up the debate, the First Minister seemed more intent on semantically arguing against off the cuff comments made by Earl McCarthy of the Social Democratic Party than elucidating the National Liberal views of the past two governments. The pressure was on; criticism of government policy was coming thick and fast from all the other candidates, so perhaps this threw Baron Ó Cathail off his game, as his his usual Parliamentary approach is cool, calm and statesmanlike. However, in the aftermath of this election, if an NLP return to government requires a larger, united Loyal Opposition or worse, a coalition with the People’s Democratic Party or the SDP, one wonders if Ó Cathail will be able to afford another lapse of deliberative judgement?
Baron Alejandro Whyatt – Quirky, Moderate and Populist, Author’s Favourite.
Historically, Baron Whyatt has long been a troublemaking politician in Mercia. Opening his escapades with a bang in November 2014 by joining Baron Harland-Hackenschmidt in a failed coup on the Mercian Lords in a Meeting of the Mercian Parliament House, he was temporarily barred from entering the House until after Harland-Hackenschmidt was banished from the land. His satirical tone in Parliament Meetings and willingness to engage in frivolous, surrealist debates in the middle of sessions has earnt him the reputation of someone not cut out to be a party leader, let alone a First Minister. When Baron Newton stepped down from Humanist People’s Alliance leadership (and leaving the party shortly after), Baron Whyatt’s ascension to leadership was met by many in the National Liberal Party with joy, believing their election victories would be assured for years to come.
This was not the Baron Alejandro Whyatt we saw at the debate. Tempered, reserved, but still a little eccentric, Whyatt managed to portray himself as a have-a-go hero leading a party of active, keen reformers. His insistence on referendums on matters of church and state and the position of the Lords of Mercia initially caught flak from Earl McCarthy as being evidence of a lack of their own policy, but on further thought the Baron’s populist suggestion could garner him more support than previously reckoned. By not throwing himself into discussions like Earl McCarthy or Baron Ó Cathail, Whyatt chose his fights and came off sounding confident, positive and in control. Admittedly, this meant his careful avoidance of the heated debate on economics between Earl McCarthy and Baron Newton, but it gave him a good showing during the discussion on increasing activity in the Mercian population. Baron Whyatt is definitely this author’s favourite to be the major partner of a PDP led government should the NLP lose their majority, with a philosophy neatly ensconced in his closing statement:
“You need to vote PDP… But, y’know, it’s all good.”
Earl Kit McCarthy/Count Adam Belcher – Characterful, Intelligent, but Less Engaging.
The combination of having the Social Democratic Party’s Presiding Officer and Party Leader in the same debate would theoretically give the SDP an edge over the flagging candidates of the other parties, who would be struggling towards the tail end of the hour-and-twenty slugfest while the SDP gets to sub in a new speaker. However, in my own personal view, the Earl Kit McCarthy in particular could not captivate the political passions despite quite obviously being the most confident speaker with the most knowledge of key Mercian issues.
There is no explicable reason for this; McCarthy dominated the economics debate, absolutely schooling Baron Newton on the working of quantitative easing and articulating the Social Democrat’s philosophies and beliefs with the airs of the thespian. Count Belcher hammered home policy and rhetoric with a far blunter style more fitting of his Yorkshire countenance. There was no dissonance between this political chalk and cheese however, and the SDP kept a strong front on proposing its beliefs. And yet, there was something missing. The SDP didn’t have the enthusiastic amateurism of Baron Whyatt, nor the shrewd experience of Baron Ó Cathail, or even the unrelenting doggedness of Baron Newton’s combating of issues. The SDP speakers has all the bells and smells of the political ritual, and even some meat on the bones of policy, but there was a certain spark that was missing that undermined their action. Perhaps it is merely because they are newcomers to Mercian politics, and that spark shall burst into life in time.
Baron Callum Newton – Stubborn, Respectable, Impossible to not Elect.
As a Green-Socialist in a country with a strongly supported right wing government, it’d seem odd initially to think that Baron Newton has any chance of electoral success. However, the former Humanist People’s Alliance leader is popular in the Parliament House and in his home province of Wibertsherne , in the Region of Clyro, for being a respectable, honest and upstanding politician regardless of his ideological stance. Although his independent nature restricts him from ever being First Minister, Newton’s cooperative nature will ensure that he ends up both elected and in either a government or opposition coalition, regardless of what parties form either.
Newton did take a couple of bruises in the debate; first when his declaration that the media should be nationalised brought the ire of Earl McCarthy, a convinced social liberal, and again when Earl McCarthy systematically clipped the wings off the Baron’s plan to use quantitative easing to help a Mercian national bank invest in the country. However, on the issues where the former Opposition Leader excelled, such as Church and State relations and the powers of the Lordships, his arguments were as consistent and resounding as ever, receiving support from both Baron Whyatt and Earl McCarthy at separate times for his approach. Baron Newton is well known for the problems he sees with Mercian society and how he champions solutions to them, and for those reasons alone the population of Wibertsherne will no doubt re-elect him, regardless of what political party they would swear fealty to otherwise.
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