My #GE2017 campaign press release

Press release:

Dear Sir/Madam

On June 8^th 2017 I, Marty Caine, will be standing in the General Election 2017, as the DDIP candidate for Poole. Demos Direct Initiative Party (DDIP) is a totally new kind of political party that only became officially registered with the Electoral Commission on January 30^th 2017 and when we decided to create this new party, we thought we had two to three years to prepare ourselves for the next General Election that was due in 2020 but Theresa May calling this snap general election has certainly changed things for us and as we only have two approved policies so far and no manifesto, we initially thought it would not be worth standing in this GE2017. However, some members of the party felt that the current leader should stand to show that DDIP is serious in its intention to change British politics for the better and so I agreed that I would stand.

This not only gives me the chance to promote the party but also our Save Our Loo’s campaign that we started in March this year. We had started a government petition to try to force parliament into introducing legislation so that councils are legally obliged to provide public toilets at all public open spaces such as parks and recreation grounds. This is because we believe that should these open spaces become health hazards then councils not just in Poole but nationwide, will use this as an excuse to sell the land off for redevelopment and we will lose our public open spaces forever. We fully realise that they are essential to the health and well being of so many. Due to the calling of this general election it means that all government petitions were ended on May 3^rd 2017 and a new petition will have to be started from scratch once a new government is elected. We will most certainly be doing this and working with other campaign groups throughout the country in an attempt to Save Our Loo’s.

So what exactly is DDIP?

DEMOS: The Greek word for ‘The People’ and the origins of the word ‘Democracy’.

DIRECT: To indicate we are a party that truly believes in empowering the peopleusing Direct Democracy.

INITIATIVE: (in government) = A procedure by which a specified number of voters may propose policies, constitutional amendment, or ordinance, and compel a popular vote on its adoption.

DDIP was started by people who were sick of the outdated Left v Right political party ideologies, who spend more time shouting at each other than shouting at government and it was obvious that the two main political parties, Labour and Conservative both preferred that status quo, we want something different. The EU referendum awoke many from their political comas and they were suddenly once again hungry for politics, they do not like what is on the current menu so we decided to offer something different. We looked at the power pyramid of standard political parties with the leader at the top and power filtering downwards to the membership who are at the very bottom and decided to turn that pyramid upside down and put the membership in control. Then the higher the rank within the party the more subservient a person becomes to the membership, a type of Direct Democracy within a party system.

How does it work?

Direct Democracy works by empowering the people but in a nationwide scenario here in Britain most people actually do not want to be empowered, they have far too much to deal with in their daily lives for that. However, in a party system it is possible to empower the membership by connecting all the members and giving them all an equal opportunity to voice their opinions. We have achieved this by using a purpose built member’s forum and every member can login at any time that is convenient for them and put forward their own ideas for debate.  In the policies section any member can put forward an idea for a policy and members will debate this idea. Should the debate result in something that we can base a policy on, it is then drafted and put back to the membership for further debate to iron out the creases. Once finalised the policy is put to a members vote before adoption, using our internal voting system on the member’s forum. Members are notified via email of a policy vote and they then have seven days in which to login and vote. After seven day s the results are revealed and if more than 50% of those who have voted are in favour of the policy then it is adopted. We call this process collective thinking and truly believe that the collective thoughts of the many will always find better solutions faster than the selective opinions of the few that we see in the other political parties. We also know that opposing opinions lead to the best solutions being found because there can be no further progression on an idea that everyone agrees with, so DDIP is open to anyone right across the political spectrum , our aim is to find the best solutions to the everyday problems that affect us all.

Why bother standing in this General Election 2017.

Two main reasons really, to promote both the party and our Save Our Loo’s campaign and to add something to the ballot paper to give people in Poole an opportunity to send a clear message to government that we deserve better than we are currently receiving from all our elected representatives. How can any government ever justify giving £1.2 billion of taxpayers’ money away every month whilst at the same time forcing austerity measures on our local councils so that we the people are paying far more to receive much less? There is a long list of injustices at the moment and for myself and many others we are starting to feel like nothing more than cash cows for senior civil servants with over inflated salaries and gold plated pensions and those civil servants are no longer civil or subservient. A vote for me on June 8^th is unlikely to put any kind of dent into the Tories comfortable 15,000 majority that they hold in Poole but it will give people in Poole an opportunity to help me send that clear message to government that we do deserve better and remind them that they work for us. My target audience are those who are currently thinking to themselves, it really is not worth voting and I hope that I can give them something that is worth going to the ballot box for on June 8^th 2017.

To find out more about Marty Caine’s election campaign visit: www.martycaine.com

To find out more about DDIP visit: www.ddip.org.uk

Best regards

Marty Caine