Party animal #11 - TUP

Day 2,737, 02:56 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by VoodooMike71


It’s been a while, right? Having left UKPP, and after a long and arduous journey, finally my epic trip around all the eUK parties went full circle and I returned to the party that spawned me - TUP.


Unnecessary spawn reference


Straight away I got sucked back into the party’s committees - it was as if I’d never left. Except there were some high profile and notable additions to the TUP membership, along with a healthy dose of new youngsters.

It was difficult not to spot the presence of Goku Una Nancy Owen. He’d managed to get himself into Congress on a TUP ticket, and was writing articles every day about it. 10/10 for activity at least, but a slightly lower score for not occasionally being a wobbly eyed lunatic. Karacticus was there as well, adding a healthy dose of common sense and lulz to the proceedings. And finally there was jamesw - someone I’d never spoken to before, but whose name definitely precedes him. He was busy organising all manner of things, structuring the party and acting as if we were a proper party doing proper party stuff, all from his bond-villain lair somewhere in the Far East.


jamesw indulges in a spot of interior design


The usual crowd were there as well, running the show. dougal was complaining about everything, paul was PP trying to draw all the different opinions together, and Madelina was defusing all the in-fighting with talk of chicken coops.


How to make TUP shut up and do as it’s told


And throughout all this, I was being pumped for information about life outside of TUP.


”How do UKRP select a CP candidate? Talk you swine!”


So all-in-all, not a lot had changed really. TUP are active, and by far the most organised party I’ve seen. Their simple committees and message threads are a model for How To Run A Party. They’re very focussed on being a proper party interested in Srs Bsns, and there’s a genuine desire to act in the country’s interests.

But underlying it all there’s a serious identity crisis going on. On one hand there are those who think TUP should uphold its old methods and principles for the good of the country, while on the other there are modernisers who see old TUP as outdated, boring and - on occasion - a little toxic. I’m in the second camp.

And while this endless debate goes on (and on and on), not a lot gets done.



So TUP is a party with a problem. It's perennially the biggest party in the eUK, but fails to fulfil its potential. Its past is controversial, and that seems to be stifling its support now. Some think that the way to solve this is to return to TUP values and methods of the past, others think that it needs to move forward.

I think that it needs more personality. No matter how good or bad it was a couple of years ago, today it's largely anonymous. It needs more high profile people who are involved in every aspect of the game, not just in internal TUP business. And - more than anything else - it needs to lighten up. The days of serious political alliances and good governance above everything else are gone. Trying to revive them will lead to failure. While the internal debate rages on, nothing will improve.


Finally, this is the last opportunity to crank up the ever-confusing Patented VoodooMike Party Activity Scale-o-meter, where TUP score an average:






So that’s it - the final party review in the much-longer-than-I-intended Party Animal series. At some point I’ll throw together a summary of the entire series (so there’s something to look forward to), and that's when I’ll decide what party I’m going to call home from now on.

See you on the other side.










Carlton is the ultimate party animal