Talk:McGillicuddy Serious Party

Initial comment

Many of the party's original members resented what they saw as a usurpation of their party for political purposes.

Kudos! JRM 21:14, 2004 Dec 28 (UTC)

Many of the party's original members were upset when their lifetime membership was cancelled.

The McGillicuddys, who had actually made it into Parliament tried and failed to disband the party to avoid being lampooned by an orginisation they saw as their own.

Formed mid-1980s as a light-hearted reaction to serious political parties that don't appear to take promises and public concerns seriously. Promoted the "Great Leap Backwards" to return civilization to medieval times. Promised full unemployment, to raise the school leaving age to 65, and demolish all buildings on a last up, first down basis. Unfortunately became politically correct and therefore started to make serious policies. A number of Anarchists joined McGillicuddies and enjoyed the high-power hobnobbing with main stream politicians so much that they have joined the system that they once opposed.

Och Aye the Olde

Obviously there is alittle bit of a conflict running between keeping this page as an accurate historical record of an amusing party, and inserting humor and random acts of anarchism.

Perhaps a page of McGillicuddy posters and press releases could be started, linked to the historic one, and possibly accompanied by a new entry for the new McGillicuddies, and new material could be placed in these.

As I see from the central leader the New McGillicuddies have got some policies funny enough for journalists to print, I'll try to add these shortly.

The page is indeed supposed to be a serious treatment of the historic party, yes. Wikipedia isn't really the place for "humor and random acts of anarchism" — it's meant to be an encyclopedia (a real one). Your suggestion of a separate page for the new party is a good one — I've created such a page, although it will still have to abide by Wikipedia policies about neutrality, style of discourse, and so forth. -- Vardion 04:48, 24 July

Its obvious you are being paid by some political organisation....come work for us. Moral McGillicuddy

Och Aye the Olde II

Well done on your efforts to tidy up the vandalism Vardion. As a former McGillicuddy supporter, I say let there be organised and historically accurate silliness.

I'm afraid I have to back those who stood for silliness and humour, without any political agenda, rather than those who support anarchism, which to my mind is a political agenda itself , (albeit a silly one :-).

"Moral McGillicuddy", the original McGillicuddy agenda was the restoration of Fuedalism and the Scottish Monarchy. These were silly platforms, but not anarchistic ones - on the contrary they implied structure and order. If you want to conduct anarchistic acts, it would be more honest to do so without trying to use the structure and organistion of the McGillicuddy party. Why not found your own silly party, and leave the history of this one alone?

Younger Pretenders?

WE SAY IN REPLY.... The party history has been hijacked & santised by vicious editing practises and reversions. back to a politically sanitsed template.....we are here to stay.

You have been asked not to refer to the Party in the past tense and your edits seem politically motivated. The first instance being your quote to replace MP's with hot air machines. Sorry, simply not funny.

Likewise, your reference to "Younger Pretenters" is incorrect, with the spokespersons in our last press release having collectively stood for Parliament 6 times and have the support of their electorate.

Simply because Laird Cairns decides to end his involvement with the party in a public humiliatian ritual does not confer on him the right to terminate the membership for life of the southern clan McGillicuddy. Likewise Natioial did'nt die a total death when Rob Muldoon dropped off the planet.

If you have an issue with content, please name your sources, otherwise further edits will be noted. Thank you..and good luck with your attemp to write serious articles about sillyness.

Thane of Real & 113 loyal supporters(figures from last census)

My two cents worth.

To the person who keeps repeatedly changing the word in the decline and plummet section: In the context of the rest of the section as it stood before you changed this one word, it is pretty obvious that your "edit" is factually wrong, since there WERE menbers that resented the anarchist influence, and there WAS a debate. Your edit ignores this fact. If you want to edit to say that some members had no problem then this is true. To edit to hide the fact the some members did have a problem is simply wrong.

"The McGillicuddys, who had actually made it into Parliament tried and failed to disband the party to avoid being lampooned by an orginisation they saw as their own". This is quite simply wrong and malicious.

"Obviously there is alittle bit of a conflict running between keeping this page as an accurate historical record of an amusing party, and inserting humor and random acts of anarchism". There is no conflict. Wiki has the support it does because it is designed to be a factual work, accessible to all and valued on that basis.

"Simply because Laird Cairns decides to end his involvement with the party in a public humiliatian ritual does not confer on him the right to terminate the membership for life of the southern clan McGillicuddy"

A//You have the title wrong. It is the Laird McGillicuddy. B// In addition, your membership of the Clan McGillicuddy has not been terminated. Do not conflate the Clan with the party. C//Thirdly, your wish to re-establish the party without the blessing of the Laird and other senior Clan members shows a lack of understanding of what the McGSP actually was. I totally agree with the viewpoint expressed here: "The original McGillicuddy agenda was the restoration of Feudalism and the Scottish Monarchy. These were silly platforms, but not anarchistic ones - on the contrary they implied structure and order." Within the loose 'structure' that was the party, this heirarchy and order was implicitly understood. The McGSP was never a "democratic" party and certainly not an anarchistic one, and if the Laird wishes to terminate it, that his right, in the context in which the party operated. I would further note that his decision to terminate the party was not actually unilateral, and there was a great deal of debate before the LAIRD MCGILLICUDDY made the final decision.

A Ritual Act of Public Humiliation

Apolgies about any offence taken with my "Younger Pretenders" byline - begging the Bonnie Prince's forgivenes, history has labelled ALL post 1688 Stuarts 'Pretenders',(inter a lot of alia). I am merely an old Pretender. Or, since I have remained loyal to the Laird's order for disbandment, you could say I'm an ex-pretender. Sort of like Chrisie Hynde except ugly and unable to hold a tune.

Anyway, nail me to my perch and call me Norwegian Blue if I intended to rewrite history by denying that another organisation had usurped the title of us would be usurpers. The suggestion of another page for press releases et C was a regretably transparent ploy to try to stop anarchists vandalising this page and send them somewhere else. It is not my intention to deny that an attempt to reform a party is happening. It is my intention to make sure that writing about the reformed party - and for that matter the anarchists involvement in the party's demise - should be historically accurate, rather than anarchistic.

Certainly a new paragraph about the new party would be a good idea. For example, a list of new policies would be most welcome, (the random jargon generator comment was the only bit I could remember of a breif but lucid newspaper article regarding the party reformingand containing a list of new silly policies. Unfortunately I do not know enough about the new McGillicuddy to write anything more than a quick few lines about it, (the press release floating round the web is not readily summarised, or indeed understood). More unfortunately before I could get the wording of anything else, I lost the newspaper containing the lucid, if very short, article. (It was thrown out by a woman blessed with a desire to tidy. Or perhaps she contributed the paper to the new party's paper mache, I don't know).

Anyhow I would suggest any new comment about the party should include that it is not recognised by the Laird, who was recognised as the Fuedal leader of the old party. Obviously it should NOT include the bald statement that other parties were secretly allied to McGillicuddy Serious, becuase that is not true. It could include a comment that members of the new party CLAIMED other parties were allied to it, which is true.

Finally, fighting within the clan is of course a proud part of true fake Scottish fuedal idiocy. Though usually we use newspapers rolled up into clubs, rather than the actual words within them, you tricksy little McGillicuddiesses.

Anyhow, I'd better stop rabbiting while at least some of you are still reading.

Yours foolishly,

Retired Pretender.

another young pretender writes...

this page has generated a fair amount of discussion on the McG email list recently; the best supposition we can make is that one of the more prolific (shall we say) editors of this page is also in some way involved in the new party using the title. Guesses have been made as to who this is, but so far as I know, no-one has an up to date email address for this person. Address books being what they are and all...

The party, and to an even larger extent, the Clan as a whole appears to have always had a degree of regional autonomy, and a vaguely coherent (at best) internal communications structure. Much debate has taken place as to the authority of various people w/in the Clan have, and the variable extent to which said authority is/was recognised by other Clan members. The decision to disband the party at the end of 1999 was not simply the through the wishes of the Laird of Hamilton, though unsuprisingly he was one of those pushing for this outcome. IIRC the decision was made at the 1999 party summit, held a Te Pahu over Queen's Birthday Weekend. The decision was to fold the party, which for my part (as party secretary at the time), amounted to informing the electoral commission that we had ceased to exist, when this decison came into effect (post election, after a surprise loss...).

One of the decisions made at the summit concerned the use of the name McGillicuddy in future electoral activities; the decision was to recognise the right of others (i.e. clan members) to continue using the name McGillicuddy, but not that of the McGillicuddy Serious Party.

Some attempt has been made to contact those who sent the press release to scoop; the communications web over the years has been patchy at best, with many 'cells' out of touch, particularly given that Te Pahu (as the emost stable node) is in no way connected to the internet, and will not likely ever be.

It might help if said editor were to create a login and profile, and edit under a login; all we can see is an IP address, not of any real use to us for discussion. A big problem is the airing of personal gripes on the encyclopedia page - that is not the place for it (though perhaps this is...), and your perspectives are just those: perspectives, despite any authority you feel you may have from your apparent long standing involvement and contribution to the party and clan. Unless you are the real A. B. McGillicuddy, of course. Your ideas on the true nature of the party and clans are not alone, and many others have had similar problems with others who have got involved from other worlds (say, for example, many shades of a/Anarchist). I put diverging views on this stuff down to all manner of things, from different world views, to different senses of humour, but from what I understand many factors led to considerable autonomy of candidates and spokespeople. One strength that our party had was the ability for any candidate to make whatever pronouncements and promises they felt necessary, however serious or crackpot their reasons may have been. Indeed without this we would have no claim on the ability to be 'more anything than anyone'...

anyhow, another idea is to get in touch with somene who can give you directions on joining the wiggley loop, I would suggest the Thane of Gordonton as someone more easy to find contact details for. You might find that few of the people who you may have specifically found objectionable are still involved in the clan in any way shape or form.

(edit, mid 2006) you might also want to see if you can get used to that; likely worthwhile...

love how the page is evolving, had never heard of the 'universal hedgehog sufferage', and the motivation very likely...

bernard.

blacksand 08 august 2005

Party not Reregistered

The deadline for re-registration for the 2005 elections having passed, no McGillicuddy Serious Party or similar is registered; See http://www.elections.org.nz/parties/registered_political_parties.html#gen1. In fact disappointingly , no silly parties at all seem to be registered this year. Argh, who to vote for?

Well, a party can still put up electorate candidates without being registered —

Och Aye, I was nae saying aut other me laddie :-).

they just can't put up a party list. You may still find a suitable electorate candidate, depending on where you live. As for the party vote, though, I think you're right — no joke parties this time round. -- Vardion 00:24, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Inuit nuff to break a purr un-Scots heart :-(!

The Laird wrote an article in the Waikato Times last weekend, which didn't mention the new McGillicuddies, but did announce he would not be supporting ANY political party. "Don't vote for the *******s, it only encourages them", quoth the Laird.

Should he stay or Should he go now? Bonnie Prince Geoffie Page deleted

I walked out, you left me... sorry just having an Exponents moment there. Um, there was a stub page for Bonnie Prince Geoffie. An Aussie deleted it and put a redirect to this page. Good idea or nooo? Should he stay or should he go? Discussion between myself and Chairman S. below;

REDIRECT Chairman S. (Contents are covered sufficiently at redirected page)USER:Chairman S..

Note you deleted contents of this page and redirected to McGillicuddy Serious Party. While the two pages had broadly similar material about his history, the Prince Geoffie page was a stub to be elaborated on, which I see several people made contributions to in the space of a few months, so there is every reason to believe it would continue to develop new material. Those hunting only him are directed to a page which is mostly not relevant, where as my understanding of the redirect function is that it is to prevent duplicate articles where terms are synonyms, not to prevent repition of material in different pages. Repitition is logically necessary with every biography and history article. I am inclined to resurrect the Prince Geoffie stub, but wished to hear your views first. Winstonwolfe 00:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I redirected the page because I felt that there was no need to have a seperate page for what is essentially a short-lived fictional character. It seems to me that it would be better to simply have information on the "Prince" at the McGillicuddy Serious Party article instead. USER:Chairman S.. 07:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Fictional? Reluctant yes, but not fictional :-). Suggest we leave a note in discussion on both sites and see what others think? Winstonwolfe 19:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)P.S. excellent favourite books and movies :-).

I'm happy to for notes to be left on the discussion pages. What I meant by "essentially fictional" was that it seems unlikely the page can be expanded much. Chairman S. 07:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say that Bonnie Prince Geoffie (the Reluctant) is best dealt with here on this page; it might be useful to compare his position in McGillicuddy lore as a mixture of truth and fact - a biography page based in fact would not accurately describe BPG(tR) whereas anything otherwise would scarcely suit a biographical entry. Pardon the late contribution to this discussion, somehow this wasn't on my watchlist...blacksand 13:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

References

I note that this article has no references, other than a link to the 1999 party manifesto, and a link to [1] which appears inaccessible. I fear that some of the policies and anecdotes may not be verifiable. Should we clear all unreferenced material and start over?-gadfium 09:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Is there any material that we have a reason to doubt? For all the misguided rhetoric about wikipedia must not include anything that might fit within the fast and loose definition of "research", if all unreferenced material was removed, not only would we loose this article, but 19/20ths of Wikipedia. I wouldn't get all deletionist - otherwise we will be forced to loose history about McGSP not because it didn't happen, but because it isn't already recorded somewhere else on the web - and I for one don't want Wikipedia to encourage the tendancy for the web to become a loop no new information ever gets into. I can personally vouch for much of the material in this article, (and still have quite a few election posters and flyers with policies - but where as a serious academic work could cite those, some wikipedians might not accept that). I also have articles from the Hearld, Suburban newspapers, Craccum and the odd McGillcuddy newsletter.Winstonwolfe 05:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm particularly concerned about the "McGillicuddy policies" section. I am unable to tell, when an editor adds a new policy to the section, whether this was something advocated by the party, or this is just something this editor thinks is funny. At present, I'm reduced to looking at the previous edits made, and deciding whether this is a good faith editor. This is not a satisfactory position.

I'd like to see each such policy linked to a media report, manifesto or other printed source. The media reports don't have to be available online. I'm not going to go down to the public library to find copies of newspapers from last century, but if a claim is backed by such a reference, then someone can do so if they need to in the future. I would assume that some library will have collections of election posters, flyers and newsletters too. If you suspect they might not, you could offer to donate your collection to one (or at least add a note in your will about it).-gadfium 06:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I will be away for a bit over a month from tomorrow, so can't really drop everything to do a whole bunch of research. I can't recall which policies are listed in which paper articles / manifestos. But the only ones in the article I was unaware of are the demolition of buildings and the mandatory homosexuality*. Off the top of my head I have and can scan on to Wikipedia election posters advertising:

Full employment through slavery

Votes for trees

Replacing the Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps with Mounted Knights

An All Whites victory in the Soccer World Cup

Free Tongan citizenship

Good weather

To break promises

And a few others not listed on the page.Winstonwolfe 02:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

I certainly don't regard this as urgent. By the end of the year would be nice!-gadfium 02:55, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• Mandatory 33% homosexuality was a post-manifesto policy (in I think the '93 election), but was widely covered in the dailies and should be easy to find a reference to. Tartanperil 13:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

A small point

"Prior to the 1984 election, David Lange's Labour Party promised to maintain free tertiary education...". I'm pretty sure it was before the 1988 election Lange made this statement on TV. No idea of a sources fro the date though. Tartanperil 13:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

TV mention

In a case of sad non-celebrityitis...Game of Two Halves Question this week..."In the 1990 election campaign, what did the McGillicuddy Serious Party promise the All Whites?"  :-) Winstonwolfe

Anarchist "infiltration"

Boy, has someone got an axe to grind with these latest edits. Silverslith wouldn't be a certain self-styled Admiral by any chance? I have reverted the page back to its pre-Silverslith edit, as much of the new "contribution" is rather slanderous, inaccurate, and not to mention a rather poor didactic and tedious reading. Oh, and it goes without saying, it is not at all objective. PavillonE (talk) 09:41, 16 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by PavillonE (talk • contribs) 09:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Te Atatu dispute

The paragraph in question was deleted in June 2009, reasonably promptly after its contents were disputed. Since there are no citable sources for the incident that meet Wikipedia criteria, it should not be covered in the article or discussed on this talk page.-gadfium 09:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I was told some time ago that I needed to catch up with edits to my name in this article, but have only just got round to it. I note the original text: " *Free Tongan citizenship: National's Brian Neeson accused Dan McCaffrey, Labour's 1990 candidate for Te Atatu, of promising some Pacific Islanders New Zealand citizenship if they joined the Labour Party. Tonga at the time would sell its passports to all comers, leading to a clamp-down by other countries on people travelling under Tongan passports. McCaffrey's McGillicuddy Serious opponent, Kit Boyes, offered free Tongan citizenship to everyone who didn't vote for him. McCaffrey threatened defamation proceedings against a bemused Boyes, who operated as the McGillicuddy spokesperson for legalised theft (taxation). Unfortunately for McCaffrey, Boyes studied law. " has been deleted, and the following passage inserted in it's place. " *Free Tongan citizenship: Members of the left wing of the Labour Party accused Dan McCaffrey, Labour's 1990 candidate for Te Atatu, of promising some Pacific Islanders New Zealand citizenship if they joined the Labour Party. McCaffrey sued them for defamation and they settled out of Court. Mr McCaffrey promised no one Tongan citizenship and anyone asserting this can provide an address for service and contribute to mccaffrey's pension fund. McCaffrey has does not remember threatening to sue Boyes. If Boyes would provide his/her address and continues to defame me than I can assure him/her it will be no threat. " [formating altered for readability. Text unaltered] The whole section was then deleted from the article. While I have no complaints about that deletion, I thought I should answer the allegations in the edit. - I did not publish any defamatory comments about Mr McCaffrey during the campaign, and despite almost falling to temptation after reading the edit above, I have have not done so since. At the cost, I might add, of a much better title for this edit involving a children's pacifier, expectoration and guano. - During the campaign I did publish an A4 photocopied poster, which, from memory, promised the oppressed masses of Te Atatu free citizenship in the sun blessed Kingdom of Tonga. It was illustrated by a picture of me distributing a load of fertiliser, and the fact the text was a load of it was reinforced in the small print. I don't recall the exact wording but I probably have a copy in storage. In light of the interest shown by the edit above, I will try and find it, borrow a scanner and publish it on Wiki commons. - The Kingdom of Tonga had recently been accused of selling passports to characters of repute that was, if not ill, at least looking rather sickly. - At about the same time, Mr McCaffrey was accused of offering New Zealand citizenship in return for Labour Party membership. Now I had thought Mr McCaffrey cleared his name in court, but I see the edit says he settled before the matter went to court, so perhaps I'm wrong and validity of the allegations has not been definitively determined. I do not know, and I don't care, for as the editor says, the allegations were made by members of the Labour Party. They were not made by me. To repeat again, to the best of my knowledge, I did not publish any defamatory comments about Mr McCaffrey, whether true or false. - I do quite clearly remember Mr McCaffrey phoning me to threaten a defamation suit. I do not suggest Mr McCaffrey was lying when he says he does not recall the conversation - as a busy and some what controversial politician, no doubt Mr McCaffrey had to make a large number of similar phone calls. As an impressionable teenager writing satire, it was my first one, and something of an event. Indeed I told virtually anybody who would listen a verbatim account of it for some time afterwards, until the story was well known amongst a wide circle and the yawning became quite pointed. To refresh Mr McCaffrey's memory, perchance he reads it, I'll dust off the anecdote again. As a courtesy, and thinking they might like a souvenir, I sent all candidates copies of my election posters. As I recall, and I may have some of these details wrong, but as best as I can remember, Sue Pockett and Warwick Pudney sent thank you notes. Brian Neeson thanked me, returned the compliment and tried to persuade me to join the National Party. Mr McCaffrey on the other hand rang me up in what seemed a poultry temper, and demanded I remove all posters forthwith or he would sue me for slander. Now I had not yet studied torts at law school but fortunately I have always been rather better at reading non set material than what the course requires. I discussed slander, libel, and the defamation act. It turned out Mr McCaffrey was also for some reason familiar with them, and had misspoken in the heat of the moment. I then went through what you need to establish to show defamation. Mr McCaffrey was unconvinced, but wished to avoid lawyers fees, or possibly the New Zealand Herald, who I'd mentioned were interviewing me and may be interested. Mr McCaffrey asked me if "out of decency" I would go around and pick up the posters. I said truthfully I couldn't remember where I'd put them all. I may have failed to mention that, after the ones I'd sent to the candidates, and the ones I'd given to other McGillicuddies, there were less than ten actually posted anywhere. Mr McCaffrey said if I did not put any more up, he would forget about the whole thing, (it appears he was as good as his word). I said I would do so if he said please. I don't think he did say please, in truth I was having some difficulty getting myself heard over him, but in any event I had no more of the posters, at the subsequent candidates debate nothing was said, and I heard no more of it, until now. - The author of the edit was anonymous, and since it refers rather dramatically to "McCaffrey" in the third person, you could assume it was not written by him. I wouldn't, but you could. - I do owe Mr McCaffrey one apology for my conduct on another matter. As I recall I understood he was favoured to win the election. Now on election night the McGillicuddies had a party in Grafton. It was a good one. Unfortunately during the course of the evening I neglected to see the results of the seat I was contesting, or indeed the rest of the election. The following morning I made both an unfortunate assumption and an ass of myself by ringing Mr MacCaffrey to congratulate him. For that, Mr McCaffrey, I do apologise. - My Address for Service is 16/39 Pitt St, Auckland Central. If Mr McCaffrey wrote the edit above, and cares to make contact, I would be delighted to accept his apology. For other readers, I also apologise for the length of this diatribe. Congratulations on making your way through it, please make your way to the nearest exit, taking your baggage with you :-). Kit Boyes (talk) 09:12, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

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Other satirical/joke parties

Is it worth including mentions in the See Also to other parties similar to this? Such as Civilian or Bill and Ben? Seems like it would be worth having to me. Waniou (talk) 03:01, 3 March 2016 (UTC)