Appointment: McChimp as Director of Public Relations

[joWhatup]

I am hesitant, so to speak, on this appointment. The person in question has quite a bit of a temper and I am somewhat concerned it might not exactly help to improve our standing abroad if they are unable to keep this in check. Speaking from personal experience, I am concerned that you aren’t able to keep a cool head where one is required.

I also have other questions and concerns I would like answers to:

When I took over as Director of Public Relations earlier this year, when Sylven was Prime Minister, following your service in that office, the department was inactive and disorganised: we were short on ambassadors, the department in question did not seem to be informed about it’s purpose, there was no list of ambassadors to speak of, and foreign updates were not written or published. This has somewhat improved when Domais and Ryccia were in office, but it is still somewhat short on staff, and it’s position is fragile, so to speak. I recognise you may have only had a relatively short time in office, and you may have been unable to resolve these issues in the time you were given, but I would still like to know what you plan to do to prevent these things in the future, how to keep the department active and engaging.

Furthermore, where do you think the PR department should aim itself at? Which regions are natural allies, which regions aren’t? What makes you distinguish one from the other? What do you think our broad approach to alliances should be? In particular, what should our approach to NPO-allied regions be? How will we strengthen ties to our current allies?

Those are broad concerns and questions I have that I wish answered before I determine amything.

You've painted a really dim picture of what I think of as a rather successful stint as FA minister despite extreme adversity.

That may be. While I do not deny your successes during your term, there were, from my perspective at least, certainly also some issues and I consider it worth the time and effort to request clarification about what your ideas are to prevent such issues from occurring in the future.

I'm capable of being diplomatic: I wrote our treaty with TSP from scratch and saw that ratified by all parties. I'm also capable of saying no when that's necessary: I told TEP that their conduct made it clear that a treaty between us wasn't appropriate. Half a year later, TWP and Osiris have reached the same conclusion and recently dropped their treaties with TEP. Sometimes the guy representing this region has to be able to put his foot down.

Agreed, but they also need to know when the time is to remain silent and calm. That is my primary concern - I know you can put your foot down, you have demonstrated as much on multiple occasions.

My priorities and Sylven's priorities didn't always line up. In particular I thought she was too accepting, that she let people take advantage of Lazarus too much. She let people publish interviews with fascists who had attempted to subvert TNP in the Gazette, people who it later turned out were fascists attempting to subvert Lazarus. She often put up polls asking the citizenry about really important FA decisions before she had told me she was going to make a decision at all. In particular she took this approach when she was asked what Lazarus would think of Osiris making peace with the NPO. During the resulting "peace or not?" poll Lazarene citizens were deprived of the full context of the situation and the then-FA minister of Osiris actively campaigned for ending the war despite the obvious conflict of interest. In another case I had to wade in after she invited Unibot into Lazarus on the NSGP forum. In all of these cases I told her that I thought she was being reckless.

While fair, a minister of Foreign Affairs in particular needs to be capable of working closely with the Prime Minister and the rest of the Cabinet, as opposed to pushing their own views for foreign policy in opposition to the Prime Minister. While I agree that Sylven could be uncommunicative at times, it seems odd to me that you took this question to bash Sylven, which has little to do with my actual comments, and accuse a fellow Lazarene of an obvious conflict of interest, which also does not respond to my concerns.

In the end I was replaced because Sylven wanted an extensive ambassador programme with monthly reports where I wanted to create a close-knit FA team, write reports quarterly and to extend efforts like those that had seen success in TSP to other regions. In the end, I don't think my replacement delivered the ambassador programme she wanted either and on top of that the clear agenda I had agreed with her was totally abandoned, either because the candidate she replaced me with was unable to work with the regions I had been working with or was unwilling to.

You can simply say "you" or "Jo" if you refer to me while replying to me

I fail to see the relevance of what I did or did not accomplish during my short service as MoFA, however. This thread is about your present nomination for that position and any questions or concerns regarding that nomination. Much like your criticism of Sylven's term as Prime Minister, this does not respond or answer the questions and concerns brought up.

With regards to this term, I'd like to put that agenda back on the rails. In pursuit of this, there will be interregional events that will hopefully engage not only our ambassadors-who we ought to keep now that we have them-but also the whole region with the rest of the world. I want to see our treaty with TSP-who I think is the most obvious candidate for alliance amongst the GCRs-progress to a full mutual defence pact. Perhaps this might allow us to befriend other members of that sphere. The groundwork has already been laid and TSP is a reliable region. If we ever need help, we would be able to depend on them: I think that's the most important quality for a friend to have.

Some more questions, in response to this: We don't have all that many ambassadors. Do you have an idea how to advertise the Department more, and recruit new ones? Why is TSP the most obvious candidate for an alliance for us? And for what purpose would we want to befriend (ally with, if I am not mistaken) other members of "that sphere", which I can only assume refers to the defender sphere? What makes you believe we could depend on them? Are there other plans you have? What about allies in the UCRs, which you seem to entirely disregard? What will you do to strengthen our current ties to Thalassia, Osiris and TWP?