Having attended two political public events in the last week, one common feature which struck me was how irrelevent the current political parties are to the debate. They have the power, there’s no question of that, but what was striking was that in conversations about issues, on everything from the economy to energy supply to immigration, die-hard members of parties either could not participate in the discussion, because they could not seem to understand the issues, or did not wish to voice an opinion because that was, surreally, seen as some sort of hostage to fortune.

FF seem to spend their time out manouvering each other, and FG spend their time wishing they were as sucessful as FF. That’s it. Do you really think they are having in-depth debates in either party on the issues mentioned above? The worrying thing is that it means that nearly 75% of our national parliament (our two main parties) are made up of people who aren’t really interested in how the country is run, but are there because it is a good job with a pension. It’s like having a doctor who isn’t really interested in medicine. 

Most Irish people aren’t ideological. They tend to have both right wing and left wing opinions on issues, and Irish parties have always recognised that by being centrist. But we have now reached a situation where the main parties have effectively stepped out of politics to avoid alienating people, and are now not part of the discussion as to what sort of country we would like to be.

Would we be better off giving Fianna Fail and Fine Gael their own play-parliament to call each other names in, and have a seperate parliament for debating political ideas? Oh, and before anyone from FF or FG start listening their policy issues, a challenge: Will you let me give you a list of policy questions to be answered, on issues that are normal to be debated in other democracies?

Went to Leviathan to hear some political cabaret and debate on the subject of reforming the constitution. Interesting debate and thoughtful input from Elaine Byrne, Brendan Halligan, Gerard Hogan and Ronan Mullen. A couple of points struck me:

1. There is a division in Irish society between those who believe that we all played a part in our current difficulties (and I’m one of them) and those who feel, even though they voted for FF, that it has nothing to do with them.

2. Ronan Mullen got booed (unfairly) for making the very reasonable point that Irish people seem more interested in being angry than in discussing ideas about how our society is shaped. He’s right. 

3. How our political parties have almost no relevance to the current debate. The fact that we have had 12 reports on political reform by Oireachtas committees which successive FF/FG and Labour govts have done little with says something.

4. Particularly enjoyed the audience member who shouted out “10% of the population are foreigners!” as his big observation.

This would be a terrible crisis to let go to waste…

What did this poster even mean?

Every now and again we hear a call for the need for political parties, government and candidates to “reach out” and “engage” with various groups in society who do not participate in the political process. In many cases, there are good reasons. It’s good, for example, for political parties to attempt to communicate with new immigrants, because this helps them learn about their rights as voters.

What does my head in, on the other hand, is the obsession with reaching out to groups of people who are well aware of their political rights, but just couldn’t be arsed. Take the obsession with engaging young people with politics. In my days in youth politics, we squandered vast amounts of time and money trying to get our fellow young people involved in politics. We organised piss ups, we tried to dumb down issues for them to understand, and for what? So that basically people who were interested in politics spent less time actually discussing issues but instead pandering to people whom we’d be better off with not voting at all.

It’s the same with turnout. In Britain, Labour have become obsessed with boosting turnout at all costs, including making the electoral system open to abuse through postal voting. For what? So that people who think that spending 15 minutes voting every 5 years is hard should be consulted on the direction of the country? Yes, it’s their right. But I’ve a right to think that people like that are unlikely to have given much consideration to who they’re voting for or why.

“But, politics is so complicated!” They whine. Yes, it is. Running a €150 billion economy is complicated, as is brain surgery and air traffic control. Get used to it. Not sure about an issue? Ask your TD, or look it up on the web, but up your game, because we’re fed up pandering to the drooling vegetable vote.  

We’d actually be better off offering every voter a tenner not to vote when they arrive at the polling station. That way, everyone’s right to vote is protected, as it should be, but those who refuse the tenner are far more likely to be taking the damn thing seriously.

Terry Pratchett makes his point here. Yet another “divisive” issue that our well-paid legislators (And I use that word cautiously) run screaming from, lest they be required to have an opinion. For my money, I can see both points of view, and feel this needs to be discussed.