We all pretend to be horrified, but have a good goo anyway.
They’re a treat, aren’t they? They tend to come in two varieties. First, there’s the “F**k you and your whore!” couple, normally fuelled with plenty of drink, where she doesn’t care who knows it, roaring at him about his infidelities and, occasionally, sexual inadequacies. All around the pub, conversations pause not in embarrassment but in an attempt to earwig on this juicy slice of life. He doesn’t put up much of a defence, normally deciding to build a defensive position around a single statement (“But I rang you! I rang you!”) which he believes absolves him of responsibility, or alternatively, he goes on the attack with a minor point that he attempts to magnify (“I saw the way you were lookin’ at him! I saw yez!”). It normally ends with him storming out because “his head is melted” and her realisation that the whole pub has been watching Eastenders: The Live Show. She then attempts to restore a few grammes of dignity by improved posture, walking back to the bar holding her alcopop like she’s a debutante at the Savoy. Kate Midleteon in leopardskin.
Then there’s the middle class couple, who manage the marvellous two-hander of being vicious to each other whilst on no account causing a scene. You’ll see them in professional workplaces, hospitals or law firms, standing in a corner. He’ll be looking coldly at her, wishing death, she’ll be hissing through gritted teeth. A colleague will pass, and both smile and nod, perhaps a playful remark, and then back to it. He’ll have an affair with one of the office juniors, her with his best friend.
They’ll stay together, however, for the good of the mortgage, or at least until David McWilliams says that property prices are rebounding.
Talking to Fianna Fail people, it’s clear that there is a lot of internal discussion going on within that party as to its future. Within that context, I reckon one of Fianna Fail’s greatest obstacles is its in-built nervousness about openly discussing options, which is an historical hangover from when it was once the most powerful party in the country. I write quite a lot about Fianna Fail, because I find it the most interesting non-left party in the country at the moment, but I’m always surprised at the reaction to comments I make about the party, on this blog or Facebook/Twitter. Many FFers engage, a little nervously, and usually through private channels, but some almost get a twitch at the idea of an outsider like me passing comment. I can even recall one pretty much telling me to mind my own business, whilst then waxing lyrically about how the party was a National Movement!
It has to be said, however, that Fianna Fail needs to talk to non-Fianna Failers (perhaps through an app that the public has to pay a nominal amount for? It would stop a whole load of anti-FF baiters from downloading if they thought they were giving FF money!) if it wishes to recover, because in its current state, there is a danger that it could just spend its time looking into itself, and that would not be a good thing. A TD recently told me that what surprised him most about Fianna Fail in its current climate is how rural it is becoming in its thinking. This is not a bad thing in itself, as rural voters are entitled to representation like everyone else, but if Fianna Fail is happy to primarily become a party of rural interests, it should get used to being a small party.
I mentioned this point to someone recently, and contrasted it with Fianna Fail’s liberal bill on gay rights, and my surprise that a predominantly rural party didn’t kick up about it. His answer was very telling: “It’s worse than that. They’re not just rural conservatives. They actually don’t care about the gay rights bill because they don’t care about all that legislation stuff!”
I’m always dubious about the phrase “job creation” when uttered by someone in government. The latest appearance of the dreaded remark is with regard to proceeds from privatisation. I have no problem with some of the money going to assist in job creation, I just have no faith that most of it won’t be squandered on civil servants administering it. At this stage, it would make better sense to take the money and pass it on to taxpayers as time limited vouchers to be spent on labour intensive services like tourism and catering in Ireland or home improvement (disclosure: I work in the industry). At least it could act as a domestic stimulus package for the private sector, which is where it is needed, and whilst some of the money will leak on imports, I still reckon more will end up in the job creating/maintaining part of the economy. Given our increase in savings, if it goes on civil service pay, a large proportion of it will be sensibly squirreled away, which is not what we need. We need that money in the domestic retail economy, where the biggest job creation bang for our buck is most likely.
The recent Sunday Times poll giving Sinn Fein second place to Fine Gael, on 25% to 32%, is a very exciting result if it is anyway near to how people would actually vote. The truth is, if there was a serious chance of Sinn Fein-led government emerging, our first ever left wing government, that would be the most important election I would ever have voted in. There are a number of reasons why:
1. It would force Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to seriously consider coalition. As I have written in the past, I genuinely believe that once FF and FG enter government together, they will be locked together, CDU/CSU or Australian Liberal/National party style, forever, and quite happily too.
2. Labour will eventually give serious consideration to coalition with Sinn Fein, if only because, as The Worker’s Party proved in the 1980s/1990s, Labour does not do well when there is a strong non-government left wing option on the ballot when Labour is in government.
3. Sinn Fein is moving towards the French Socialist left. Just read their 2012 budget submission. It’s left wing, but it ain’t Richard Boyd Barrett. This is a party getting ready to disappoint its “true believers” wing, as the PDs, Greens and Labour all discovered was unavoidable when the It-Will-Be-Glorious! rhetoric of Opposition meets the Where’s-All-The-Money? reality of Government.
This is, of course, all assuming that FF and SF don’t come to an arrangement. If a Sinn Fein/Fianna Fail coalition came to power, it will be almost impossible to tell the difference from the current crowd, save for a few hundred million being squandered on Irish language boondoggles and Forums on a United Ireland, etc.
When I was watching TV in the mid-eighties, just entering my teens, my two favourite TV shows had been off the air for half a decade before I had even been born. Curiously, both were about international organisations dedicated to maintaining global peace and destroying the plans of world domination by various nefarious individuals, and I often wonder did that subconsciously shape my political beliefs? The first was the British show “The Champions”, which was an Avengers style show. The second, and my favourite, was “The Man from U.N.C.L.E”.
“The Man from U.N.C.L.E” was created by Norman Felton, a US TV producer who got the idea of recruiting Ian Fleming to help devise a new TV spy show in 1963. Fleming came up with the idea of a character named Napoleon Solo, and pretty much stopped there, as the producers of the Bond movies were not enthused about the creator of 007 creating another fictional spy.
Felton went on to flesh out the show, devising a concept of an American and Russian spy working together, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, to defend world peace. Robert Vaughn (now in BBC’s Hustle) played Solo, with David McCallum (“Ducky” in NCIS) as his partner Ilya Kuryakin. What made the show was not just the action and outlandish plots (silent gun battle in a crowded cinema, anyone?) to take over the world but the witty repartee between the womanising Solo (there were A LOT of pretty girls) and the acerbic Kuryakin. And, of course, we can’t forget the baddies, the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity, UNCLE’s evil twin, more commonly known as THRUSH. Bless.
1. Ideological parties. It is not true to say that there is no ideology in Irish politics, because there is a left-right divide. It’s just not accepted by most parties. As in the UK, you can vote for conservative status quo candidates or trades union friendly candidates, only their parties will deny that those divisions exist. Unlike Labour or the Tories, there is no major party in Ireland that does not claim to speak for every section of society from public sector workers to business.
2. Thanks to the voting system, there is a wider choice of electable candidates in Ireland. This may come as a surprise to Irish voters, but ask yourself this: when was the last time you saw elected MPs on NewsNight holding positions like Richard Boyd Barrett or Joe Higgins?
3. Irish politicians have a much larger personal vote than most British politicians to the extent that not only can they lose their party label, but can actually defeat their old parties in following elections. It is quite rare for British MPs who choose to change party to keep their seats. In Ireland, the majority of TDs do.
4. Irish politicians, like their US and French counterparts, are expected to deliver locally, especially if they become ministers. As minister for urban renewal, Gay Mitchell openly boasted how he had directed large amounts of money to projects in his constituency.
5. British politicians can build a career in parliament, on national issues, something much much less likely to happen to an Irish politician. In fact, it may even cost him his seat. Jim Mitchell, the chair of the Irish Public Accounts Committee (and brother of Gay, coincidentally) lost his seat after chairing a high profile investigation into tax avoidance, due to spending less time in his constituency.
6. There is no such thing as a safe party seat in Ireland. The PRSTV voting system means that Irish voters think nothing of voting for tiny parties, because under STV voters do not waste votes as in British elections. Also, because Irish voters are used to coalitions, a vote for a small party can still be a vote for government.
7. Candidates can very rarely be parachuted into Irish constituencies close to election time, as say, Tony Blair did in Sedgefield in 1983. Most Irish candidates have to spend years building up a personal vote. Irish candidates are much less likely to have come from a “Miliband” professional politics route through special advisor or parliamentary assistant position, although this is beginning to change.
8. Local government and the upper house of parliament, the senate, are the training grounds in Ireland for contesting parliamentary elections. Most TDs have served in one or the other.
9. Unlike in the UK, where MPs rebel over issues like Europe, Irish parliamentary rebellions are almost never over principle but local issues or the concerns of a noisy vested interest. Whereas hardly any Irish TDs rebelled over paying billions to bank bond holders, they did break ranks over dog breeding and the inspection of septic tanks.
10. The Irish political class is much more united in defending its perks than the British one is, with voters far less likely to expel local TDs for cheating on their expenses or being found to be corrupt.
Fianna Fail senator Averil Power’s bill to protect gay teachers is an interesting snapshot into Fianna Fail thinking. Some people are surprised that it is Power who is pushing the bill, having bought into the incorrect view that her mentoring by (and friendship with) Mary Hanafin means that she shares Hanafin’s conservative views. It will surprise many that Power is actually quite left wing on social and economic issues whilst being, shall we say, very firm on law and order. Having said that, the bill itself raises interesting questions about where Fianna Fail sees itself going. Whereas it is unlikely that Fianna Fail will repudiate its conservative voters ( and would be foolish to do so) it looks very likely that Fianna Fail has now accepted that a strong and visible socially liberal wing will be part of its recovery. It will also be influenced by its membership of the European Liberals in the European Parliament. This can be over-hyped, of course, but as FF members attend ELDR/ALDE events, new ways of thinking about issues do emerge. In my own experience, as a Young PD in the ELDR, the social liberalism that grew in the YPDs was a partial side effect of engaging with our European partners.
What will also be interesting will be Fine Gael’s reaction, and whether FG will become the conservative party on social issues, finally trading places with FF and dealing the death knell to the last vestiges of Garrett? Could we see FF finally go the Des O’Malley route of allowing votes of conscience on designated issues? I wouldn’t rule it out.
1. The vast majority of Seanad reformers quite fancy being senators. I don’t blame them, so do I. But let’s be honest about it.
2. Most of the stuff about parliamentary scrutiny is twaddle. How many times has the Seanad ever fought the government?
3. If the Seanad is so good, why is it that no party leader since Garrett has deemed a single one of his senators worthy of being a cabinet minister? Not one! It means that abolition, for the most part, will only remove politicians of a secondary calibre, as decided by the party leaders themselves.
4. The 2004 reforms, which were stalled by the same people who now regard them as vital, were a great idea. In 2004. Now, they’re just a last throw of the dice.
5. Many “reformers” seem to want to take abolition off the table, THEN discuss reform. What’s the likelihood that those discussions will run for decades? Let them put those reforms to the people first, and if they are rejected, then we can vote on abolition.
6. The biggest reform does not require a referendum. Just pass a law to allow each Dail elector to be a Seanad elector to an appropriate panel as in article 18.7 of the constitution. Let each citizen choose which panel they wish to affiliate to, and overnight we will have a directly elected vocational Seanad, wiping out the councillor electorate. Pass a law to do this, and open up the nominating process, and I’ll vote to retain.
I’m not a fan of Clare Daly or her politics, and I’m very much on the fence about abortion, but well done the deputy for Dublin North for putting down a private member’s bill on abortion, as mentioned here. This needs to be debated, and I’m looking forward to the gutless bastards who make up a sizable proportion of our Dail scurrying for cover and trying to avoid having to, you know, take a legislative position on a piece of legislation, which will be a novelty. I’m also looking forward to the stance of Labour and Sinn Fein deputies. Labour will try to pull the “we’re voting no because the government will be introducing its own legislation” card, but they should have their cards marked on this, because I doubt FG will ever allow a government bill, and so for most Labour TDs, it will be a fact that the only time they ever voted on abortion, it was against. As for the shinners, it will be fascinating to watch their left wing urban consciences battling against their rural conservative consciences.
By the way, pro-lifers should welcome this bill, if only because it’ll allow them to see who their real friends are. I don’t agree with conservative Catholics on a lot, but they are as entitled to have their voices in the Dail as anyone else. It’s all well and good FF and FG deputies and senators waving their pro-life credentials around in private, let’ s see them do it in public.
Will it be divisive? Of course it will be, and it should be. That’s what parliaments are for. They don’t call a vote in a parliament a “division” for nothing, you know.
