Supposing Bertie HAD done the right thing…

Supposing Bertie had tried to do the right thing...

June 2007. Cowen, blaming Ahern, concedes defeat as Kenny opens negotiations with Rabbitte.

The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD, has conceded defeat after tallymen said that FF senator Cyprian Brady would narrowly fail to be elected to the last seat in Dublin Central. This result confirmed that Fianna Fail’s loss of five seats in the general election meant that it was now impossible for the party to attempt to cobble together a majority with the remaining PDs and independents.

Cowen launched a blistering attack on his predecessor, Bertie Ahern TD,  for his decision, following the 2002 general election, to restrict mortgage lending and tax breaks. He identified Ahern’s attempts to dampen down the property market as the key reason for Fianna Fail’s defeat in the general election. The decision to restrict lending was very badly received by first time buyers, who accused the government of treating them like children and not letting them borrow as much as they wished.

Ahern’s January 2003 RTE Prime Time interview, where he suggested that the banks and mortgage holders were piling debts upon themselves based on massively overvalued assets caused the Taoiseach to be savaged by the media, who attacked him (and not just in their weighty property supplements) of being alarmist and talking down the market. Ahern’s refusal to back down led to a gradual slow down and modest dip  in property values, and following heated rows in heated tents in Galway with party supporters, finance minister Charlie McCreevy announced his resignation, accusing Ahern of lacking courage.

The policy led to a substantial drop in employment in the construction industry, with unemployment leaping from 3.1% to 5.1%, and demands for the Taoiseach’s resignation by some FF backbenchers. Fianna Fail suffered heavy losses in middle class areas in the 2004 local and European elections, with Fine Gael trouncing FF with a clear call to reverse Ahern’s restrictions. Polls showed clearly that Ahern’s interference in the property market was deeply unpopular with middle class and aspiring middle class voters,  and in June 2006, following a sustained campaign in the media, Charlie McCreevey announced that he was challenging Bertie Ahern for the party leadership. Although he defeated Ahern in the vote, McCreevy was beaten in the subsequent leadership election by Brian Cowen, his successor as finance minister, who pointed out that he believed in the “traditional idea that the leader of Fianna Failer should be, you know, a member of Fianna Fail.” The new cabinet announced it was reversing Ahern’s restricting on lending and restoring the tax breaks to the building industry.

The incoming Fine Gael/Labour coalition has said that it does not believe the fact that the country is building over 80,000 housing units when Sweden, with double the population, is only building 12,000, to be a cause for concern.

In other news, the family of Capt. Edward Smith, the “mad” captain of the RMS Titanic who rammed an iceberg in 1912 and caused over a €100,000 pounds worth of damage to his own ship, have petitioned the British Government to clear the captain’s name. Smith, who died disgraced in 1950, always maintained that if he attempted to turn the ship away from the iceberg it could have been badly damaged along its hull in such a way as to sink the ship, a theory that modern engineers have recently begun to suggest has merit. For years, the phrase “To Smith Oneself” was a derogatory naval slogan to describe a foolish action taken by a person who claimed that they were attempting to avoid a greater catastrophe.

The former luxury liner continues to be one of the biggest tourist attractions in London, where it is moored.

An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The Infantilised Voter.

I have to PAY for all this stuff?

“I don’t want to pay for stuff! But I want stuff!” There’s a certain type of voter who comes into their own during referendums. First of all, indignation is the order of the day. They are pissed off with everyone, which given the state of things, is understandable. But scratch a little deeper, and you encounter the reality. Take the Fiscal Compact Treaty. They will give out yards about there being “no information”, despite the guides in newspapers and websites and leaflets put out by the Referendum Commission. Say that to them, of course, and you get ”I haven’t time to read all that!” Yet he still has opinions, based on some five minutes of some big mouth giving it loads on “Joe Duffy”. God forbid anyone should challenge his half-informed half-baked opinions, because he regards that as a breach of his human rights. When you correct him that No, Russia is NOT in the EU, he accuses you of being patronising because he has a RIGHT to believe that Russia is in the EU, and you are a member of the elite for disputing his right to believe that. It’s the same with taxes and government services. He bitches about not being able to afford to pay €2 a week for his Household Charge, but spends €10 a week on the lotto. He whines about how much tax he pays (always overstating the percentage because he doesn’t actually know how much he pays) and gripes about how everything from Doctor’s visits to the television licence should be free, paid magically by someone else.
But here’s the thing: it is not solely his fault. All his adult life he has had politicians tell him that all the things he says are right and correct. Of course he should get the fruit of the labours of others! Isn’t he entitled? After all, if everyone is telling him that his clothes are so fine, sure why would he believe that he was actually bollock naked?

An Occasional Guide to Irish Life: Terenure Woman.

Welcome to Terenure, her staging post of the Dublin class system, and gateway to where the “nice” people live. To her west is Walkinstown, Greenhills and Crumlin, actual working aspiring working class looking to Terenure as the place to go. To her east are the hallowed lands of Rathgar (Or Rott Gore to the born and breds). Oh, how she’d love to live in Rathgar, with it bijous and bakeries and Protestants (Yes, they have Protestants, people who have Sales of Work as opposed to Bring and Buy sales. She’d love to have Protestant neighbours, the ultimate Catholic Dublin middle class accessory!) and nice schools and the odd judge living two doors up.

But here she is in Terenure, the aspiring Rathgar, the home of the lower but ambitious middle class who look up the social ladder at their betters, and then down at their social inferiors with a sniff of the nose and the slightest hint of fear. It still has “the college”, which counts for something, although let’s be honest: it’s no Blackrock. There’s still a village feel, and the pubs and restaurants aren’t bad, and she loves Downey’s butchers, which is a proper butchers that also sells mad stuff (Was that crocodile?) and there’s that fancy organic place beside Eddie Rockets too (Nolan’s?). But go down the main street and see the grotty shops too, some selling God knows what? Is that a cross dresser’s boutique? You wouldn’t get that in Rathgar! She’s pretty sure that even the adultery in Rathgar is much more elegant, as opposed to getting drunk and felt up in Brady’s pub. In Rathgar, you might get seduced by a barrister. In Terenure it’ll be a used car salesman in a 1998 Porsche.    

It also has the synagogue, which in Terenure counts as exotic, and is ironic, because if Hitler, appealing to the lower middle calsses with a mix of aspiration and fear, had been born in Ireland, he almost certainly would have come from Terenure. 

Sarkozy to allow voters to tweet policies into his manifesto.

Nuke Algeria? Invade les Rosbifs? Just tell my pollster!

The President of France, M. Nicolas Sarkozy, has continued his manic leaping up and down the political spectrum like a demented flea on Red Bull by pledging that voters may tweet policies directly into his manifesto. Addressing a rally in Toulouse under a giant banner proclaiming “Seriously, what’ll it take?”, Sarkozy declared that “it is not true, as my opponents allege, that I have no beliefs. I have always held firmly to one belief my entire life, and so have room for plenty of others, which I ask the French People to insert directly through Twitter. Let me be your vessel!” Sarkozy’s socialist opponent, M. Francois Hollande attacked Sarkozy for being as erratic as a balloon with the air escaping, and pointed out that, unlike the sitting president of the republic, he has very firm convictions on the future of France, including the restoration of the Year 1959, the nationalization of good hair so that it can be made into a human right for all, and the passing of a law to ban the losing of one’s car keys when one is in a rush to get the kids to school.

From the History books: Millions die as Archduke fails to locate “Look out, your majesty! I believe that gentleman with the uncouth moustache has a firearm secreted upon his person and means to do you harm!” in Serbo-Croat phrasebook.

For the want of a better organised phrasebook...

Scientists confirm Ireland trapped in EU referendum campaign timeloop.

Let's do the timewarp again.

Scientists in the CERN facility in Switzerland have confirmed that a time-loop has emerged within the political system in Ireland, causing its politicians to repeat the same referendum campaign over again and again. “It’s quite extraordinary. Whereas other countries have new political issues to debate every few years, as culture and technology progress, Ireland’s elected representatives seem doomed to fight the same campaign every time. Just watch as Ireland’s pro-EU people talk about treaty X being vital for jobs and “sending signals” to people outside Ireland. Meanwhile, the No campaign will bang on about Ireland being bullied and four million Irish people not being treated the same as eighty two million Germans. Then the voters will refuse to read anything, and then complain that they haven’t been properly informed. They don’t seem to know it, but they have fought this same campaign six times since 1992!”

A time trvelling adventurer travelling in a blue box-shaped space craft, well known to Earth authorities has refused to intervene. “You must be joking. Last time I intervened in Ireland, some guy named Boyd Barrett accused me of being a Tory because of the colour of my ship, and some big fella from Carlow menaced me for a €100 for some bloody charge or other. Screw that. I’ll take the Daleks, at least they don’t try to pretend they’re doing you a favour.”

Caveman society bitterly divided over whether creationists will exist.

Furious debate has broken out in caveman society over whether creationists will exist in the future. Uggh, of the cave near the water told us: ” Uggh say Yes. Have no doubt. Look at banana. God put handle on it for convenience. Obviously never tried to peel a mango or eat ripe pear, but maybe God not want us to eat mango or pear. Creationists have answer to these questions. God obvioulsy not fruit salad fan. It in holy book. When book invented, obviously.”

Other cavemen disagree. Clunk, of the cave near the water but not as near as Uggh’s, disagreed profoundly: “I not share Uggh’s hypothesis. Evolution make sense, especially when looking at hairy bastard like Uggh. Him proof of monkey lineage. Not surprised that he say no. He worship anything. Clunk see him worship dead weasel. Before that, he worship rock. He be Church of Ireland next. He a joiner.”

Tom Selleck’s moustache dies in gun battle with police.

Selleck's moustache: Gun battle with police.

Tom Selleck’s Magnum PI moustache, which starred with him in the hit 1980s TV series ”Magnum P.I.” died today in a gun battle with a Los Angeles SWAT team. It had been on a 72 hour drink and drug fuelled binge, and had been threatening police with a revolver after it emerged from a liqour store.

Close friends felt that the moustache never recovered from the strain of starring in a top TV show and then slipping from the public eye. Lee Horsley’s moustache, who had starred in the 1980s TV series “Matt Houston”, about a millionaire private investigatior and his moustache,  and was a close friend of the deceased, remarked that “He just couldn’t take it. Tom decided to go without a moustache for a few years, and when he decided to go back to a moustache it was with a younger, bushier model. That was a slap in the face, I can tell you.”

The moustache found that work dried up after “Magnum PI”, and eventually ended up as playing the moustache of deliverymen and repairmen in porn movies.

Witnesses say that the moustache was hysterical, shouting at policemen that they didn’t know who it was, and that back in the day he and the guy who used to play ”Higgins” on the TV series used to go “tomcatting” around Hawaii, and could get “any tail they wanted.” The moustache is survived by some bumfluff.

An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The Politics Free Candidate.

Politics? No thanks, I’m running for election.

Two types of candidate dominate modern Irish politics. The first is the crook, who is actually in it for the cash. The money is good, and if he plays his cards right, there could be an opportunity for more.

Then there’s that curious creature: The politics free candidate. The enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a ballot paper. The man or woman who goes into politics even though they aren’t actually that interested in politics in the first place? Surely the same as the first type, you say? Curiously, no. They get the good money, but often they spend much of it getting reelected. They aren’t particularly corrupt, so what are they in it for?

Sometimes it’s family. The father was a TD or councillor, and so they will be. It’s what they do. But ask them where they stand on elected mayors, or a carbon or property tax, or neutrality, and they’ll look at you with the face that says “Why are you asking me this? Why don’t you ask someone in authority?” In short, they tend to not actually have any opinion on the issue. Many of them become cabinet ministers, and still, on day one, arrive in their new departments not with the thought “Finally! Now I can do something about X!” but instead tell their secretary general to keep on doing “Whatever the last fella was doing.” The party tells them what they believe, they memorise the talking points, and you see them three weeks later on The Frontline blankly declaring that loading Jews up on to trucks for “evacuation” is a perfectly reasonable policy.  Not because they are bigots or intolerant, but because that was what it said on the piece of paper.

But here’s the thing: Never mind them. To them, it’s a 9 to 5 job, a means of paying the bills. Ask yourself: Who are the f**kwits who vote for them? Who are the people so devoid of any idea as to what they would like their society to look like that they vote for these guys, the equivlent of a jug of tepid room tempeture water, because iced water would be leaning too much to one side of the water tempeture issue?

See  them? We should be rounding them up on trucks.

An Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The man who never experienced the Celtic Tiger.

Celtic Tiger? Around here? The only tiger around here sells Frosties.

Celtic Tiger? Maybe up in Dublin Four, but not around here, he announces. No, we went from the recession in the 1980s to now, and nothing has changed around here. Nothing! You point at the new motorways sweeping past him and off into the horizon. Sure that would have happened anyway! He declares, believing that motorways are some sort of natural phenomenon like turf or dandelions sprouting in a field. What about your state pension? €200 a week. Sure it’s only £59 in the UK. Exactly! He shouts. Only €200! How am I supposed to afford SkyPlus on that sort of money? And look at the car I’m driving! That’s over four years old! It’s like living in the dark hole of Calcutta!  No one around here got anything off the government or the so-called Celtic Tiger. And the health service? I know a fella who did his back in picking up his cheque from the Department of Aghriculture. Bet he gets no compensation for that. No, the rich get richer and the poor working man struggles for a bare crust. Now, have to go and pick up me rent from them students I rented me section 23 flat to. Be seeing you!