Projections about what the electorate will do and who they’ll vote for is a risky business and one where commentators can easily get bitten on the bum. That doesn’t stop a lot of them, of course; many of them have not just necks but nether parts as well of finest brass. However, a more promising tack is to look at a variety of possible election outcomes, and that’s just what Stephen Collins (no relative – I swear) did recently in the Irish Times.
He notes that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have both ruled out a coalition with each other. Fair enough, though how you could tell the difference between them if they didn’t have a label stuck in their lapel would be difficult.
The present Fine Gael/Labour coalition again? It’s thought the numbers won’t stack up – Labour is expected to be punished severely for the sins of the coalition government.
Fianna Fail and Sinn Féin? Fianna Fail has ruled out government with Sinn Féin and Sinn Féin has ruled out being the junior partner in any coalition.
Fine Gael propped up by a variety of Independents? A possibility, but also a recipe for instability.
Sinn Féin have been looking to create an alliance with other anti-austerity parties and individuals on the left, but so far with no perceptible success. Stephen Collins doesn’t dwell on this issue but it is an important one. It comes down to the old question of which you put first, the citizens of the state or the party/individual political careers.
The failure of Sinn Féin and Independents to form even a loose alliance going into the election suggests that somebody talking about opposing austerity measures is being economical with the truth. If you’re in a position to be in government and see implemented those changes (in this case in austerity measures) yet don’t take them, it’s hard to see how the public can have much faith in you. Why will the range of independents in the Dail at present not seek to form a coalition with Sinn Féin? They have similar political and social concerns – why not get together and walk the walk instead of forever talking the talk?
Maybe polls in the next month or two will help soften some political coughs. The prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.
I think SF actions over Austerity last week proves why the Independents don’t trust a single word of SF`s anti austerity pledge.
What actions would they be Neill? SF has helped secure a more generous welfare package than England, Scotland or Wales has got. Not to mention keep University fees down to a 3rd of what they are in England, no prescription charges, no water charges, etc
What was the alternative? Collapsing Stormont and a return to direct rule for at least 5 years along with all the political turmoil that would bring? Not to mention possible violence? Along with full force tory cuts?
If the southern political parties, including those against austerity, were in SF’s position up North they wouldn’t have cared about welfare cuts and would’ve agreed to anything to prevent possible Stormont collapse.
Great story.jude.
Uh.Huh.Jim.
Marx said,
“Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.”
The Banking Inquiry is about to collapse as electioneering gets under way. In 2012, the Oireachtas passed the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act, which mandated that political parties would lose half their funding unless the minority sex among their candidates accounted for at least 30% of the national number of candidates in a general election. In practice, this act established gender quotas for the purpose of increasing the number of women nominated as candidates by political parties.
What are the chances of a Constance Markiewicz , a Margaret Pearse, a Mary McSwiney or a Kathleen Clarke emerging in the near future? Women of such calibre would not stand idly by and allow the Gnomes of Zürich impose austerity policies on people as the number of millionaires increase throughout the country in the midst of unemployment, homelessness and economic migration. Women of such calibre would seek answers about the death and destruction caused by British intervention in Ireland. Women of such calibre would place much weight on national security.
Markiewicz et al did not need quotas.
independents and other anti austerity groups can hardly go in to an election with a party who are in charge of imposing massive cuts on the people a few mile up the road thats the first question their voters will ask of them.how could they ever explain it.i think your insulting their intelligence by even suggesting such a move.
Well, Billy, you’re entitled to your opinion – I don’t think I insulted anyone. Could you tell me how you would have resolved the cuts coming from Westminster?
“independents and other anti austerity groups can hardly go in to an election with a party who are in charge of imposing massive cuts on the people a few mile up the road”
Billy
Neither Sinn Fein or indeed any of the parties here are in a position to impose any cuts on anyone, these cuts were imposed from England.
well i wouldnt have been there talking out of both sides of my mouth in the first place to resolve anything i let people do their own dirty work.
“well i wouldnt have been there talking out of both sides of my mouth in the first place to resolve anything i let people do their own dirty work.”
That would have been the easy option.
There is a bigger goal however and sometimes tough decisions have to be made and difficult roads have to be travelled.
Spoon not long enough?
If they had stuck to the deal they signed last year we would have missed the worse effects off the tax credit cuts they hoped for a Labour victory and got it wrong very wrong
Rather you than me, Esteemed Blogmeister, when it comes to reading your namesake, Stephen Collins of The Unionist Times. That he is no relation of your’s is all too easy to believe (believe you me).
One likes the analogy of the hanging and the concentration of minds a lot. Alas, one suspects some of the louder independent anti-austerity aunties (of both genders) are more mouth than mind.
Both the phrase ‘economical with the truth’ and the surname Collins, curiously enough, came to mind last Saturday night, in a different setting: that of a polar Croke Park. It involved a simple and short commemoration of the fourteen victims of Bloody Sunday Mark 1. (Fourteen seems to be a recurring number here).
One took a personal interest in this because the Man with the Limp (aka Mr. Cahill, no relation either) who used to supervise the subterranean canteen in one’s school (where a mug of boiling Bovril was the culinary highlight) acquired his limp when, as a teenager, he jumped off the backwall of Hill 16 when the sharpshooting forwards of West Auxiliary Albion opened fire.
Yes, Mr. Cahill. No, not Senator Cahill. As one has mentioned, no relation. (Incidentally, Mr. Cahill gets namechecked in Michael Foley’s estimable book on the subject ‘Bloodied Field’).
One mentions this as Prime Minster eKenny was in the VIP section. Michael Collins (the relevant one) was the spiritual director of the 12 Apostles who were actively spreading the gospel of getting one’s retaliation in first with their Saturday Night specials.
PM eK tends to be rather, erm, economical with the t. when it comes to the Saturday Night Fever of Fine Gael’s Golden Boy. Mind you, in fairness, going backward, Endgame Enda was there in his temporary capacity as the Leader of the DUP (Dublin Unionist Party) whose leadership is rotated.
Rotation being a rugby squad thingy. And who was never there can ever forget the tear-welling and throat-choking rendition of the National Tantrum by our historically sensitive rugby chaps when they played the Ould Enemy at the same venue in 2007. For those of a non-mathematical bent: 2 x 7 equals (gasp) 14.
One is referencing all this because if one wants a preview of the coverage in the monopoly media of the Free Southern Stateen of the sporting highlight of next year, the Grand National of the General Election, one would do well to check out the detached political coverage of last weekend’s sport.
Here’s a sample at random of the preview: Matt Cooper in his hour long sports prog last Friday on the DOB-owned Today FM allotted the following time slots:
30 minutes – rugby (devoted mainly to a, sob, losing streak Leinster team);
20 minutes – Association Football (mainly to a Bishop Auckland game in the Vauxhall Conference or something);
and
10 minutes for the International Rules between Ireland and Australia.
Despite his Homeric efforts at a black out, 38,000 nonetheless still managed to turn up for the last mentioned game under lights.
One does not wish to be too hard on the minimalist approach to the GAH of Mott the Hoople Cooper as he has recently authored perhaps the most (unintentional) comic book of the year: a biography of (gulp) Sir AJF O’Reilly aka ‘The Maximalist’. A real rib-tickler.
Fast forward to Monday for a look back on the weekend’s sport. And the headline on RTE’S Blog?
-Dunphy says: Hurling brawlers should go ‘cage fighting’ !
Despite its surface simplicity there are a number of not-uninteresting aspects to this comment.
1. This is Eamonn Dunphy, the soccer supremacist, who likes to crow from a dunghill of his own making that it is he who also magicked up the Sun in the morning.
2.He is referring to a hurling game between Dublin and Galway in Fenway Park, Boston which got NO prior coverage from RTE. It drew a near capacity attendance to the famed baseball ground.
3. This class of comment is not unusual in the FSS where soccer and rugby commentators are free to diss the GAA, a freedom which is a one-way freeway. The only odd thing is the H for Headlining which this run of the mill comment received.
Some conspiracy theorists are promulgating the premise that the Head of Sports in RTE, the former rugby commentator and right royal Ryle Nugent was flailing around for a divarsion – any divarsion – to divert attention from the doldrums into which the upward curve of (gulp) Irish egg-chasing has fallen.
Perkie’s inner fine-minded fair-player would not be numbered among them.
Re. the future coverage of the upcoming General Election the question begging to be asked is: which political party will be gifted the equivalent treatment meted out to the GAA?
Say no more, Seymour.
This is a time for bravado by all parties and sub groups in the run-up to the election, when promises and threats are thrown in all directions, and one-man bands stand on high horses (if such is possible).
But when the election is held, results are announced, and people complete the number crunching, pragmatism will set in, and all former noble words will be forgotten as opportunists see the possibility of making up the numbers in a coalition.
There is no greater political principle than one’s personal financial advantage!
I have to admit I don’t pay as much attention to Southern politics as much as I do to the North’s but I really should start to given that Southern politics is just as important, maybe even more important, to us in the North than any time I can remember.
Being anti-austerity in a time of swinging and savage cuts is a very good way of gaining votes. But when those votes have been collected and you then drop your “anti-austerity cloak”, much like the Irish Labour Party has, then expect a savage beating at the next election. Many of these Independents in the Dail, I suspect, have adopted an anti-austerity cloak without really being anti-austerity. Why else would they turn down an anti-austerity coalition with SF? Maybe the best way of combating FG/LB cuts?
The General Election is only a few months away. I think political Unionism will be watching the result more eagerly than anyone else.
It isn’t simply austerity that is the problem Ryan.
The south are well over the worst and the deficit is about to be cleared next year and we will be able to borrow at the same rate as Germany once again.
Think about it as running up a credit card bill and deciding to tighten the belt and clear off the high interest debt before you buy a new car.
The easy option would be to just get one on HP and get new credit cards and live it up, but you would be piling on the pressure and if not careful will likely be in bigger diffs later.
Another option would be to throw every penny into clearing the debt, sitting with jumpers not putting on the heat, starving yourself and not spending a penny you don’t need to but keeping your sky sports subscription.
There are different levels.
Up to now, FG have been following a step plan set by the EU commission and central bank and it has been tough but very successful.
Now that we are over the worst, do we borrow at low rates and open the champagne or do we use our heads and improve social welfare by keeping it to a percentage of GDP but borrow to invest in our economy, creating new jobs, finding new markets, investing in new renewable energy technology to reduce our reliance on foreign energy and reduce power costs for business and hence increasing the welfare budget at the same time?
In the north, every penny used to lessen the impact of the Westminster cuts is making us worse off and there is no real economic strategy even being discussed yet.
The southern government has a duty towards its citizens in the north which it needs to protect and I don’t mean by picking up the tab. It is not in the souths interest to let the economic mess in the north get worse.
Both islands need to start planning how reunification will be best handled for both economies. It is no longer if, it is when.
Well over the worst? 5 million euro spent on a banking inquiry to date, The Irish Farmers Association is embroiled in a serious financial dispute while small farmers are trying to keep milk and food on our tables. Citizens in the west of the country are obliged to purchase bottled water as it is not safe to consume water from domestic sources. All par for the course from a right wing government but from a party that calls itself, The Labour Party, sin scéal eile