I’ve met Enda Kenny. He’s a very nice man – polite, sense of humour, generous with his time (when he gets past his minders). He’s also slippery as an eel. I interviewed him for half an hour and came out, somehow, without having laid a glove on him.
So when he says something I listen. The latest thing he’s said that’s been headline is that Sinn Féin’s proposed budget (as distinct from the real one Enda’s party will produce) would have some workers paying 70% tax. In fact, it “would close down the country” (that’s the state directly south of us nordies, in case you were getting confused between country and state. So no, he’s not saying the Shinners will close us down with their budget proposals. Just the twenty-six counties.
It was all part of what was described as a “heated debate” over water charges. It got so heated at one point, the Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett told the Dail that he regularly gets complaints about their conduct. “If you think you are impressing the public, you are not”.
Why are they getting so heated? Because the south’s Fine Gael-Labour coalition is bringing in water charges and doing the budget thing, and both of those are bad news for people still struggling to keep their heads above water – no, that’s wrong, water costs money. Struggling to put bread on the table.
There are two by-elections in the south on Friday – one in Dublin and the other in Roscommon. In Dublin the Sinn Féin candidate will very likely win and in Roscommon the Fianna Fail candidate will very likely win. In neither constituency will the Fine Gael candidate win, and as for the Labour candidate – here, you’ll give a stitch talking like that. Labour candidate = two hopes = Bob Hope and no hope.
So why didn’t Enda go after the Fianna Fail budget proposals instead of the Sinn Féin one? Well, I’d say because he hopes he can nail the Shinners as the economically illiterate party. I heard the Sinn Féin candidate in Roscommon interviewed by RTÉ and the interviewer wanted to know why people should give any credibility to a Sinn Féin proposal on the economy. (Sub-script: the Shinners are economically illiterate). The SF candidate quite reasonably asked why people should put faith in either the Fianna Fail or the Fine Gael budgets, since both parties had in turn pulverized the economy and the people in the south?
But Enda’s hoping that people won’t think that sort of thing and that RTÉ interviewers will go on plugging the e.i. line. Maybe he’ll turn his attention more to Fianna Fail nearer the next election, but right now it’s the Shinner tide that he is very anxious to turn back.
You know they’re worried about you when they start throwing the kitchen sink your direction.
Was reading that and working up to a reply with a thought all the way through. Then you said it in the final sentence.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Ghandi had a point
Ditty from a Dismal Scientist:
Those sums of splendour for P.M.Enda
Concern seats ‘n bums of either gender
For the phrase catchpenny
Depend upon Herr Kenny:
‘Rely on die moneylender in a suspender’
Whether you love Sinn Fein or loath them. Whether they are economically clueless or understand it much better than many assume (or want to presume) it is stupid, pathetic, incompetent and blatantly biased for a so-called impartial journalist to ask a Sinn Fein politician ‘why people should give any credibility to a Sinn Féin proposal on the economy’??
Even Fianna Fail do not have to put up with questions like that and they share a large portion of responsibility for the financial problems south of the border. Certainly a larger proportion of blame than any other single political party. And the thing is, if RTE are to be taken seriously as an objective news outlet then they should not be addressing questions like ‘why people should give any credibility to your proposal on the economy?’ to any political party, even Fianna Fail.
Why? because it’s not even a question. it’s just an antagonistic insult.
Remember how Paxman would grill labour, the tories, the lib dems and laterly UKIP. Yet he wouldn’t lower himself to hurling insults like ‘why should anybody lend credibility to you on anything ‘?
The plight of the Earl 2014.
Strange times we live in. In the south of the country Enda et al use terms such as “economic illiteracy’ and other such clichés in order to avoid the uncomfortable reality that the electorate have had enough rhetoric about austerity to last a lifetime. It is interesting that proposals by the Rank group to open up casinos throughout the country are not labelled as economically illiterate. Richard Needham, representing the Rank group was interviewed on 7 October 2014. He is of the view that in Belfast, revenue from casinos could be reinvested in services to assist individuals who are addicted to gambling? Mr Needham, 6th Earl of Kilmorey, PC and champion of casinos, is no stranger to these shores. At a time when there is an ideological battle being waged about welfare reform in the north of Ireland and austerity policies in the republic of Ireland, to advocate greater access to gambling borders on the absurd. Casinos in Ireland, do we need ’em?