Suzanne Moore has an interesting piece in today’s Guardian. Titled “England’s arrogant nationalism has been a gift to the SNP”, she argues that English Tories and Labour have been fixated on Nigel Farage and UKIP, because he is one of their own. Noting the repeated assaults on Nicola Sturgeon in last night’s debate, that she might conceivably want another referendum in 2016, Philips writes:
“This is the bit that bewilders the superficially polite English commentators and their attitude of ‘well, they lost the referendum and it is settled.’ There is a refuse to understand that an organic social movement does not fall apart once it feels its own power. How can the SNIP behave as if it won? Perhaps because it is engaging outside the bubble. It is the English view of politics here that looks very narrow. Were the Scots who lost merely never to speak of independence again? Who decides that these conversations are over? Go tell the Catalans to stop. Tell the Kurds not to call for a state of their own”.
She might have added the Irish to the Catalans and the Kurds.
It’s noticeable, however, that Sturgeon’s opponents last night made much of the independence strand of Scots Nats’ programme, and dismissed her economic thinking as fantasy. We have a mirror image here, with Sinn Féin tagged as an Irish unity party but a party full of economic illiterates. This despite the fact that the phrase was coined by the late Progressive Democrats’ leader, Michael McDowell, who espoused an economic policy that left the Irish economy face down and near dead. Sinn Féin’s alternative budget was costed and verified by civil servants in the south; what remains to be done is to lay out the economic benefits of Irish unity in similar, comprehensive detail. Talk of two-state duplication of services is not enough.
Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon and the Scots Nats continue to show how commitment to a fair and just society move hand-in-hand with a desire for independence. The English haven’t caught up with such thinking, for Scotland or Ireland.
Perhaps it would. Be useful if the debate on the finances of unity which was conducted as part of a fringe meeting at the last Ard Dheis could. Be reproduce
“How dare the Scots be so damn influential?”
Suzanne Moore’s comments are food for thought.
“Nicola Sturgeon, a woman deemed dangerous and destructive because, frankly, she seems so capable…It suits us English not to see our own nationalism, to keep it vague with our unwritten constitution as a declaration of laissez-faire superiority…The desire for self-determination seems to me a sensible response to those who feel utterly disenfranchised from the economic forces that control them.”
Perish the thought that Irish citizens are contemplating self-determination. Let us hope our Tory wannabe politicians do not listen to that chap who said Belfast celebrates three things,the most-bombed hotel, a ship described as unsinkable that sank on its maiden voyage and a television show called Game of Thrones. What will it be next? Will they start to question the Divine Right of Kings, born to rule over them? It is just not cricket. It is just a television series for goodness sake, dealing with the acquisition and exercise of power, class, wealth, status, violence, sexual assault and degradation.
Let us hope our guys and gals stay, at least until after the election.
When you suggest, Esteemed Blogmeister, that Suzanne Moore might add the Irish to the Catalans and the Kurds it is by no means a racing certainty that all Irish folk would thank her for doing so.
Certainly not those Irish political folk who are in election mode at the mo and are up and running already. Like the Chief Whip of Fianna Fail who really gave the Shinners a lash on the Sean O’Rourke Show on RTE Radio this morning: it’s what he does.
M.L. McDonald, TD was the specific Shinner and reason he did not flag in the Flagellation Stakes. Sean O Fearghail (mar is e a bhi ann !) accused her of ,erm, abusing the privileges of the Dail. last December when she namechecked some perfume-scented Upstanding Citizens in the same foul breath as the Ansbacher Accounts.
Hallo, halitosis.
He accused her of pulling this reprehensible stroke as a divarshun in a desperate attempt to divert attention away from the bostik charges of, erm, abuse, which were being thrown at and made to stick on the gable wall of the Shinners at the time.
Fianna Fail used to translate as ‘Soldiers of Destiny’ but this has been recently updated to ‘Solders of Destiny’ as they vie with their political ‘rivals’ is the ‘Republic’ to fuse in the public mind the a-word and the S-word: abuse and Shinners.
Perhaps another indication of the rather lugubrious reality you drew attention to here in recent times, Esteemed Blogmeister: the sight of a party in mid-disintegration?
Time was when Fianna Fail looked to the Rising as a source of inspiration:
‘And come tell me Sean O Fearghail tell me why you hurry so
Hush a bhuachaill hush and listen and his cheeks were all aglow
I bear orders from the captain get you ready quick and soon
For the pikes must be together at the rising of the moon’.
These days the Solders of Destiny take orders from a different captain and the cheeks are not the same ones mentioned in the original ballad. For the, erm, bottom line in political discourse for the modern day FF consists of media mooning at the Shinners. (‘Bear ‘is now spelt ‘bare’ in the party manual, one understands).
Truly is there a bad moon rising in the party, all the way from the dull sublunary lovers of rawmaysh Ogra FFogerty in the HQ cellar all the way up to the House Martin in Fianna Faill freefall.
‘Don’t go round tonight
Well, it;’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise’.
All credence is lost i bPairc an Fhionn Uisce/ Clearwater Park.
May not have been the smartest move on the party’s part to throw in their lot with the AVOCA- chanting Dworkin Class and hand in their pikes for dykes. Said implement might have been more appropriately employed, some say, in being buried in The Thatch.
As a parting whiplash Sean O Fearghail, hinted darkly that the House Rules Committee might have be to be invested with greater powers of punishment . A mere reprimand is patently not sufficient to deal with Deputy McDonald.
Hmm.
One wonders is, perhaps, the name of George Plant was on his mind? Fianna Faill, in its pomp, has its own ways and means of dealing with GP’s of that ilk. In the early 1940s while the fully clothed Emperor of Japan was oystering Pearl Harbour the firing squad of FF were putting an abrupt halt to the roistering of George Plant in what used to be HMP of Mayborough.but is now Priosun Folsom Phort Laoise.
Wonder if it is the culinary name of M’Donald which planted this word association in Perkie;’s derailed train of though?. If so, it would not be the first time. That was when on encountering the cup for which the junior foolball clubs under the auspices of the Dublin County Board of the GAA play: Corn Plant.
To conclude: scarcely any need to mention the seminal photograph from last Dark December which prompted the outbreak of whip and lash from Sean O Fearghail this morning. But mention it we will, nonetheless: for all it takes for tyranny to prevail etc etc.
Who can ever forget that portrait of tragic poignancy of The Sleepless Beauty in the VIP lounge, oops, gallery of Sinister House; once seen, never forgotten, ever.Or at least as long as one keeps an ear cocked to PC Radio, FM.
As seminal snaps go it is right up there with the s. s. taken of Pablo Picasso (61) and Francoise Gilot.(21) on the beach in the Cote D’Azur in the late 1940s. One sees Mademoiselle Gilot striding elegantly to the fore into the sunshine of immortality, suitably attired with a broadbrimmed strawhat on her poignantly shaped insomnolent head.
Poor old Pabs, meanwhile, follows, spaniel like ,in her wake holding aloft an outsized parasol in a vain attempt to protect her from the relentless rays of the sun and the paparazzi alike.
For all the thanks he got. Twenty years later she was to publish a k. and tell account of their time and Times together in the hell of publicity. Some critics were reminded of the disembowelling techniques more commonly associated with hara kiri merchants in Japan rather than those of Harry Boland of the early Fianna Fail.
Their daughter Paloma Picasso, curiously enough, has gone on, Stella McCartney-like, to flood the fashion market with Paloma Picasso Perfume. (See above).
And of course the purpose for which both seminal snaps were taken were similar: Peace on the one hand, and Paloma on the other.
The Dove of Peace flaps its wings and is heard throughout the land. Or, not.
One element of certainty is seen to emerge: the patron saint of Fianna Fail nua is St. Samuel A’Beckett:
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fianna Fail better.
Love it, Perkie. Although I’d have thought St Jude would have been a better patron saint. Him being the port of final call for hopeless cases…
One is happy to defer to your superior k.with regard to St. Jude, Esteemed Blogmeister, and indeed on matters judicial in general to do with naoimh and other knaves.
One’s expertise in hagiography is naturally confined to St. Perkin,patron saint of perks, Mercs and knee jerk reactions.
Dia idir sinn agus an t-olc ! That sounds remarkably akin to the definition of the Founding Father of Fianna Fail !
Ta me as an ait seo ! I’m outta here !
Slan !
It looks like the Labour party in Scotland is going the same way as the Conservative Party. SNP will take most, if not all, of Labours seats when May comes and that will certainly make the SNP a major force at Westminister, bigger than the Liberal Democrats if my information is accurate. In fact, it seems the only way there can be a Labour Prime Minister is if the SNP enter into a coalition, which seems inevitable if Miliband wants within a mile of being PM.
And then we have the Irish General Election in 2016. Sinn Fein more than tripled their seats in 2011. In the local council elections in 2014 Sinn Fein was the main winner, they gained an extra 105 council seats in the South alone. They’re expected to make massive gains in the 2016 General Election and could be part of a coalition. I think the only people sweating more than Fine Gael at Sinn Fein’s success are the Unionists in the North because if Sinn Fein are the Government in the South then the Unionists are power sharing with the Irish Government in the North.
Unionists are repeatedly told “the Union has never be safer”. The reality and politics suggest the exact opposite…..