On my way to Spain yesterday, I read The Irish Times (yes, Perkin, dirty work but somebody has to do it). They had a feature on their favourite political party, with the main news being that Sinn Féin had decided to give up the average-industrial-wage thing that they have with their MLAs, MPs, TDs and Senators. (Just listing the headings makes you realise what a considerable number of representatives the party has.) So – bad decision or good?
Well, when the Shinners paid the average industrial wage, using the rest to build up constituency centres and generally build the party, they weren’t behind the door in reminding the media of same, pointing to this as an indication that their elected representatives weren’t in it just for the money, unlike some others. It also had the advantage of keeping the party in touch with the lives of ordinary working people and it showed ordinary working people that they knew what it was to live at that level. Now that they appear, at least according to TUT (ask Perkin, Virginia), about to abandon the policy, what advantages and dangers will the new line bring?
For a start, they could be accused, as could all politicians, of being in politics for the money. They could also allow themselves to live lives detached from the everyday reality of ordinary people’s lives. They could, although they don’t have to: we can all think of politicians from other parties who took their salaries but provided such valuable service to the state, no one would begrudge them. And there were and are politicians from other parties who are in touch with working lives and don’t spend their time in the cocoon of a gleaming Merc. So the new policy will mean that Sinn Féin representatives will have to work even harder and understand more about the day-to-day existence of their constituents, because there’ll be other politicians and the media on the look-out for any hint of cushioned detachment. But as I say, except you’re going to accuse all other politicians of all other parties of having lost their grassroot understanding, the new Sinn Féin policy (assuming it happens) doesn’t have to make them remote and uncaring.
There are undoubted advantages. To extend its appeal, Sinn Féin must seek to draw support from the middle and professional classes. Already they have begun to attract and have elected lawyers and barristers, accountants and businessmen and women, particularly in the south. These men and women very often have families; and while the average industrial wage has a purity, it could close the door on a great deal of political talent. If I’m a young barrister or lawyer, I’m going to be reluctant to abandon the remuneration of a successful and prosperous career in order to pick up an average industrial wage. My spouse or partner, particularly if we have a family, is going to feel equally frustrated. If we think back to 1916, a great many of those who fought and died were from the middle or even upper classes of society. It could be argued that Sinn Féin, if it wishes to grow and if it wishes to attract the best talent, has to provide the same remuneration as other parties.
It is of course tricky. There is the danger of attracting those who’d have a main eye for the money and their constituents as a minor factor. On the other hand, the pool of people made available by such a change could well be game-changing in their quality.
As we’re told time and again, politics is about making choices; and no one can accuse Sinn Féin of hanging back when it comes to making bold choices. The average industrial wage was a policy that served the party well, helping to distinguish them from others. The abandonment of it may prove disastrous, with the public seeing them as simply keen to get their noses in the trough along with other parties. On the other hand, they could see it as part of the drive to double the membership of the party within the next four years, and to have those members and the wider public served from a pool of talent that is as wide and deep as possible.
It’s a risky move but I think it’s the right one.
Anyone know why they awarded themselves the ‘average industrial wage’ rather than the average wage?
Not the right decision for me. SF is becoming just a career as opposed to a cause. Animal farm springs to mind.
And what is the aim of that cause Cal?
Then consider how it would look if Sinn Fein manage to win an election in Ireland.
How would it look with the other parties accusing them of taking money allocated from the public purse to run the government and doing god knows what and paying god knows who with it instead?
What this means is they are preparing to succeed which means taking hold of the reigns of power in the republic and therefore over all of Ireland which will be ruled from Dublin.
There are people in the south saying to the north, united Ireland, feck off. They need to be silenced and that is the more vital cause there is. It is time republicans took back control of Ireland and stopped talking about it.
It is no longer a distant dream but an approaching reality. Don’t fear the changes needed to grasp it.
Sinn Fein have stated in the past that after their elected reps take home the “average industrial wage”, additional money is used to employ additional staff or open constituency offices – should we expect “austerity” measures being rolled out within the party – job loses and the closing of constituency offices? I feel this move by SF is more about party unity, as I’ve heard there have been, for a while, internal party rumblings, highly critical of the policy on the average industrial wage – on top of this, SF elected reps have access to expenses which I assume cover travel costs and other personal costs linked to the job – many of the rest of us working in the public sector have no such access to expenses.
“many of the rest of us working in the public sector have no such access to expenses”
The public sector gets many perks not available in the private sector, has higher average pay, and better conditions, yet the private sector is in my experience, many times more efficient, better value for money and far more able to deliver results.
Sinn Fein need to decide whether they want to remain populist and socialist but never hold the position of Taoiseach or become realist but fair and able to make the tough decisions needed to lead a prosperous nation.
Ireland has great potential but only as another Iceland, not another Cuba.
Excellent decision
Especially since their growth is down to tireless hard work by dedicated people on the ground.
Why shouldn’t they be rewarded for their efforts and it will also encourage more quality people to join the party. I would never trust a party to go into government and lead a country that was being paid an average industrial wage.
It is an insult to the capability requirements and importance of the positions in government are to representing the people not to pay a decent wage.
If you pay peanuts, don’t be surprised when you get monkeys.
There was no hanging back when it came to the fate of Roger Casement, who was hanged as a traitor at Pentonville Prison in London on 3 August 1916.
Casement’s humanitarian work detailed the inhuman treatment inflicted on workers in the Belgian Congo under the rule of King Leopold II. He also investigated the conditions prevailing in the Peruvian rubber plantations and their impact on the Putumayo tribe. What would Casement et al make of the political landscape in 2016?
In recent days, Ms May stated her intention to tackle the “babaric evil” of modern slavery in Britain. According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, approximately 46 million people are enslaved globally and estimates suggest 11,700 are victims living in Britain.
Doping has been a chronic problem at the Olympics, and many athletes from competing nations have tested positive for banned substances, yet according to O Globo, a Brazilian newspaper, police in Rio seized 93 bags of cocaine bearing Olympic rings and the official Rio 2016 logo.
Politics is about making bold choices. The Irish electorate now tend to listen to what politicians say but pay more attention to what they do, as the Irish Labour Party discovered to its cost. Politicians can no longer take the electorate for granted in a rapidly changing world.
Once upon a time there was a republican movement. Now there’s a Sinn Féin party. I’m all for butcher’s boys and bookie’s runners bettering themselves but there always was an elite in SF/IRA coming mostly from the transfer of army rank to political rank. The average industrial wage was a cod and should never have been introduced. What should be reduced – nay, removed is the squirmfest on the hill. The councils do enough without an upper tier. Remind me again of the changes Sinn Féin MLAs have brought about since the treacherous GFA was sold to us.
I think of Sinn Fein now more in the republic than a northern party.
They are fast becoming yet another party that I wont be able to vote for as while I support them in the south, I also find it hard to vote for the bad joke that is Stormont and I am an Irish citizen by birth living in Ireland all my life that it not allowed to vote for who represents the Irish people in Ireland.
Stormont would make a nice museum and tourist attraction for visitors interested in the history of unionism post unification however. I will never vote for its existence as a parliament again
I’d hate to be a politician, expected to hold surgeries, attend party meetings, travel about to functions and need to be presentable, sober and courteous in all circumstances. They need to be decently paid.
When Gerry Adams first visited 10 Downing St. on a cold December day, the report in THE
TIMES felt it had to report that he wore a decent overcoat. had he worn an old donkey jacket
they’d still have begrudged him.
Why did SF councillors not get the same wage?
I like to think it is another step in the road to casting off their communist and socialist roots and maturing into a party fit to lead the new Ireland into the future without the shackles of British rule imposed partition.
Some cynical folk, Senor Estimado Blog, are under the peculiar impression that the regular expressions of solicitousness by The Unionist Times (for it is it !) for the future welfare of Sinn Fein are just that, erm, feigned.
Nothing could be further from the truthiness. (Truthiness being the latest coinage by its in-house Outsized Intellect. Not quite sure what if means but, by gum, it certainly has a fruity taste, new to the chew and a marvelous way to spend an idle while masticating this new O’Toolism).
Take today’s (!) Leading Article by A.N. Other or possibly by Ann Onymous herself. A leading article being the equivalent of yesterday’s article being upgraded to business class.
-Sinn Fein grapple with ‘normality’.
The hint is in the headline: just as ‘grapple’ rhymes with ‘apple’ so ‘moolah’ sounds like ‘ulla’ which, of course, is the Lephrechaun for ‘apples’.
Once upon a time one could scarcely open The Unionist Times without being confronted with a paen of praise to Armour of Ballymoney, a reverend Presbyterian Home Ruler of yore . Coincidentally, he was sympathetic to the gore-drenched Roger Casement, the centenary of whose scaffolding falls today.
But that was in the way back when, and this is the here and now.
It would appear that a paen of praise is not what today’s editorial in The Unionist Times is about: Armour of Ballymoney was one thing, but, by jove, money is one thing but this bally armour stuff is just not up to stuff anymore. Hence the tut-tutting in the subheading:-
-Gerry Adam’s Provisional IRA connections and loyalties remain an electoral liability.
Now, it is clear that what prompted this reference to the P. IRA were the lyrics which another IRA penned: an IRA G. That would e G for Gershwin.
The Unionist Times is truly, genuinely concerned about the advancing age of G.A.:
-Methus’lah lived till nine hundred years
Methus’lah lived till nine hundred years
But who calls that livin’ when no gall’ll give in
To no man’s what nine hundred years.
Sleek change now, of gear, from Tin Pan Alley to Tara House/ TUT central.
-Becomring a ‘normal political party is hard. It will require greater transparency, an easing of rigid discipline and improved co-operation will like-minded parties.
In other words, GA and SF just ain’t necessarily interchangeable.
Fluid gear-change time once again, from IRA P to IRA G:
-I’m preachin’ dis sermon to show
It ain’t nessa, it ain’t nessa
Ain’ t nessa, ain’t nessa
It ain’t nessarily so.
Call it Operation Nessa, if one will: the message to Meshulalah Adams could scarcely be clearer. For the good of Sinn Fein:
PACK UP YOUR OLD KITSON BAGGAGE
-To smooth the way from gate to garage
There’s no mo’ need to oppose the raj
Time for the tarmacadam
Rough man,smooth madam
Shed the camouflage, bin the sabotage.
–
Now that brought a smile to my face Mighty Perk..
.”-Methus’lah lived till nine hundred years
Methus’lah lived till nine hundred years
But who calls that livin’ when no gal (l)’ll give in
To no man’s what nine hundred years.”
There’s much truth ‘n’ philosophy inthe sophisticated play of the Bros Gershwin…
I find the idea of someone earning a five figure salary giving talks about Bobby Sands etc not to my liking. The type of person attracted to SF through the salary isn’t the type of person I want SF attracting.
Then perhaps they should stop giving talks about Bobby Sands and focus on the work that they are being paid to do
“The type of person attracted to SF through the salary isn’t the type of person I want SF attracting.”
Cal, that’s basically like saying I don’t want the most talented people going to Sinn Fein. The Socialist Utopia doesn’t exist. I use to think like this until I read books, expanded my knowledge and realized how human beings work. The best and most talented people go where the money is, that’s just a reality. The most educated, talented and gifted people are not going to join Sinn Fein, use their abilities for Sinn Fein’s advantage and attract voters if they are being paid around £24,000 a year. We’re not taking about millions here, its just people getting paid what the MP/TD’s salary legally is.
The best doctors, the best lawyers, the best accountants, etc all get paid impressive salaries, why? because they are talented, they do their jobs very well. Why shouldn’t elected representatives be paid a full salary?? The average worker does not do the same job as a politician, that’s what you need to realize. Most people don’t know how politics works, never mind knowing how to write and make a speech properly, negotiate political agreements, etc all these are skills which some people do better than others. Those who practice these skills superbly want to be paid enough to give them a good life, £24,000 a year (which is £500 a week) isn’t worth all those years studying politics. Their talents could be far more profitable elsewhere.
We could just as easily say that the type of person who think it is ok to exploit their hardest working and elected politicians into earning less than the independently assessed value of the work they are doing in order to pay others who are not elected and do a lot less with that money isn’t the type of person we want SF attracting.
I think what Cal means is that to attract high-earning economists , lawyers and the like ,will naturally mean that the Sinn Fein operation will have to leave the grimey backrooms of pubs and the street -protest placards and pay higher wages to new and upcoming thrusting young sophisticated men and women, with a degree of capitalism and wealth in the forefront of their minds, rather than a more down- at -heel “pro- bono” type who will work for free-meals and the betterment of the “people”. In other words the threat of losing its real street- socialist roots …and its way …as the Labour Party appears to have done in Britain, becoming a split party with a rump of Tory -Lite Blairites playing Maggie Thatcher’s game.That might even be the perceived shallowness of the superficial generation who place “appearance and gloss” at a higher premium than anything else.The look has to be right ..and never mind the substance. You’ll see it everywhere in the entertainment industry now.We’re seeing it in politics more and more.
The truth is , of course , that the Sinn Fein party donned the Armani suits long ago anyway, for the same reasons that the media are now trying to force Jeremy Corbyn to employ a stylist and “look more like a real politician”. It’s a fact of life that to buy in the biggest talent around you will eventually have to spend the big bucks because there is an open-market for their particular skills.It happens in every walk of life and it happens now in the realm of politics too.Sinn Fein were never going to be immune from the moment they left the street-level politics that got them to the next level.
Well, I would hope that we wouldn’t want anyone to be running Ireland from the grimy backrooms of pubs.
It is another step in the right direction.
The closer they get to centre left, the closer they will get to leading Ireland.
Everyone is in it for the money, that’s what a job is all about, politicians are no different. The only people who have jobs that are NOT in it for the money are people who work in the voluntary sector, people who work tirelessly for nothing, zilch, because they want to help others. I worked for a homeless charity and an animal welfare charity once. I wasn’t paid anything but I knew that would be the case anyway but it was the passion was why I volunteered my time (and also because I didn’t want to rot on Welfare, idleness is the main cause of Depression in our society, in my opinion). I got a buzz from seeing once neglected animals finding new and good homes. I also enjoyed helping homeless people too.
I agree with Sinn Fein’s change of policy but I can also see why others would oppose it but they are misinformed. Socialists will see this as Sinn Fein moving further to the right but a lot of Socialists don’t understand how the economy/economics works. I wanted to join Sinn Fein once and maybe aspire to being an elected representative one day but it was the industrial wage policy that turned me off. I could get paid FAR more in other jobs. Is that me being greedy? No, that’s me looking out for my future and that of my family, which is natural. I’m in no doubt that this policy has turned off many other people, especially students. Why would a gifted student who studied years at University and who shares SF’s aims want to give up maybe a 6 figure salary in other professions just to join SF and be chained to the average wage? Its definitely a put off.
Its also wrong to assume that all of Sinn Fein’s voters are on the average wage too. The same goes for the SDLP. It was in the Irish News earlier this year that an SDLP councillor makes £250,000 a year from his numerous houses he rents out, that’s not including his salary and other investments he makes. SF’s Mairtin O’Muilleoir is a very successful businessman, it has been claimed that he’s a multi-millionaire, I don’t know if that’s true but I wouldn’t be surprised. South Belfast is widely regarded as a “Rich Area” but yet it elects a Left Wing SDLP politician to Westminster.
Sinn Fein changing this policy can only be a good thing, I doubt very much many of their voters vote for them just because of the industrial wage policy. This is 2016, not 1916, quality of life today has greatly improved for the average citizen compared to a century ago. Yes there are still issues in our society with poverty but that’s why SF needs to attract the best talent to the party in order to change that.
In my opinion, that is what life is about Ryan.
Doing things, experiencing things being productive all leave a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction.
Being paid on top is always a bonus and receiving a fair wage for the work provided helps make us feel appreciated as well as providing motivation in a consumer based material world.
Socialists generally don’t care how the economy/economics work, they see people getting rich and want the cake shared equally.
They don’t consider the effort that goes in behind the scenes to make the economy work and that pays for the majority of a nations wealth.
The reality is the public purse is not the peoples money equally.
Small businesses are the backbone of the economy, it takes long hours and hard work to create jobs for people to earn and pay taxes.
Employees go home and switch off at the end of a shift, employers don’t have that luxury.
It would not be something I would have the patience for, I would swing for someone but I imagine there would be a blur between working hours and not in politics also.
As you say, I don’t want fanatics leading the country, I want intelligent, hard working and motivated individuals and they usually have the sense to know what a fair pay means.
If socialists don’t agree, tough, they are a small minority in Ireland and that is another fact.
A far left socialist party will never lead Ireland.
As for the SDLP councillor who makes £250,000 a year from his numerous houses he rents out. That needs to be knocked on the head. I would have a property tax for each additional house owned of 2000 euros per year each and tougher laws to give more rights to renters to have them properly maintained by landlords with rent caps.
In Ireland unlike in Scotland, we want our young people owning their homes but by keeping them affordable in line with economic growth and without the over inflation caused from landlords cashing in because banks were throwing money at home owners like confetti.
I have always admired your positive outlook Ryan.
Consider this move as another step closer to there being an all island party leading Ireland from Dublin.
It is not simply about people wanting money, it is about Sinn Fein being fit to take their place at the helm and dodgy arrangements with public money is not appropriate. If there was no chance of them being in power in Dublin soon, I doubt they would have changed this policy.
And forget about Stormont Ryan, that shithole needs closed down and turned into a museum.
If you are interested in politics, learn to speak Irish and look to Dublin and politics in the Dail which needs to move away from Westminster mimicry.
After we second rate Irish in the north finally get to vote for our own president in 2018, an unstoppable momentum will have begun.
“…..manual workers are, as a rule, in my opinion,more intelligent and even often more cultured, than any save the professional and professedly cultured class……….The middle class, I believe, in Ireland, and elsewhere, to be distinctly the lowest class morally-that is the class influenced by the lower motives………Your average ‘bourgeois’ may make a very good sort of agitator, for here he can be shown, or at least convinced, that his mere material interests are concerned, and that he may serve them with little or no material risk. A rebel, however, you can rarely make him, for here the risk is certain and immediate, and the advantage, if material advantage there should be, doubtful and distant.”-John O’Leary
True today as it was all those years ago.
What hasn’t been mentioned is the fact that legislation is soon coming in making it illegal to pay representatives less than what they should earn directly. Other political parties didn’t seem to like the fact that SF were openly transparent about a wage cap… One wonders why
Because it would be detrimental to our state and is a pathetic and irresponsible attempt to curry favour with those with communist and far left ideals and those who don’t like politicians.
We have seen how the lack of prospects results in our best and brightest young people leaving these shores, are we going to send all our best political minds over to the UK also?
If Sinn Fein really want to handicap themselves they can, but legislation would save this stupid policy from hurting real politics in Ireland and for that reason I would support it.
Forcing political maturity onto Sinn Fein wont do them any hard either.