The crime debate yesterday in the Dail was everything that David Cameron's speech to the Troy Party conference in Blackpool wasn't. The three principals all cleaved to their script. It was Brian Lenihan's first major speech as Justice Minister. A day later I'm looking at him on the TV monitor now speaking live (well maybe dead!) on the Land and Conveyancing Reform Bill 2006 (don't ask because I haven't!).
Lenihan is polished, smart and establishmentarian to his fingertips (head boy at Belvedere; Oxford University).
There will be no McDowellite rushes of blood to the head. Which is a pity. McDowell was a radical thinker but never a politician. Everything he ever promised in terms of legislation was subsequently watered down. Lenihan will have no such problem. He will always have fantastic command of his brief, and will be able to defend himself, his Government and his guards to the hilt. His major problem will be that he's unlikely to come up with an idea worth talking about.
Ditto for Charlie Flanagan. After his bloomer during the election campaign, Jim O'Keeffe was never going to survive. Flanagan is a heavy hitter, another smart man and a lawyer to boot. But he's going to have to get the finger out. His speech yesterday was terrible. It lacked a unifying theme and contained phrases and scare-mongering passages that were cliched and hackneyed 20 years ago, 30 years ago, in similar debates in Leinster House.
His worst sentence: "The unacceptable face of Celtic Tiger Ireland reveals a society where our elderly citizens are terrified in their homes, men and women alike are afraid to walk the streets at night, our children can obtain drugs freely in any school yard in the country, we have seen the emergence of drive-by shootings, tiger kidnappings and callous contract killings."
Stoking up fear. The only line that was missing was the one about people no longer being able to keep the keys in their front door.
Fine Gael is not going to get anywhere if it keeps banging on the same drum, ratcheting up fears on crime. Sure, it can come up with tough policies. But it needs different policies; not just more of the same.
Pat Rabbitte's first outing for Labour was low-key. Rabbitte is an ideas and concepts politician but this speech was not the one where they were to be found.
Showing posts with label Pat Rabbitte. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat Rabbitte. Show all posts
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Friday, August 24, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - RABBITTE RESIGNS
Yesterday morning Pat Rabbitte began ringing around his colleagues in the Labour Party. The news he conveyed shocked them to the core, even those who were closest to him. He was resigning with immediate effect, from that very afternoon.
None of the main players within the party had any inclination that Rabbitte was about to cut the rope and bring his five-year leadership of the party to an end.
It was the same for Brendan Howlin:
It was well known that Rabbitte was crestfallen after the election. Labour had gone in with 20 seats and returned with the same number. In the immediate aftermath, he described it euphemistically as a standstill election but yesterday’s development showed that – personally – it had gone far deeper than that.
As he himself said yesterday: “In the event, Labour won the same number of seats as in 2002 and failed to replace the existing government. As Leader I take responsibility for that outcome.”
But the other net outcome of the general election was that Rabbitte’s leadership was not in doubt. He had defeated Howlin, Gilmore and Roisín Shortall by a whomping majority in 2002. While a small minority of the party had quibbled with electoral strategy, there was no appetite in the party for another leadership contest, notwithstanding the electoral setback, and the question of his leadership was settled.
His colleagues knew that he was disappointed but underestimated its effects. “Sure, he took a hit but I thought that he’d get over it, lick his wounds and continue leading the party,” said a fellow TD yesterday.
While on his annual holiday in the Kerry Gaeltacht, Rabbitte thought long and hard about the election and his own future. His term of office wasn’t up for another year, until the autumn of next year. Yesterday he said it made no sense for him to stay on until then. That would have meant that a new leader had taken over just months before the local and European elections of 2008. He believed that the best time to go was right at the start of the term.
You couldn’t argue with any of that. Sure, if he was going, it was better to go now. But the bigger question was: why go?
Those close to him said that many underestimated the effect of failing to get into government had on him. Yes it was “unsuccessful only by a narrow margin” as he himself said yesterday but that was still failure.
And having put that effort in, he decided in Kerry that he did not have the appetite to go once more into the breech. He is now 58 and given that Fianna Fail has covered all angles with its own little rainbow, it’s widely accepted that this Government will last its full term and that Brian Cowen will seamlessly succeed Ahern in 2008 (if the Tribunal goes badly for Ahern) or in 2009 or 2010 (at the latest).
And what the Labour Party needs, according to several of its strategists, is a person who has passion and energy, and has “fire in the belly”.
We will come back to that, but Rabbitte’s resignation brought to an end the career ambitions of one of the country’s most intelligent, able, and colourful politicians.
The native of Ballindine in Co Mayo first distinguished himself as a student leader in University College Galway in the early 70s before becoming the President of the Union of Students in Ireland. He later became a prominent official with the ITGWU union before entering politics full-time.
One major legacy problem that dogged him was his membership of Sinn Fein the Workers Party and its connections to the ‘Stickies’ of the Official IRA. But paradoxically Rabbitte joined the party after the split, having been previously a member of the Labour Party (he resigned because of his opposition to the 1973 coalition with Fine Gael).
And though the Workers’ Party (later Democratic Left) never really succeeded in becoming much more than a marginal presence, the party was notable for the quality of its parliamentarians – including Rabbitte, Gilmore, Proinsias de Rossa, and Liz McManus (who is now the acting Labour leader).
Indeed, when DL went into the Rainbow Coalition in late 1994, Rabbitte became a ‘super junior’ and one of the highest profile members of government, deservedly praised for his far-seeing drugs strategy.
An acerbic wit and brilliant parliamentarian, he became a darling of the media because of the ease and brilliance with which he rounded his thoughts and his hilarious put-downs. But there was an occasional arrogance and distance about him that some thought off-putting – and a sense that he could not translate his Dáil form to the streets, and could not relate to ordinary Joe Schmoes in the street in the way that Bertie Ahern did.
But Rabbitte’s performance on the hustings in the election campaign surprised everybody, showing far more appetite for the plod and flesh-pressing on the hustings. And despite going one witticism too far comparing Michael McDowell to a ‘menopausal Paris Hilton’ he was the hands-down winner of the TV debate.
But like all the smaller parties, it just didn’t happen for Labour. Some colleagues (particularly Howlin) put it down to the Mullingar Accord and the deal with Fine Gael. But Rabbitte believed it went deeper than electoral strategy.
“Whereas the core values of Labour are timeless and immutable, we must accept that Irish society has changed and we must change.”
Elsewhere he described it as the ‘brand’. Unions no longer wield the same emotional draw. People’s definition of working class, of blue collar, their expectations of politics, of how society should be ordered, has changed radically.
(For Rabbitte's own analysis of the election, follow this link. It is his delivery of the Jim Kemmy Lecture to the Tom Johnson Summer School in Galway)
It’s clear somebody else will have to be the architect of that change. The party can’t really skip a generation like it did in the early 1980s with Dick Spring. It’s too early in their careers for any of its three new TDs. The others, if not of Rabbitte’s generation, are very close to it.
Surprising though the announcement was, Pat Rabbitte was right. If the party wants to renew itself, the time to do is now.
None of the main players within the party had any inclination that Rabbitte was about to cut the rope and bring his five-year leadership of the party to an end.
“It came like a bolt out of the blue,” said Eamon Gilmore the Dun Laoghaire TD. “I am surprised and I am disappointed. I would have liked to see him continue on.”
It was the same for Brendan Howlin:
“It took me completely by surprise when he called me this morning. When I spoke to him earlier this summer when I was offered the position (of Leas Ceann Comhairle) he gave no indication.”
It was well known that Rabbitte was crestfallen after the election. Labour had gone in with 20 seats and returned with the same number. In the immediate aftermath, he described it euphemistically as a standstill election but yesterday’s development showed that – personally – it had gone far deeper than that.
As he himself said yesterday: “In the event, Labour won the same number of seats as in 2002 and failed to replace the existing government. As Leader I take responsibility for that outcome.”
But the other net outcome of the general election was that Rabbitte’s leadership was not in doubt. He had defeated Howlin, Gilmore and Roisín Shortall by a whomping majority in 2002. While a small minority of the party had quibbled with electoral strategy, there was no appetite in the party for another leadership contest, notwithstanding the electoral setback, and the question of his leadership was settled.
His colleagues knew that he was disappointed but underestimated its effects. “Sure, he took a hit but I thought that he’d get over it, lick his wounds and continue leading the party,” said a fellow TD yesterday.
While on his annual holiday in the Kerry Gaeltacht, Rabbitte thought long and hard about the election and his own future. His term of office wasn’t up for another year, until the autumn of next year. Yesterday he said it made no sense for him to stay on until then. That would have meant that a new leader had taken over just months before the local and European elections of 2008. He believed that the best time to go was right at the start of the term.
You couldn’t argue with any of that. Sure, if he was going, it was better to go now. But the bigger question was: why go?
Those close to him said that many underestimated the effect of failing to get into government had on him. Yes it was “unsuccessful only by a narrow margin” as he himself said yesterday but that was still failure.
“He gave the leadership every ounce of his being and energy over five years and he did a great job,” said Gilmore.
And having put that effort in, he decided in Kerry that he did not have the appetite to go once more into the breech. He is now 58 and given that Fianna Fail has covered all angles with its own little rainbow, it’s widely accepted that this Government will last its full term and that Brian Cowen will seamlessly succeed Ahern in 2008 (if the Tribunal goes badly for Ahern) or in 2009 or 2010 (at the latest).
And what the Labour Party needs, according to several of its strategists, is a person who has passion and energy, and has “fire in the belly”.
We will come back to that, but Rabbitte’s resignation brought to an end the career ambitions of one of the country’s most intelligent, able, and colourful politicians.
The native of Ballindine in Co Mayo first distinguished himself as a student leader in University College Galway in the early 70s before becoming the President of the Union of Students in Ireland. He later became a prominent official with the ITGWU union before entering politics full-time.
One major legacy problem that dogged him was his membership of Sinn Fein the Workers Party and its connections to the ‘Stickies’ of the Official IRA. But paradoxically Rabbitte joined the party after the split, having been previously a member of the Labour Party (he resigned because of his opposition to the 1973 coalition with Fine Gael).
And though the Workers’ Party (later Democratic Left) never really succeeded in becoming much more than a marginal presence, the party was notable for the quality of its parliamentarians – including Rabbitte, Gilmore, Proinsias de Rossa, and Liz McManus (who is now the acting Labour leader).
Indeed, when DL went into the Rainbow Coalition in late 1994, Rabbitte became a ‘super junior’ and one of the highest profile members of government, deservedly praised for his far-seeing drugs strategy.
An acerbic wit and brilliant parliamentarian, he became a darling of the media because of the ease and brilliance with which he rounded his thoughts and his hilarious put-downs. But there was an occasional arrogance and distance about him that some thought off-putting – and a sense that he could not translate his Dáil form to the streets, and could not relate to ordinary Joe Schmoes in the street in the way that Bertie Ahern did.
But Rabbitte’s performance on the hustings in the election campaign surprised everybody, showing far more appetite for the plod and flesh-pressing on the hustings. And despite going one witticism too far comparing Michael McDowell to a ‘menopausal Paris Hilton’ he was the hands-down winner of the TV debate.
But like all the smaller parties, it just didn’t happen for Labour. Some colleagues (particularly Howlin) put it down to the Mullingar Accord and the deal with Fine Gael. But Rabbitte believed it went deeper than electoral strategy.
“As regards (strategy), I remain absolutely convinced that it was correct to offer the people a choice of an alternative government,” he said yesterday. “It was not successful but unsuccessful only by a narrow margin… It would be a mistake to restrict the debate to electoral strategy.
“Whereas the core values of Labour are timeless and immutable, we must accept that Irish society has changed and we must change.”
Elsewhere he described it as the ‘brand’. Unions no longer wield the same emotional draw. People’s definition of working class, of blue collar, their expectations of politics, of how society should be ordered, has changed radically.
(For Rabbitte's own analysis of the election, follow this link. It is his delivery of the Jim Kemmy Lecture to the Tom Johnson Summer School in Galway)
It’s clear somebody else will have to be the architect of that change. The party can’t really skip a generation like it did in the early 1980s with Dick Spring. It’s too early in their careers for any of its three new TDs. The others, if not of Rabbitte’s generation, are very close to it.
Surprising though the announcement was, Pat Rabbitte was right. If the party wants to renew itself, the time to do is now.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - THE BULL AND HIS CHINA SHOP
WE all wondered what we would do without the comic talents of Joe Higgins.
But on the first real day of the Dáil returning, a ready-made joker emerged from the pack.
This might strike you as a bit strange but the very same deputy who was responsible for keeping order in the house was also single-handedly responsible for some of the most unruly scenes of disorder in the house for many years.
It was Kerry TD John O’Donoghue’s debut as Ceann Comhairle and he gave a textbook example of “a turn-up for the books”.
The problem wasn’t that the new Ceann Comhairle’s ability to keep easily excitable deputies under control. It was more deputies not being able to keep an easily excitable Ceann Comhairle under control.
The man who is known as “The Bull” had finally found his china shop. By the time the rampage had come to an end a debate that should have taken half an hour had dragged on for almost three, two TDs had been chucked out of the house and anyone who dared to wave the red flag to him was trampled over with a verbal onslaught.
O’Donoghue has many extraordinary qualities but one of them isn’t a long fuse.
Perhaps he came into the chamber yesterday with the intention of laying down the law but it was hard to figure what law we were witnessing. Sure, John O’Donoghue was wearing the Cathaoirleach’s robes but at times you were unsure if you were in the Dáil or in the Wild West and whether he was the sheriff or the chief outlaw.
Within three minutes of the start, his hackles had been raised. The mild-mannered Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny had gone over his three minutes and O’Donoghue was in no mood to play extra time.
After a couple of exchanges, Kenny made the mistake of saying: “Quiet now, you are new in the job”.
The Ceann Comhairle was out of his chair like a greyhound out of traps.
“You will not say ‘quiet’ to me sir,” he roared at Kenny.
“The deputy will be seated when the chairman is standing,” became the recurring theme of the afternoon.
Kenny’s good humour gave way to jibes. “The perception in Kerry is that you have no power down there,” he said. The taunts came thick and fast from the opposition benches. Zero tolerance, they shouted, reminding the Ceann Comhairle of a previous incarnation.
Strangely Pat Rabbitte, who clashed frequently with the previous ceann comhairle, was as good as gold yesterday, and (uncharacteristically) waved no red flags at the Bull.
For at this stage, O’Donoghue was distracted by all the other miscreants. The first to get the red card was Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan, who was told to sit down by the Ceann Comhairle when he got up to speak, but refused.
He was kicked out but refused to go, and stubbornly stayed on for 20 minutes before sheepishly making his exit.
And then — surprise, surprise — it was Fine Gael’s Michael Ring. He made the mistake of accusing O’Donoghue of “making it up as you go along”.
A mini-volcano erupted from the summit of the Ceann Comhairle’s chair.
“That’s a disgraceful statement and completely untrue,” roared the Ceann Comhairle.
You will leave the house, he told Ring. I won’t leave the house, replied Ring. There followed a pantomime exhange along the lines of 'oh yes you will leave' and 'oh no I will not leave'.
The upshot was that house was suspended twice as the mulish Ring refused to leave. The long and short of it was that he later left under a protest loud enough for his supporters in Belmullet to hear.
The delay was so severe that the debate on the new Stamp Duty Bill for first- time buyers was allotted all of 35 minutes, making it one of the shortest debates on a new piece of legislation in recent history.
A version of this appeared in this morning's Irish Examiner
But on the first real day of the Dáil returning, a ready-made joker emerged from the pack.
This might strike you as a bit strange but the very same deputy who was responsible for keeping order in the house was also single-handedly responsible for some of the most unruly scenes of disorder in the house for many years.
It was Kerry TD John O’Donoghue’s debut as Ceann Comhairle and he gave a textbook example of “a turn-up for the books”.
The problem wasn’t that the new Ceann Comhairle’s ability to keep easily excitable deputies under control. It was more deputies not being able to keep an easily excitable Ceann Comhairle under control.
The man who is known as “The Bull” had finally found his china shop. By the time the rampage had come to an end a debate that should have taken half an hour had dragged on for almost three, two TDs had been chucked out of the house and anyone who dared to wave the red flag to him was trampled over with a verbal onslaught.
O’Donoghue has many extraordinary qualities but one of them isn’t a long fuse.
Perhaps he came into the chamber yesterday with the intention of laying down the law but it was hard to figure what law we were witnessing. Sure, John O’Donoghue was wearing the Cathaoirleach’s robes but at times you were unsure if you were in the Dáil or in the Wild West and whether he was the sheriff or the chief outlaw.
Within three minutes of the start, his hackles had been raised. The mild-mannered Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny had gone over his three minutes and O’Donoghue was in no mood to play extra time.
After a couple of exchanges, Kenny made the mistake of saying: “Quiet now, you are new in the job”.
The Ceann Comhairle was out of his chair like a greyhound out of traps.
“You will not say ‘quiet’ to me sir,” he roared at Kenny.
“The deputy will be seated when the chairman is standing,” became the recurring theme of the afternoon.
Kenny’s good humour gave way to jibes. “The perception in Kerry is that you have no power down there,” he said. The taunts came thick and fast from the opposition benches. Zero tolerance, they shouted, reminding the Ceann Comhairle of a previous incarnation.
Strangely Pat Rabbitte, who clashed frequently with the previous ceann comhairle, was as good as gold yesterday, and (uncharacteristically) waved no red flags at the Bull.
For at this stage, O’Donoghue was distracted by all the other miscreants. The first to get the red card was Sinn Féin’s Arthur Morgan, who was told to sit down by the Ceann Comhairle when he got up to speak, but refused.
He was kicked out but refused to go, and stubbornly stayed on for 20 minutes before sheepishly making his exit.
And then — surprise, surprise — it was Fine Gael’s Michael Ring. He made the mistake of accusing O’Donoghue of “making it up as you go along”.
A mini-volcano erupted from the summit of the Ceann Comhairle’s chair.
“That’s a disgraceful statement and completely untrue,” roared the Ceann Comhairle.
You will leave the house, he told Ring. I won’t leave the house, replied Ring. There followed a pantomime exhange along the lines of 'oh yes you will leave' and 'oh no I will not leave'.
The upshot was that house was suspended twice as the mulish Ring refused to leave. The long and short of it was that he later left under a protest loud enough for his supporters in Belmullet to hear.
The delay was so severe that the debate on the new Stamp Duty Bill for first- time buyers was allotted all of 35 minutes, making it one of the shortest debates on a new piece of legislation in recent history.
A version of this appeared in this morning's Irish Examiner
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - THE SOUND OF SILENCE
The Dáil returns on June 14. We will have a Government then, one that you can confidently say will be Fianna Fail led, will also be Bertie Ahern led.
Right now, we are stuck in the political version of a holding pattern over Heathrow Airport. There is some movement but it is circular. The Labour Party parliamentary party is meeting today. The residue of a party once known as the PDs is meeting also.
Fine Gael have been busily selling the line that the FF win wasn't really that much of a FF win and that FG were the real winners, so much so that they might surprise us all and form the next government. To that end, Enda Kenny has met with just about ever entity that isn't FF or SF.
Even if he were to pull it off, and cobble together a government more complicated than the 1948 arrangement, it would be so precarious, so inherently unstable that it would hardly last a year. I think the current FG leadership is playing a longer game. On the one hand it's posturing a little, anticipating any leadership challenge, ensuring that Enda's leadership is a continuity one. The message: he's ready to step into the breech now and at any time as Taoiseach. Secondly, they are planting the notion in people's minds that if a FF-led coalition collapses, then it might not be necessary to go to the country.
Having said that, FF have the chips stacked on their side of the table. For once, I don't think we have to take a Machiavellian reading of Bertie Ahern's intentions. He wants the PDs and the independents first, and then the greens. The problem with the first constellation is question marks over Beverly Flynn €1.5 million debt to RTE. The majority will be wafer-thin - and it would be difficult for the government to last the course. I think the upper echelons of the FF leadership are not too gone on the Greens either - and it goes beyond its concerns about so-called flakey policies to the attacks that the Greens have made on FF's relationship with developers.
If there were an agreement with the Greens it might be more stable.
But looking at the numbers, you suspect that what FF might try for is a wider coalition involving FF, the two PDS, the six Greens, and one or two sympathetic independents.
FF and Labour? I just don't see it. Let's be real about this. Pat Rabbitte ruled it out. If there was wiggle room in what he has said in the past six months, its so infinitesimally small as to be negligent.
Fintan O'Toole's column in the Irish Times yesterday made a cogent argument for this set-up, saying it would guarantee both ten years of Government, could see the successors of Pearse and Connolly ruling the country at the time of the 100th anniversary of 1916. It makes sense for a Brian Cowen led FF. The problem with the thesis is that it's not a Brian Cowen led FF and won't be for at least another two and a half years.
And the Tribunals. It will cause Ahern trouble. Not now. None of his opponents have any appetite to take FF on for a third time over BertieGate. Ahern has already scored two emphatic victories over this. But the patterns in politics often mirror closely the patterns in sport - and yes, sport always provides a vivid dayglo metaphor for the human condition!. In championship fare, you often see teams demolish its opposition for three or four games in a row and then be set up as untouchable or as raging hot favourites. For all that, sometimes in the game that you least expect it, they put in an insipid performance and exit tamely. This might happen here. After the heroic seeing off of his detractors, the Taoiseach might be felled in the end by something small and seemingly insignificant - the piece of straw that will have broken the camel's back .
Right now, we are stuck in the political version of a holding pattern over Heathrow Airport. There is some movement but it is circular. The Labour Party parliamentary party is meeting today. The residue of a party once known as the PDs is meeting also.
Fine Gael have been busily selling the line that the FF win wasn't really that much of a FF win and that FG were the real winners, so much so that they might surprise us all and form the next government. To that end, Enda Kenny has met with just about ever entity that isn't FF or SF.
Even if he were to pull it off, and cobble together a government more complicated than the 1948 arrangement, it would be so precarious, so inherently unstable that it would hardly last a year. I think the current FG leadership is playing a longer game. On the one hand it's posturing a little, anticipating any leadership challenge, ensuring that Enda's leadership is a continuity one. The message: he's ready to step into the breech now and at any time as Taoiseach. Secondly, they are planting the notion in people's minds that if a FF-led coalition collapses, then it might not be necessary to go to the country.
Having said that, FF have the chips stacked on their side of the table. For once, I don't think we have to take a Machiavellian reading of Bertie Ahern's intentions. He wants the PDs and the independents first, and then the greens. The problem with the first constellation is question marks over Beverly Flynn €1.5 million debt to RTE. The majority will be wafer-thin - and it would be difficult for the government to last the course. I think the upper echelons of the FF leadership are not too gone on the Greens either - and it goes beyond its concerns about so-called flakey policies to the attacks that the Greens have made on FF's relationship with developers.
If there were an agreement with the Greens it might be more stable.
But looking at the numbers, you suspect that what FF might try for is a wider coalition involving FF, the two PDS, the six Greens, and one or two sympathetic independents.
FF and Labour? I just don't see it. Let's be real about this. Pat Rabbitte ruled it out. If there was wiggle room in what he has said in the past six months, its so infinitesimally small as to be negligent.
Fintan O'Toole's column in the Irish Times yesterday made a cogent argument for this set-up, saying it would guarantee both ten years of Government, could see the successors of Pearse and Connolly ruling the country at the time of the 100th anniversary of 1916. It makes sense for a Brian Cowen led FF. The problem with the thesis is that it's not a Brian Cowen led FF and won't be for at least another two and a half years.
And the Tribunals. It will cause Ahern trouble. Not now. None of his opponents have any appetite to take FF on for a third time over BertieGate. Ahern has already scored two emphatic victories over this. But the patterns in politics often mirror closely the patterns in sport - and yes, sport always provides a vivid dayglo metaphor for the human condition!. In championship fare, you often see teams demolish its opposition for three or four games in a row and then be set up as untouchable or as raging hot favourites. For all that, sometimes in the game that you least expect it, they put in an insipid performance and exit tamely. This might happen here. After the heroic seeing off of his detractors, the Taoiseach might be felled in the end by something small and seemingly insignificant - the piece of straw that will have broken the camel's back .
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - FF's JIM O'KEEFFE MOMENT
Well, Fianna Fail had their Jim O'Keeffe moment today.
The week before last O'Keeffe conceded at a Fine Gael conference that crime figures had not doubled between 1995, as claimed by his party, but had stayed the same. He then tried to distinguish between low-level headline crimes like bicycle theft and serious crimes like rape, murder and serious assualt, which he said had increased.
But the damage was done. And it was compounded when in the course of the TV debate Enda Kenny said O'Keeffe - his party's justice spokesman - had not been in possession of the correct statistics. It was a bad moment.
Since then, the FF big swatters have swung into action, especially Mr Brawny from Offaly. They've slid in hard on the 2,000 extra cops claim, the 2,300 beds and the allegation that FG and Labour's tax proposals would benefit the top 3% of earners.
No matter if the claims are true or not. The name of the game is to get them out there, to sow seeds of doubts about the ability and competence of Enda, his party and its partner. Did Enda ride all those tackles as well as he could? It seems the public didn't think so. And FG and Labour took too long to counter-attack and do it with the ferocity of the FF push against them since last Thursday.
It was only in the wake of yesterday's poll that they came out fighting. Rabbitte and Richard Bruton called the FF 3% tax claim a blatant lie. But was it all a little too late.
And then just as Fianna Fail was getting into a hubris frame of mind and patting itself in the back for punching holes in opposition policies, it went one step too far and punched a massive hole in one of its own policies.
The three Fianna Fail ministers at the top table today - Dermot Ahern, Mary Hanafin, and Seamus Brennan - opened their mouths just long enough to take one foot out and put the other foot in.
The context was this. Last night on Question and Answers Brian Cowen had finally come up with a figure, telling how much co-location would cost the taxpayer. €70 million per year over seven years was his response.
Then this morning, Brennan and Hanafin said it would cost €40 million between now and 2011. When asked to clarify this, total confusion reigned. Seamus started to talk about it being difficult to pin down the cost on tax breaks. When pressed further, a note was passed up from the sides.
And finally, Colin Hunt, the FF economic guru, had to step in from the wings to explain it all. Not everybody in the press corps were sure who he was. But he explained that the project would cost E47 million per year but the net cost would be E40 million. He also said that Cowen had referred last night to E40 million being the net cost.
There were a couple of snide remarks from journalists asking if Mr Cowen had had the right statistics to hand last night.
And predictably FG and Labour quickly went to town on it, with the usual barrage of verbal heavy artillery.
We're less than 48 hours away now. Tomorrow is a broadcast moratorium day. Embarrassing as it was for the Government, did it come a little bit too late.
The week before last O'Keeffe conceded at a Fine Gael conference that crime figures had not doubled between 1995, as claimed by his party, but had stayed the same. He then tried to distinguish between low-level headline crimes like bicycle theft and serious crimes like rape, murder and serious assualt, which he said had increased.
But the damage was done. And it was compounded when in the course of the TV debate Enda Kenny said O'Keeffe - his party's justice spokesman - had not been in possession of the correct statistics. It was a bad moment.
Since then, the FF big swatters have swung into action, especially Mr Brawny from Offaly. They've slid in hard on the 2,000 extra cops claim, the 2,300 beds and the allegation that FG and Labour's tax proposals would benefit the top 3% of earners.
No matter if the claims are true or not. The name of the game is to get them out there, to sow seeds of doubts about the ability and competence of Enda, his party and its partner. Did Enda ride all those tackles as well as he could? It seems the public didn't think so. And FG and Labour took too long to counter-attack and do it with the ferocity of the FF push against them since last Thursday.
It was only in the wake of yesterday's poll that they came out fighting. Rabbitte and Richard Bruton called the FF 3% tax claim a blatant lie. But was it all a little too late.
And then just as Fianna Fail was getting into a hubris frame of mind and patting itself in the back for punching holes in opposition policies, it went one step too far and punched a massive hole in one of its own policies.
The three Fianna Fail ministers at the top table today - Dermot Ahern, Mary Hanafin, and Seamus Brennan - opened their mouths just long enough to take one foot out and put the other foot in.
The context was this. Last night on Question and Answers Brian Cowen had finally come up with a figure, telling how much co-location would cost the taxpayer. €70 million per year over seven years was his response.
Then this morning, Brennan and Hanafin said it would cost €40 million between now and 2011. When asked to clarify this, total confusion reigned. Seamus started to talk about it being difficult to pin down the cost on tax breaks. When pressed further, a note was passed up from the sides.
And finally, Colin Hunt, the FF economic guru, had to step in from the wings to explain it all. Not everybody in the press corps were sure who he was. But he explained that the project would cost E47 million per year but the net cost would be E40 million. He also said that Cowen had referred last night to E40 million being the net cost.
There were a couple of snide remarks from journalists asking if Mr Cowen had had the right statistics to hand last night.
And predictably FG and Labour quickly went to town on it, with the usual barrage of verbal heavy artillery.
We're less than 48 hours away now. Tomorrow is a broadcast moratorium day. Embarrassing as it was for the Government, did it come a little bit too late.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - IRISH TIMES POLL
I texted a friend of mine who works for one of the opposition parties.
"Totally grim" was his terse response.
That sums up the poll. 41% for Fianna Fail is... well let's think... something along the lines of hurtling to earth after your parachute doesn't open. And then when all looks doomed, you fall into a massive hay stack.
FFers were jubilant last night. They pointed out that TNS mrbi adjust for overstated support for FF. They think the election is now in the bag - that the party will coast home...
But not so quick. The findings could be aberrant or rogue - it goes against the SB Post and Sunday Indo polls from the previous day. Granted, neither of those fully capture the TV showdown on Thursday. But surely, that in itself couldn't account for a five per cent jump. If people felt sorry for Bertie or if it reflected his Westminster speech on Tuesday, that would have been picked up in the Sunday polls.
It's curious. It has stunned everybody. Gerald Barry on This Week described the FF campaign as insipid for the first few weeks. How right he was, though Bertie quibbled with him over it. But since Thursday (and what he himself saw as him wiping the floor with Enda Kenny) Ahern has been a Born-Again Anorak, with a newly-found spring in the step.
I'm accompanying his canvass to Sligo tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how much he plays it up or down.
"Totally grim" was his terse response.
That sums up the poll. 41% for Fianna Fail is... well let's think... something along the lines of hurtling to earth after your parachute doesn't open. And then when all looks doomed, you fall into a massive hay stack.
FFers were jubilant last night. They pointed out that TNS mrbi adjust for overstated support for FF. They think the election is now in the bag - that the party will coast home...
But not so quick. The findings could be aberrant or rogue - it goes against the SB Post and Sunday Indo polls from the previous day. Granted, neither of those fully capture the TV showdown on Thursday. But surely, that in itself couldn't account for a five per cent jump. If people felt sorry for Bertie or if it reflected his Westminster speech on Tuesday, that would have been picked up in the Sunday polls.
It's curious. It has stunned everybody. Gerald Barry on This Week described the FF campaign as insipid for the first few weeks. How right he was, though Bertie quibbled with him over it. But since Thursday (and what he himself saw as him wiping the floor with Enda Kenny) Ahern has been a Born-Again Anorak, with a newly-found spring in the step.
I'm accompanying his canvass to Sligo tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how much he plays it up or down.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - Donnybrook at Donnybrook
After the Ranelagh Rumble earlier, we had the donnybrook at Donnybrook last night as the four leaders of the parties that aren’t the big two slugged it out in a high-octane TV debate.
This was the undercard but in many ways it was always likely to be a more exciting and bruising dust-up than tonight’s main attraction – the debate between Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny tonight.
For each of the four leaders, Pat Rabbitte (Labour), Michael McDowell (PD), Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) and Trevor Sargent (GP)are strong personalities in their own right – and all except Sargent are able debaters.
And in an exchange with personal and nasty moments, it was Rabbitte and McDowell who emerged most strongly – on the the force of their arguments, their ease, and the best lines.
Adams did not lack confidence but lack of mastery on economic issues was exposed a few times – as he was caught waffling. Sargent, not a natural debater, was always going to find it difficult. In the end he held his own without really making a killer point.
But optically, it was terrible for him. The extensive cog notes he had written neatly on the palm of his hands were easily spotted – and will probably dent his marks more than anything he or anybody else said.
The format of the PrimeTime special was simple. Each opened with a statement while bathed in a spotlight. They were then ushered over to a table in turn by presenter Mark Little. The format reminded you of a game show. They even threw in the tense music. The Weakest Link came to mind.
All four were a little nervous and stilted when reading their statement off an autocue.
Michael McDowell immediately continued his row from the afternoon, accusing the Greens of flip-flopping over corporation tax. More scare stuff – the first real row. Sargent sallied back strongly. McDowell had the first good quotable quote: “I’m surrounded by the left (Lab); the hard left (SF); and the left-overs (Greens).
The pattern became obvious early - it was mostly going to be McDowell against the other three.
The second topic was another hot potato one – the Government’s controversial collocation proposal. Here it was McDowell v the rest. Sargent contended it was a “quick fix”. McDowell went in hard.
Second fast quip by Rabbitte, looking more like the Cheshire Cat.
“You are over-energised by that pole you climbed up in Ranelagh,” he quipped.
Little moved it to crime and ASBOS and immigration with McDowell trying to divide the Greens and Labour.
Rabbitte’s second great line: “Michael is like a menopausal Paris Hilton. He is an inveterate attention seeker.”
A few minutes later it started getting personal. When the discussion moved to drugs, he accused Adams of getting E25m from FARC guerrillas in Colombia who are financed by cocaine.
Sargent scored a good point when he said there were only 27 detox beds in the entire State. As did Rabbitte when he said there were more dog wardens than labour inspectors. More insults. Sargent accused McDowell of being hardline and the PDs of being peddlers of despair and deceit. McDowell scored with an argument asking people to imagine what it will be like in three years. Adams returned to a broad republican team.
None let themselves down but Rabbitte pipped it, with McDowell pipping the other two.
from this morning's Irish Examiner
Postscript: Sargent said that he had the notes written down on his palm just in case the autocue went down at the start - in context, it was relatively minor but it would have been better for the notes to have remained hidden from view.
This was the undercard but in many ways it was always likely to be a more exciting and bruising dust-up than tonight’s main attraction – the debate between Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny tonight.
For each of the four leaders, Pat Rabbitte (Labour), Michael McDowell (PD), Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) and Trevor Sargent (GP)are strong personalities in their own right – and all except Sargent are able debaters.
And in an exchange with personal and nasty moments, it was Rabbitte and McDowell who emerged most strongly – on the the force of their arguments, their ease, and the best lines.
Adams did not lack confidence but lack of mastery on economic issues was exposed a few times – as he was caught waffling. Sargent, not a natural debater, was always going to find it difficult. In the end he held his own without really making a killer point.
But optically, it was terrible for him. The extensive cog notes he had written neatly on the palm of his hands were easily spotted – and will probably dent his marks more than anything he or anybody else said.
The format of the PrimeTime special was simple. Each opened with a statement while bathed in a spotlight. They were then ushered over to a table in turn by presenter Mark Little. The format reminded you of a game show. They even threw in the tense music. The Weakest Link came to mind.
All four were a little nervous and stilted when reading their statement off an autocue.
Michael McDowell immediately continued his row from the afternoon, accusing the Greens of flip-flopping over corporation tax. More scare stuff – the first real row. Sargent sallied back strongly. McDowell had the first good quotable quote: “I’m surrounded by the left (Lab); the hard left (SF); and the left-overs (Greens).
The pattern became obvious early - it was mostly going to be McDowell against the other three.
The second topic was another hot potato one – the Government’s controversial collocation proposal. Here it was McDowell v the rest. Sargent contended it was a “quick fix”. McDowell went in hard.
Second fast quip by Rabbitte, looking more like the Cheshire Cat.
“You are over-energised by that pole you climbed up in Ranelagh,” he quipped.
Little moved it to crime and ASBOS and immigration with McDowell trying to divide the Greens and Labour.
Rabbitte’s second great line: “Michael is like a menopausal Paris Hilton. He is an inveterate attention seeker.”
A few minutes later it started getting personal. When the discussion moved to drugs, he accused Adams of getting E25m from FARC guerrillas in Colombia who are financed by cocaine.
Sargent scored a good point when he said there were only 27 detox beds in the entire State. As did Rabbitte when he said there were more dog wardens than labour inspectors. More insults. Sargent accused McDowell of being hardline and the PDs of being peddlers of despair and deceit. McDowell scored with an argument asking people to imagine what it will be like in three years. Adams returned to a broad republican team.
None let themselves down but Rabbitte pipped it, with McDowell pipping the other two.
from this morning's Irish Examiner
Postscript: Sargent said that he had the notes written down on his palm just in case the autocue went down at the start - in context, it was relatively minor but it would have been better for the notes to have remained hidden from view.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
INSIDE POLTICS - DEBATE PART ONE
My own initial verdict is that Rabbitte (relaxed, almost too Cheshire Cat) pipped it from McDowell (over negative, too prone to personal insults) from Adams (relaxed but woolly on specifics espeically on the economy) and Trevor (made some very good points; defended himself well but the writing on the hands was a disaster).
The last time any of us saw writing on the palm of the hand was on the hands of exam cheats who wrote cog notes on their palms. Trevor should have learned from the first rule of a cogger. Which is not to get caught. If you have something to hide, make sure it's hidden.
Every time he made a gesture we could see it: Giving his own Irish version of, Talk to the hand. It will deflect from what was a performance in which he held his own against three of the smoothest and most efficient debaters in the business.
There were a couple of good lines. When Adams said his bank owned his holiday home in Donegal; McDowell whizzed in with: "What bank? The Northern Bank?".
He then plied it on too thick with his accusation about the FARC drug-money allegedly financing Sinn Fein.
As people who follow politics, we knew that Adams had information gaps when it came to the economy. But he's very self-assured and has a reach with the public.
Rabbitte's best lines were reserved for McDowell. The best of all was:
“Michael is like a menopausal Paris Hilton. He is an inveterate attention seeker.”
Surely one he had prepared earlier.
The last time any of us saw writing on the palm of the hand was on the hands of exam cheats who wrote cog notes on their palms. Trevor should have learned from the first rule of a cogger. Which is not to get caught. If you have something to hide, make sure it's hidden.
Every time he made a gesture we could see it: Giving his own Irish version of, Talk to the hand. It will deflect from what was a performance in which he held his own against three of the smoothest and most efficient debaters in the business.
There were a couple of good lines. When Adams said his bank owned his holiday home in Donegal; McDowell whizzed in with: "What bank? The Northern Bank?".
He then plied it on too thick with his accusation about the FARC drug-money allegedly financing Sinn Fein.
As people who follow politics, we knew that Adams had information gaps when it came to the economy. But he's very self-assured and has a reach with the public.
Rabbitte's best lines were reserved for McDowell. The best of all was:
“Michael is like a menopausal Paris Hilton. He is an inveterate attention seeker.”
Surely one he had prepared earlier.
Monday, May 14, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIEGATE; THE END CREDITS
It was – to borrow somebody else’s phrase – the last sting of a dying wasp.
There was no emotional TV interview. There were no catch in the voice. There were no tears. This wasn’t a politician tugging at the heart strings – this was a Taoiseach tugging impatiently at the exit door to leave BertieGate behind once and for all.
And in the end Bertie Ahern got it over with. The comprehensive statement came in a staggered way – the gist of it in a written response to questions in the Sunday Independent; and the whole shebang in a statement delivered at 2pm yesterday – about the only time in the week where the news cycle takes a siesta and gives way to sport. There are no talk shows and consequently the first real parsing of it was on the Week in Politics, late last night.
There were a couple of strange references in the statement that suggest it had been originally written for Ahern to read out.
“I hope you will bear with me as I give you a detailed account of these matters,” is the syntax of talk and not of prose.
But no matter if the strategy chopped and changed. No matter that it was released on the day the latest opinion poll spelt further bad news for Fianna Fail. “You know us, always going against the wind,” said one of its backroom people.
What mattered for Fianna Fail was two things. That it was comprehensive and complete enough for the PDs. The last thing FF wanted was for Michael McDowell to be so scunnered (a nice Scottish word that means very annoyed or devastated) to bring the edifice down. And it was comprehensive and complete enough to draw a line under it, as far as this election cycle was over.
Sure, they’d get another sting off the wasps – the swarm of journalists that is, not the opposition. For the leaders of the main opposition parties have reacted to questions about BertieGate in the way an elderly nun might react to a flasher. Recoil verging on speechlessness has been the standard response. It’s been a textbook example of standing up for your focus group findings.
And it was, in the end, a comprehensive account of the convoluted dealings surrounding his house near Griffith Avenue. It wasn’t just a lawyer putting words into Bertie Ahern’s mouths – there was a human element to it that explained things in a manner that will go down very well with ordinary people.
“I know that some people will fell that some aspects of my life are unusual. I am sorry if that has caused any confusion or worry in people’s minds All of these issues arose in a period when my family, personal and professional situations were rapidly changing.”
Some cynics will say that he has brought the soap opera that is his personal life and family into it, to again elicit a sympathy vote. But there wasn’t overkill. And he confronted the substantial questions relatively head-on, though “unusual” would only be the beginning of some of the aspects and transactions.
But like all Bertie Ahern’s public utterances, this one had its loose threads and its ambiguities. New questions keep cropping up – when one door closes, another opens.
The one thing that he does nails head is the alleged dollar lodgement. The Tribunal lawyers said that the £28,772.90 that Celia Larkin lodged (this was the £30,000 sterling that he says Michael Wall gave him for renovation and for stamp duty) represented the exact sum he would have received that day if he tendered $45,000.
But in his statement yesterday, he said it actually equated to $44,277.68 at the appropriate AIB rate. Either he’s wrong or the Tribunal is wrong. And if the Tribunal is wrong, it’s a fundamental error, especially as it knew that this allegation would be made public before the hearing began. That one has been knocked on the head.
But there are others that remain hanging. Why was that lodgement a mixture of sterling and punts. And that lodgement went through two accounts before going back into his safe in St Luke’s a month or so later. And then it was converted back into sterling for the purposes of paying back Mr Wall but then that didn’t happen and then may or not have been kept in his safe as sterling.
But the longest loose thread is a new one that he brought up yesterday in the interview. Last October, he was asked in the Dail about his tax liability arising out of the Dublin and Manchester dig-outs in 1993.
“I have been separately advised by two eminent tax advisers that I have no tax liability in respect of the Manchester moneys. The funds were from persons based in the Manchester area who are not based in Ireland and, therefore, the sums were not chargeable to gift tax,” he said.
But yesterday, he revealed that he has – on the foot of subsequent advice – made a provisional payment to cover any liability which could arise.
In his doorstep interview, he gave a few more details. He said the issue had arisen as to whether or not Michael Wall had paid UK tax. On that basis, he made a declaration.
“If I owe at the end it will be very little,” he said.
But that’s not the point. He may be opening himself to the charge of misleading – if inadvertently – the Dáil last October when he gave the impression that no tax liability arose. This may come back to haunt him. He was also Minister for Finance at the time – a person whose propriety in all things is supposed to be beyond question.
Privately, the main opposition parties were expected a full-blooded attack yesterday. In the end, it was a tempered statement. There is some ‘Empire Strikes Back’ sallies. He ridicules the allegations of Tom Gilmartin.
There is also dark talk about “malicious leaks” and the agenda to damage him and FF. He lists off the four leaks – including the alleged claims of a Garda driver that came from Fine Gael MEP. Yesterday he made an opaque comment about secret meetings in hotels in west Galway – almost reminiscent of the Famous Five and mysterious midnight activities at ‘smuggler’s cove’. From all that, it’s as plain as a pikestaff that FF believe there’s a vast conspiracy against them and that it’s FG that is behind it.
This whole episode has left a deep well of bitterness in FF. Everybody has had it in for them. The Mahon Tribunal. The alleged clandestine operations of their political opponents. An aggressive media - Ahern yesterday chafed at what he called its “lurid news headlines and copious details of my private life distorted, misrepresented and sensationalised.”
But, even if all that is true – and even if all the details were leaked with malicious intent – the problem for Ahern is that the dig-outs and the arrangements surrounding his house did raise very grave questions that went to his credibility. And in modern democracies, the credibility, honesty and trustworthiness of our politicians – especially our leaders – are paramount. Resent it as they do, it would have been a dereliction for the media to avoid it.
And Ahern has been lucky. In a bigger less personal country like Britain he may not have found understanding or forgiveness. Lucky though that his dig-out was venial compared to the ‘mortallers’ of Charlie Haughey. Lucky too that the people judged that against his undoubted achievements and said that the latter tipped the scales in his favour.
And by tomorrow, when he makes another historic address in Westminster, my guess is that this controversy will have died down and the election agenda will have finally moved on.
However, the last time we heard about the sting of a dying wasp in Ireland (over gangland crime), it turned out to be a singularly unfortunate phrase. This controversy has not gone away, has merely been postponed until polling day. The poison has gone into the bloodstream but there's a long incubation.
This is my piece from today's Irish Examiner.
There was no emotional TV interview. There were no catch in the voice. There were no tears. This wasn’t a politician tugging at the heart strings – this was a Taoiseach tugging impatiently at the exit door to leave BertieGate behind once and for all.
And in the end Bertie Ahern got it over with. The comprehensive statement came in a staggered way – the gist of it in a written response to questions in the Sunday Independent; and the whole shebang in a statement delivered at 2pm yesterday – about the only time in the week where the news cycle takes a siesta and gives way to sport. There are no talk shows and consequently the first real parsing of it was on the Week in Politics, late last night.
There were a couple of strange references in the statement that suggest it had been originally written for Ahern to read out.
“I hope you will bear with me as I give you a detailed account of these matters,” is the syntax of talk and not of prose.
But no matter if the strategy chopped and changed. No matter that it was released on the day the latest opinion poll spelt further bad news for Fianna Fail. “You know us, always going against the wind,” said one of its backroom people.
What mattered for Fianna Fail was two things. That it was comprehensive and complete enough for the PDs. The last thing FF wanted was for Michael McDowell to be so scunnered (a nice Scottish word that means very annoyed or devastated) to bring the edifice down. And it was comprehensive and complete enough to draw a line under it, as far as this election cycle was over.
Sure, they’d get another sting off the wasps – the swarm of journalists that is, not the opposition. For the leaders of the main opposition parties have reacted to questions about BertieGate in the way an elderly nun might react to a flasher. Recoil verging on speechlessness has been the standard response. It’s been a textbook example of standing up for your focus group findings.
And it was, in the end, a comprehensive account of the convoluted dealings surrounding his house near Griffith Avenue. It wasn’t just a lawyer putting words into Bertie Ahern’s mouths – there was a human element to it that explained things in a manner that will go down very well with ordinary people.
“I know that some people will fell that some aspects of my life are unusual. I am sorry if that has caused any confusion or worry in people’s minds All of these issues arose in a period when my family, personal and professional situations were rapidly changing.”
Some cynics will say that he has brought the soap opera that is his personal life and family into it, to again elicit a sympathy vote. But there wasn’t overkill. And he confronted the substantial questions relatively head-on, though “unusual” would only be the beginning of some of the aspects and transactions.
But like all Bertie Ahern’s public utterances, this one had its loose threads and its ambiguities. New questions keep cropping up – when one door closes, another opens.
The one thing that he does nails head is the alleged dollar lodgement. The Tribunal lawyers said that the £28,772.90 that Celia Larkin lodged (this was the £30,000 sterling that he says Michael Wall gave him for renovation and for stamp duty) represented the exact sum he would have received that day if he tendered $45,000.
But in his statement yesterday, he said it actually equated to $44,277.68 at the appropriate AIB rate. Either he’s wrong or the Tribunal is wrong. And if the Tribunal is wrong, it’s a fundamental error, especially as it knew that this allegation would be made public before the hearing began. That one has been knocked on the head.
But there are others that remain hanging. Why was that lodgement a mixture of sterling and punts. And that lodgement went through two accounts before going back into his safe in St Luke’s a month or so later. And then it was converted back into sterling for the purposes of paying back Mr Wall but then that didn’t happen and then may or not have been kept in his safe as sterling.
But the longest loose thread is a new one that he brought up yesterday in the interview. Last October, he was asked in the Dail about his tax liability arising out of the Dublin and Manchester dig-outs in 1993.
“I have been separately advised by two eminent tax advisers that I have no tax liability in respect of the Manchester moneys. The funds were from persons based in the Manchester area who are not based in Ireland and, therefore, the sums were not chargeable to gift tax,” he said.
But yesterday, he revealed that he has – on the foot of subsequent advice – made a provisional payment to cover any liability which could arise.
In his doorstep interview, he gave a few more details. He said the issue had arisen as to whether or not Michael Wall had paid UK tax. On that basis, he made a declaration.
“If I owe at the end it will be very little,” he said.
But that’s not the point. He may be opening himself to the charge of misleading – if inadvertently – the Dáil last October when he gave the impression that no tax liability arose. This may come back to haunt him. He was also Minister for Finance at the time – a person whose propriety in all things is supposed to be beyond question.
Privately, the main opposition parties were expected a full-blooded attack yesterday. In the end, it was a tempered statement. There is some ‘Empire Strikes Back’ sallies. He ridicules the allegations of Tom Gilmartin.
There is also dark talk about “malicious leaks” and the agenda to damage him and FF. He lists off the four leaks – including the alleged claims of a Garda driver that came from Fine Gael MEP. Yesterday he made an opaque comment about secret meetings in hotels in west Galway – almost reminiscent of the Famous Five and mysterious midnight activities at ‘smuggler’s cove’. From all that, it’s as plain as a pikestaff that FF believe there’s a vast conspiracy against them and that it’s FG that is behind it.
This whole episode has left a deep well of bitterness in FF. Everybody has had it in for them. The Mahon Tribunal. The alleged clandestine operations of their political opponents. An aggressive media - Ahern yesterday chafed at what he called its “lurid news headlines and copious details of my private life distorted, misrepresented and sensationalised.”
But, even if all that is true – and even if all the details were leaked with malicious intent – the problem for Ahern is that the dig-outs and the arrangements surrounding his house did raise very grave questions that went to his credibility. And in modern democracies, the credibility, honesty and trustworthiness of our politicians – especially our leaders – are paramount. Resent it as they do, it would have been a dereliction for the media to avoid it.
And Ahern has been lucky. In a bigger less personal country like Britain he may not have found understanding or forgiveness. Lucky though that his dig-out was venial compared to the ‘mortallers’ of Charlie Haughey. Lucky too that the people judged that against his undoubted achievements and said that the latter tipped the scales in his favour.
And by tomorrow, when he makes another historic address in Westminster, my guess is that this controversy will have died down and the election agenda will have finally moved on.
However, the last time we heard about the sting of a dying wasp in Ireland (over gangland crime), it turned out to be a singularly unfortunate phrase. This controversy has not gone away, has merely been postponed until polling day. The poison has gone into the bloodstream but there's a long incubation.
This is my piece from today's Irish Examiner.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - LATEST POLL
The Irish Times/Tns mrbi poll results tonight will give the three main parties a little to boast about and a lot to chew on.
The results are: FF 36 (+2); FG 28 (-3); Lab 13 (+3); SF 10 (-); GP 5 (-1); PDs 2 (-1); other 6 (-).
(Read more on its Breaking News site)
FF will be happy that it's got a little bounce. It will help galvanise the troops, get the likes of Cowen to thump the hurley onto the dressing room table, telling them that they're still in the hunt.
But 36% is low. Worse ever low. FF tend to go down as well in the election campaign but they've rarely started off a campaign as uncomfortably low as they are now.
The two worst performances were under Albert Reynolds in 1992, and under Bertie Ahern in 1997. In fact Bertie's first election as leader was pass remarkable - what hid over the sclerosis was slick vote management. Last time around FF attracted transfers from everywhere - it's not going to happen now.
FG has fallen three but it's still happy with 28. Even the party's most enthusiastic strategists (why does Frank Flannery come to mind?) were saying that looks a bit high. So it's not too put out by the fall, unless it's a sign of a trend (and the Sunday Business Post poll on Sunday will tell us that).
We've been talking about Sinn Fein and the Greens for two years now. But Labour is the story of the past month. The party is buoyant. Pat Rabbitte has had a good first ten days of the campaign. On 13% it will make gains at the expense of FF, and some of the targeted gains of FG and the Greens (who are not at 5% - showing some signs of decline in recent months).
Rabbitte and Kenny are at the highest level of satisfaction. FF got a mini bounce this time in sympathy for Bertie, but nothing like last October. SF look solid, and Gerry Adams satisfaction rating has jumped, a direct reflection, I would guess, of the feelgood factor around Stormont on Tuesday.
Shows how fluid, how volatile and how fickle it's all going to be. There's a fortnight left. There will be a lot of skelping!
The results are: FF 36 (+2); FG 28 (-3); Lab 13 (+3); SF 10 (-); GP 5 (-1); PDs 2 (-1); other 6 (-).
(Read more on its Breaking News site)
FF will be happy that it's got a little bounce. It will help galvanise the troops, get the likes of Cowen to thump the hurley onto the dressing room table, telling them that they're still in the hunt.
But 36% is low. Worse ever low. FF tend to go down as well in the election campaign but they've rarely started off a campaign as uncomfortably low as they are now.
The two worst performances were under Albert Reynolds in 1992, and under Bertie Ahern in 1997. In fact Bertie's first election as leader was pass remarkable - what hid over the sclerosis was slick vote management. Last time around FF attracted transfers from everywhere - it's not going to happen now.
FG has fallen three but it's still happy with 28. Even the party's most enthusiastic strategists (why does Frank Flannery come to mind?) were saying that looks a bit high. So it's not too put out by the fall, unless it's a sign of a trend (and the Sunday Business Post poll on Sunday will tell us that).
We've been talking about Sinn Fein and the Greens for two years now. But Labour is the story of the past month. The party is buoyant. Pat Rabbitte has had a good first ten days of the campaign. On 13% it will make gains at the expense of FF, and some of the targeted gains of FG and the Greens (who are not at 5% - showing some signs of decline in recent months).
Rabbitte and Kenny are at the highest level of satisfaction. FF got a mini bounce this time in sympathy for Bertie, but nothing like last October. SF look solid, and Gerry Adams satisfaction rating has jumped, a direct reflection, I would guess, of the feelgood factor around Stormont on Tuesday.
Shows how fluid, how volatile and how fickle it's all going to be. There's a fortnight left. There will be a lot of skelping!
INSIDE POLITICS - DAY ELEVEN
Bertie Ahern's financial woes have disappeared off the radar screen over the past few days and we have returned to what passes for 'normal' business during an election campaign.
There's a huge element of artifice about what happens. Yesterday, we got a classic example of a phoney war; lots of hot air about an issue (corporation tax) where the policies of all parties (even the supposedly radical SF) are ad idem.
Most days during the campaign, all the parties hold briefings. Meanwhile, the Leader's go on manic whirlwind tours of the country where they do silly things firstly on behalf of upholding democracy and secondly on behalf of attracting the attention of the lenses.
RTE yesterday showed a great piece of archive footage from 1969 featuring Longford-Westmeath TD Gerry L'Estrange addressing a crowd outside Mass (in fact RTE has put a lot of fascinating archive material on its website including FF's embrace of American canvassing techniques in 1977; Pat Kenny explaining the use of computers in 1982; and a Liam Cosgrave address from 1973. You can find them all here.)
Nowadays, there are few speeches. It's all to do with the photo op - the most surreal was Pat Rabbitte and Breda Moynihan-Cronin on top of a jarvey in Killarney, bringing the famous Tom Parlon-Mary Harney donkey and cart photo from 2002 to mind.
The party's choose their own particular schtick each day and then try to anticipate what their rivals are going to say. Sometimes you feel like there's a secret coven where they all secretly agree in advance they are going to spar on an issue. At other times, it's more like throwing all the balls in the air and seeing which ones the media pack will catch and then kick.
Today it was health. Fine Gael insisting that the biggest broken promise of all by this Government was its promise to provide 3,000 extra hospital beds (it's part of the health strategy that runs out in 2011). The Government, particularly health minister Mary Harney countered by claiming that the FG proposal to provide an extra 2,300 beds would be impossible to achieve within five years. FG Deputy leader Richard Bruton insisted it would be, said that that FG would prioritise the first €850 million of the €2.6 billon provided for capital health spending in the NDP.
At least there was some meat in this particular sandwich, if you don't mind the distortion of a political metaphor. There are real differences between the two alternative alliances when it comes to health. And at least when you hear the debate there is a little bit more Gerry L'Estrange about it; a little bit less modern political leaders - there is debate and argument and the welcome (figurative) return of the soapbox.
There's a huge element of artifice about what happens. Yesterday, we got a classic example of a phoney war; lots of hot air about an issue (corporation tax) where the policies of all parties (even the supposedly radical SF) are ad idem.
Most days during the campaign, all the parties hold briefings. Meanwhile, the Leader's go on manic whirlwind tours of the country where they do silly things firstly on behalf of upholding democracy and secondly on behalf of attracting the attention of the lenses.
RTE yesterday showed a great piece of archive footage from 1969 featuring Longford-Westmeath TD Gerry L'Estrange addressing a crowd outside Mass (in fact RTE has put a lot of fascinating archive material on its website including FF's embrace of American canvassing techniques in 1977; Pat Kenny explaining the use of computers in 1982; and a Liam Cosgrave address from 1973. You can find them all here.)
Nowadays, there are few speeches. It's all to do with the photo op - the most surreal was Pat Rabbitte and Breda Moynihan-Cronin on top of a jarvey in Killarney, bringing the famous Tom Parlon-Mary Harney donkey and cart photo from 2002 to mind.
The party's choose their own particular schtick each day and then try to anticipate what their rivals are going to say. Sometimes you feel like there's a secret coven where they all secretly agree in advance they are going to spar on an issue. At other times, it's more like throwing all the balls in the air and seeing which ones the media pack will catch and then kick.
Today it was health. Fine Gael insisting that the biggest broken promise of all by this Government was its promise to provide 3,000 extra hospital beds (it's part of the health strategy that runs out in 2011). The Government, particularly health minister Mary Harney countered by claiming that the FG proposal to provide an extra 2,300 beds would be impossible to achieve within five years. FG Deputy leader Richard Bruton insisted it would be, said that that FG would prioritise the first €850 million of the €2.6 billon provided for capital health spending in the NDP.
At least there was some meat in this particular sandwich, if you don't mind the distortion of a political metaphor. There are real differences between the two alternative alliances when it comes to health. And at least when you hear the debate there is a little bit more Gerry L'Estrange about it; a little bit less modern political leaders - there is debate and argument and the welcome (figurative) return of the soapbox.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - ENDA KENNY
I was looking at Enda Kenny waltzing around the midlands this evening and I thought to myself - in a fortnight's time this man could be Taoiseach.
One of the party pieces of the great Tyrone novelist, journalist and broadcaster Benedict Kiely was 'The Man from God Knows Where'.
It could have been written for Enda. Or to employ some other cliches that have been hacked around about him - 'the man who rose without trace' or 'the overnight success after almost 30 years'.
Somebody was interviewing him over the last couple of days (so much is happening that you lose track of everything - I think it was Sean O'Rourke) who described the Department of Tourism and Trade during his time as a 'happy' place (see how strong we political hacks are on detail). Ok, I know I'm hanging on a thread here but the gist of the interview was that Enda was a great motivator and that he energised those around him.
I'm sure that's true. He's got a fantastic personal touch. He's friendly, tactile, completely unaffected and very engaging.
A small diversion and then I'll make a point. Like checking out Blogorrah most days, I can't resist posting those satirical parodies like the Simon Cowell one two posts below this one. It's juvenile, cheap and usually very unfair. But it's good clean fun, as the man says. And the point? Well the X Factor satire kind of suits Enda. Because he has that hard-to-describe quality that Bertie has and that Bill Clinton had in spades. The presence of people, the thought of working a room, seems to electrify him.
But - and this is the question - does he have the mettle, the grist, and the granite to become Taoiseach. I remember an interview David Nally of PrimeTime did with him when he contested the leadership with Michael Noonan in 2001. Nally filleted him on the specifics of economic and tax policies.
He has improved over the past couple of years and tends to be very well briefed. But his grasp of detail can still let him down (unlike Bertie who can slew out statistics from morning to night) and he can get caught bang-to-rights when asked tricky supplemental questions.
In the past week, he has kicked to touch on the nurses dispute by saying that an imaginative solution is needed and talking in general terms about benchmarking. Is he in favour of the 10% increase or the reduction of hours to 35 per week? We just don't know.
He also tends to defer to Richard Bruton when the likes of George Lee and Brendan Keenan start asking tough and specific questions. And he has also done a bit of a Pontius Pilate act on the BertieGate saga by, well, not really making a judgement other than the sterile one that the Government is 100% souped.
The reason that Labour and Fine Gael have whistled and looked the other way is that they all got roasted in the polls last autumn. I personally think there was something very strange about the timing of this Quarryvale module, and the Tribunal's insistence on circulating Bertie Ahern's statement on the last Thursday of May (they were very naive if they believed that they wouldn't be leaked).
But once the statements were made public and open to scrutiny (irrespective of the fact they left Ahern playing against a stacked hand) they did raise genuine questions that go to the credibility of the politician who holds the first office. It was inevitable, cut also wholly legitimate, cruel as it is for him
I'm sure that Enda Kenny is well able to deal with all the issues above. But if Ahern's credibility is in question, the big puzzler that has always surrounded Enda Kenny is that of competence - does he have what it takes to become Taoiseach?
I thought of it tonight as I watched him waltzing around a hall in the midlands. I'm sure he has all the qualities (he's been very impressive this year; and he has a formidable presence like Rabbitte riding shotgun for him) but if BertieGate rumbles on for another week, that mettle might not be tested until he drives for the first time into Government Buildings in Merrion Street.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - ELECTION DAY FOUR
It was a strange day today - not too sure whether it was the lull after or before a storm. In terms of activity it was quieter than the first three days and definitely quieter than tomorrow when Fianna Fail and Labour will both launch their manifestos.
Went to the Labour HQ for the first time today. All of the parties have opted for new headquarters away from the satellites of Leinster House. Labour's one is above a Burger King fast food joint in Baggot Street, which makes it the nearest to Leinster House. Both FF and FG are close to the Grand Canal, but still only a couple of minutes if you are bicycle-powered like the Examiner is.
It's amazing the amount of dosh and effort invested by parties in making sure the optics are right. Like football managers and players doing interviews are big games, the background is vitally important. The election slogan is always prominent. The idea is that it's a visual mnemonic - people will see it so often that it becomes embedded. And then the other little details that you hardly notice but which I presume are very important. The FF and FG players all sit at their conferences. At Labour they stand at a transparent podium. You kind of think that's a less comfortable position but it hasn't stopped Rabbitte firing off some great quips this week. He had a great one about Bertie today and how lucky he is (admittedly said out on the stump):
I'm sure Bertie didn't feel that lucky today. He was going on a walkabout of his own constituency at 12. His handlers had scheduled a doorstep interview at the end of it. Fair enough. But then you realised what part of his constituency it was. It was Henry Street and Moore Street, a veritable sea of people.
It was my first time out on the hustings with Ahern this election and there was a big change from 2002. Then he was mobbed by euphoric crowds: today it was different.
Moore Street is home ground for Fianna Fail leaders. Haughey, Lynch, Reynolds were greeted like Gods there. Bertie even more so. This is his own heartland after all. But he didn't get it all his own way today. There were sporadic heckles coming at him from all sides. The funniest was the wise guy who saw Bertie passing near a fishmonger's stall on Moore Street. "Something fishy Bertie?" this Dylan Moran of Dublin's northside quipped.
The second thing I found a little unsettling was the media presence. There was a swarm of reporters around Ahern, over 50 people certainly. And swarm was the operative word for there was an aggression to the questioning today that I found surprising. There was a time when the political lobby was composed of only four correspondents (The Cork Examiner, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and the Irish Press) but now there are at least two dozen media outlets who attend the official Government briefing. Today he got a barracking from one or two journalists at the back of the scrum. I wasn't exactly blameless as I was chided by him for being rude after cutting in before he finished a sentence.
The whole BertieGate The Sequel mess has conspired to make a hash of the first four days of Fianna Fail's campaign. On Thursday morning it will launch its manifesto. Despite the multitude of promises made by Ahern in his Ard Fheis speech in late March, it's widely expected that there will be a spectacular crowd-pleaser to divert attention away from all the unpleasant on personal finances.
It has been a distraction but a damaging one for FF. The party has struggled and stumbled over the first four days. It hopes that by the weekend the Tribunal will have worked its way through the system and that normal service can resume.
Which it will, unless some major controversy blows up over the weekend. It will be interesting to see how FF have fared in the polls during the first week. They rebounded like Shaquile O'Neill last October jumping from 35 to 40 per cent in opinion polls - and that's why the opposition has been so reticent to go for the jugular this time in case their harsh words opens the tap of human sympathy for Bertie.
Went to the Labour HQ for the first time today. All of the parties have opted for new headquarters away from the satellites of Leinster House. Labour's one is above a Burger King fast food joint in Baggot Street, which makes it the nearest to Leinster House. Both FF and FG are close to the Grand Canal, but still only a couple of minutes if you are bicycle-powered like the Examiner is.
It's amazing the amount of dosh and effort invested by parties in making sure the optics are right. Like football managers and players doing interviews are big games, the background is vitally important. The election slogan is always prominent. The idea is that it's a visual mnemonic - people will see it so often that it becomes embedded. And then the other little details that you hardly notice but which I presume are very important. The FF and FG players all sit at their conferences. At Labour they stand at a transparent podium. You kind of think that's a less comfortable position but it hasn't stopped Rabbitte firing off some great quips this week. He had a great one about Bertie today and how lucky he is (admittedly said out on the stump):
"If he fell off the top of Liberty Hall he would definitely land on his feet."
I'm sure Bertie didn't feel that lucky today. He was going on a walkabout of his own constituency at 12. His handlers had scheduled a doorstep interview at the end of it. Fair enough. But then you realised what part of his constituency it was. It was Henry Street and Moore Street, a veritable sea of people.
It was my first time out on the hustings with Ahern this election and there was a big change from 2002. Then he was mobbed by euphoric crowds: today it was different.
Moore Street is home ground for Fianna Fail leaders. Haughey, Lynch, Reynolds were greeted like Gods there. Bertie even more so. This is his own heartland after all. But he didn't get it all his own way today. There were sporadic heckles coming at him from all sides. The funniest was the wise guy who saw Bertie passing near a fishmonger's stall on Moore Street. "Something fishy Bertie?" this Dylan Moran of Dublin's northside quipped.
The second thing I found a little unsettling was the media presence. There was a swarm of reporters around Ahern, over 50 people certainly. And swarm was the operative word for there was an aggression to the questioning today that I found surprising. There was a time when the political lobby was composed of only four correspondents (The Cork Examiner, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times and the Irish Press) but now there are at least two dozen media outlets who attend the official Government briefing. Today he got a barracking from one or two journalists at the back of the scrum. I wasn't exactly blameless as I was chided by him for being rude after cutting in before he finished a sentence.
The whole BertieGate The Sequel mess has conspired to make a hash of the first four days of Fianna Fail's campaign. On Thursday morning it will launch its manifesto. Despite the multitude of promises made by Ahern in his Ard Fheis speech in late March, it's widely expected that there will be a spectacular crowd-pleaser to divert attention away from all the unpleasant on personal finances.
It has been a distraction but a damaging one for FF. The party has struggled and stumbled over the first four days. It hopes that by the weekend the Tribunal will have worked its way through the system and that normal service can resume.
Which it will, unless some major controversy blows up over the weekend. It will be interesting to see how FF have fared in the polls during the first week. They rebounded like Shaquile O'Neill last October jumping from 35 to 40 per cent in opinion polls - and that's why the opposition has been so reticent to go for the jugular this time in case their harsh words opens the tap of human sympathy for Bertie.
Monday, April 30, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - BERTIE'S SUNDAY SWOOP
Like Enda Kenny I was caught on the hop by the pre-dawn swoop by Bertie Ahern yesterday morning. The FG leader was only in Mayo. Unfortunately for me I was in Lisbon without a computer.
You have to play with whatever hand you are dealt. And so I wrote the analysis piece below in a cafe in the Baixa using my mobile phone. It's not exactly a mobile. It's a Nokia 9300 smart phone. It's the size of mobile phones from circa 1999 and opens to reveal a very very small QWERTY keyboard. You can't touch type with it and it's hard going when you have chunky fingers like me... but in an emergency, it's great.
Sorry for being so boring about the technical details but one of the great things about blogger.com is that you can post your scribbling by email. So it;s great when you are in an area with internet connections as zippy as a tranquilised three-toed sloth.
And here's the piece I tapped out on it in great haste (verging on panic) yesterday. Apologies for unspotted typos!
Ireland woke up yesterday morning to discover that the tactics of the pre-dawn police raid had been transferred to the world of Irish politics.
You have to play with whatever hand you are dealt. And so I wrote the analysis piece below in a cafe in the Baixa using my mobile phone. It's not exactly a mobile. It's a Nokia 9300 smart phone. It's the size of mobile phones from circa 1999 and opens to reveal a very very small QWERTY keyboard. You can't touch type with it and it's hard going when you have chunky fingers like me... but in an emergency, it's great.
Sorry for being so boring about the technical details but one of the great things about blogger.com is that you can post your scribbling by email. So it;s great when you are in an area with internet connections as zippy as a tranquilised three-toed sloth.
And here's the piece I tapped out on it in great haste (verging on panic) yesterday. Apologies for unspotted typos!
Ireland woke up yesterday morning to discover that the tactics of the pre-dawn police raid had been transferred to the world of Irish politics.
As the citizens rubbed sleep from their eyes, they opened their curtains to see a changed landscape. Like a fresh fall of snow, almost every lamp-post in the country has now been comandeered and festooned with somebody's beaming portrait.
And talk of a surprise move by Bertie Ahern. Five years ago - without warning - he arrived into an almost empty Dáil chamber late at night during an adjournment debate to dissolve the Dáil.
This time round the chicanery was even more convoluted. For months he has strung people along about the actual date of the election. He was adamant that the election would not be held on a Friday. But besides the Taoiseach dropping a couple of hints about the Dáil returning for at least a week after Easter, there was no real certainty about the date. Most zeroed in on May 24 but with caveats and qualifications. For when Bertie Ahern is playing a tight game he tends to use a stapler to make sure his cards are close to his chest.
The big surprise wasn't May 24 but the dawn raid on Áras an Uachtaráin. In hindsight it makes perfect sense of course. The only piece of legislation that was essential from a credibility perspective was the Criminal Justice Bill, which passed all stages in the Dáil on Tuesday.
From that moment the clock was ticking. The minimum time allowed for a campaign is three weeks. And so when it wasn't called on Thursday, we knew that Thursday May 17th was a goner.
One of the curious anomalies of the Irish electoral system is that strict rules and limits apply to spending during the election campaign. But before it's called, parties can spend any amount, infinite amounts is they have them.
That's why it seems that every billboard and poster site in the country has been given over to those messianic (and photoshopped) images of Bertie for the past month. That's why Fianna Fail favours minimum campaigns to allow it maximise its pre-campaign campaign spending, if you follow my drift.
Most commentators assumed it would be Tuesday or Wednesday of this week when Bertie would go to the country, to allow a bare three weeks. But in the event, there's now 25 days between the opening and closing of the race.
And why it makes sense is that the President was leaving for a trip abroad yesterday. While the Taoiseach could have signalled the dissolution of the Dáil to the Council of State in Mary McAleese's absence, that would have seemed shallow and mean-spirited for such a formal and serious duty.
But then, you would tend to think that Mr Ahern might have almost had a change of heart after seeing the poor showing for his party in the latest opinion poll on Friday. But there's a school of thought (and a persuasive one) within Fianna Fáil that believes that the party needed to go at the earliest possible moment. They argue that in 2007 the name of the game would be about cutting your losses. For them, even May 24 was too late - it should have been May 17or 18.
The notion of a strongly regrouped opposition has been trending since the local and European elections. After a swerve back to the Government last autumn, the momentum has seemed to swing back to the Mullingar Accord parties again.
The latest national poll suggests that Fine Gael is breathing down Fianna Fáil's neck but that scenario - huge FG gains; FF wipeout - isn't really borne out by the Red C constituency opinion polls conducted for Thomas Crosbie Holdings titles.
One opinion poll does not an election make. But the trends - and the unmistakable vibes being transmitted by the growing self-confidence of Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbitte - all point to one of the great political clichés being flogged to death in the next few weeks ... yes, it's going to be too close to call.
Arguably, since Alan Duke's Tallaght Strategy of 1997, Irish politics has not been characterised by a clash of ideas; rather a clash of personalities, styles and credibility. When you compare economic policies, for example, the parties have all converged into the centre and agree the same fundamental principles (low taxes, both personal and corporate). Sure there are differences (stamp duty, auction politics etc) but they are nuanced - most are so subtle to be indistinguishable.
When it comes to crime, the three mainsstream parties are all slurping out of the same trough, out-toughing each other. The proof of that particular pudding is that both FG and Labour tacitly approved Michael McDowell's hardline criminal justice legislation by abstaining when the vote was called in the Dáil last Tuesday.
It's only in health where there's a bitter row over Mary Harney's plans to build private clinics on public land that we see real gap in terms of thinking and ideology.
Is all that sameness and uniformity healthy for democracy?
The choice that faces the electorate is akin to the choice between two banks or two mobile phone operators. In some of their policy choices, parties have been too influenced by focus groups, running scared of alienating the massive swathe of innately conservative and careful voters who occupy the middle ground. It's for that reason, I'd argue, that Sinn Féin and the Greens are doing so well. Each has an easily identifiable, clearly distinctive, message that brooks no ambiguity.
People forget that for all his undoubted charisma Bertie Ahern achieved only 39% of the vote in 1997. That was exactly the same as Albert Reynolds five years earlier. Why was Reynolds considered a disaster in 1992 and Ahen a triumph in 1997? Improved and ruthless vote management gave the party a huge seat bounce.
Will this be as bad as '92 or as disastrous as 1982 when Charles Haughey almost allowed FG become the largest party in the State for the first time?
It's fascinating to see that in spite of his travails and blunders during BertiGate, Mr Ahern is still his party's greatest asset. Mr Kenny will struggle even now to convince people that he has the mettle for Taoiseach whereas Mr Ahern can just point to his track record. Having said that. the FG leader has travelled a long way.
Of course, there'a a presidential flavour to all parliamentary elections these times. For FG, its biggest project has been to build Mr Kenny up. For all his mercurial abilities as a debater, there were doubts about Mr Rabbitte's populist appeal. But if he's not loved, he is respected, and that's backed up by the deference accorded to him on the streets.
Michael McDowell also personifies the PDs. In survey after survey people profess to despise or loathe him. But like Nicholas Sarkozy he sets out to be deliberately divisive or provocative because he knows that at the same time as he alienates some, he attracts others. But will it be enough to save his party from the meltdown that has been widely predicted?
For SF, it is Gerry Adams's face we will see though he's not a candidate and not as major a player in Southern politics as he likes to think. The Greens will be only party that will trade on its message rather than on Trevor Sargent's image. Both parties will do well, so well in fact that they will prevent a clear-cut overall result either way. The green message - be it republican or environmental - has huge potency with the Irish electorate right now.
If Fianna Fail win through, it will mean Bertie Ahern will be the longest leader in office since de Valera. Perhaps people have not yet tired of Bertie but have tired of his ministers. One of the imponderables (until polling day that is) is if the Government retains enough affection or if people have finally tired of this administration.
The picture will be complicated. We now face 25 days of claim, counterclaim, attack and counter-attack. What is certain is that on May 24 the people will speak. It's only then will we know if the status quo has prevailed or has fallen. Or, more likely. that we're entering into the limbo of a hung Dáil.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - THE DARK ARTS
ON POLITICS
Harry McGee
I opened my email inbox on Thursday morning and a wave of nostalgia washed over me.
There it was, the present we had been months waiting for, the sorcerer’s magic bag of dirty tricks and the propagandists guide to the dark arts of spin.
Like all the best surprises, the packaging gave little clue of what was to come.
"Fine Gael and Labour fail the Economic Test – Minister Brian Cowen", read the title.
I could hardly contain my excitement as I tore off the packaging like a kid on Christmas morning. I wasn’t disappointed. It was chock-a-block with colourful graphs, charts, figures and sums. It was obvious that they had spent weeks and week working on the magic potions and dark spells.
And Eureka, in the best tribute outside JK Rowling to Lord Voldemort, it contains dark spin that distorts over 100, yes 100, of the Mullingar Accord promises and casts them off into the abyss.
And its no Brian ‘prudent to the point of boring us all to death’ Cowen that we have here. It’s biffo in best biffing mode.
He is unsparing in his claims. Fine Gael and Labour, he contends, would plummet the country back into the red, and would be running up exchequer deficits of E5 billion by 2012.
(And the really mysterious thing about all this is that the equally extravagant promises made by Fianna Fail will somehow magically produce a break-even situation. Why? you may ask. Well, silly, because FF have ‘costed’ them! and they also have a more powerful magic wand).
Yes, after a five year absence, the Fianna Fail ‘rebuttal unit’ has swung back into action with a vengeance.
In a gleeful example of the dark arts, its release was timed for a few hours before Fine Gael and Labour launched their joint economic manifesto, thus giving us our first example of ‘prebuttal’ for this general election.
The moment that Fianna Fail begins to get its retaliation in first, you know that an election is on.
And for the first time, we got our first real sense during this week that the election campaign is in full hue and cry, that battle has been joined.
Remember, the Dáil is still in recess until next Tuesday but it’s clear that all the parties are on amber alert. There were a couple of ready reckoners for that. The week was swollen with press conferences and announcements (on the economy and jobs), by claims and by counter-claims.
Anyway, the revival of the ‘Rebutall Unit’ brought us back to this time five years ago. The election was called on April 25 with Bertie Ahern choosing the shortest possible election campaign of three weeks, with polling day set for May 17.
Within a 12 hours of the Dail being dissolved, Fianna Fail had launched its manifesto, majoring (unsurprisingly) on the economy. For the next week, there were exhaustive (and ultimately pointless) debates about whose figures best stood up to scrutiny. And of course the ‘Rebuttal Unit’ was busily fact-checking, claim-countering, and prebutting from the off.
Not that it mattered. If the campaign had lasted three days or three months, it would not have made a difference. The Government parties dominated the agenda throughout.
Fine Gael was on a loser going in. The party compounded its difficulties with moronic and meaningless promises on taxis and to reimburse Eircom shareholders. As leader, Michael Noonan was a 100% charisma free zone until the last televised debate. But by that stage it was all over bar the shouting.
From the off, the question was not about Fianna Fail winning but about how big the winning margin would be. In the event, a rout was prevented only by the intervention of a big bespectacled child. He shinned up a lamp-post with a catapult in his back pocket and took a couple of pot-shots at Bertie Ahern.
But this time it’s different. One of the things that’s disconcerting though is that so many of the issues and the problems (quality of life; transport, health, and crime) are exactly the same. And four years ago we all made the mistake of believing promises that could not be fulfilled. We learned from our mistakes. And it’s clear from the spate of crowd-pleasing promises made already that we will have to learn from our mistakes again.
But this time it’s different. Fianna Fail sense some trouble ahead. That’s why they were panicked into bringing their manifesto launch forward to the Ard Fheis.
With good reason. For when you lick your thumb and raise it in the air, we can feel the first few gusts of more bitter winds. This campaign will be sharper, closer, more brutal, more verbose, and more gale force than five years ago. But from which direction is change coming? Is it from the west (Kenny and Rabbitte) or will the prevailing easterlies (Ahern and McDowell) continue to prevail?
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
Harry McGee
I opened my email inbox on Thursday morning and a wave of nostalgia washed over me.
There it was, the present we had been months waiting for, the sorcerer’s magic bag of dirty tricks and the propagandists guide to the dark arts of spin.
Like all the best surprises, the packaging gave little clue of what was to come.
"Fine Gael and Labour fail the Economic Test – Minister Brian Cowen", read the title.
I could hardly contain my excitement as I tore off the packaging like a kid on Christmas morning. I wasn’t disappointed. It was chock-a-block with colourful graphs, charts, figures and sums. It was obvious that they had spent weeks and week working on the magic potions and dark spells.
And Eureka, in the best tribute outside JK Rowling to Lord Voldemort, it contains dark spin that distorts over 100, yes 100, of the Mullingar Accord promises and casts them off into the abyss.
And its no Brian ‘prudent to the point of boring us all to death’ Cowen that we have here. It’s biffo in best biffing mode.
He is unsparing in his claims. Fine Gael and Labour, he contends, would plummet the country back into the red, and would be running up exchequer deficits of E5 billion by 2012.
(And the really mysterious thing about all this is that the equally extravagant promises made by Fianna Fail will somehow magically produce a break-even situation. Why? you may ask. Well, silly, because FF have ‘costed’ them! and they also have a more powerful magic wand).
Yes, after a five year absence, the Fianna Fail ‘rebuttal unit’ has swung back into action with a vengeance.
In a gleeful example of the dark arts, its release was timed for a few hours before Fine Gael and Labour launched their joint economic manifesto, thus giving us our first example of ‘prebuttal’ for this general election.
The moment that Fianna Fail begins to get its retaliation in first, you know that an election is on.
And for the first time, we got our first real sense during this week that the election campaign is in full hue and cry, that battle has been joined.
Remember, the Dáil is still in recess until next Tuesday but it’s clear that all the parties are on amber alert. There were a couple of ready reckoners for that. The week was swollen with press conferences and announcements (on the economy and jobs), by claims and by counter-claims.
Anyway, the revival of the ‘Rebutall Unit’ brought us back to this time five years ago. The election was called on April 25 with Bertie Ahern choosing the shortest possible election campaign of three weeks, with polling day set for May 17.
Within a 12 hours of the Dail being dissolved, Fianna Fail had launched its manifesto, majoring (unsurprisingly) on the economy. For the next week, there were exhaustive (and ultimately pointless) debates about whose figures best stood up to scrutiny. And of course the ‘Rebuttal Unit’ was busily fact-checking, claim-countering, and prebutting from the off.
Not that it mattered. If the campaign had lasted three days or three months, it would not have made a difference. The Government parties dominated the agenda throughout.
Fine Gael was on a loser going in. The party compounded its difficulties with moronic and meaningless promises on taxis and to reimburse Eircom shareholders. As leader, Michael Noonan was a 100% charisma free zone until the last televised debate. But by that stage it was all over bar the shouting.
From the off, the question was not about Fianna Fail winning but about how big the winning margin would be. In the event, a rout was prevented only by the intervention of a big bespectacled child. He shinned up a lamp-post with a catapult in his back pocket and took a couple of pot-shots at Bertie Ahern.
But this time it’s different. One of the things that’s disconcerting though is that so many of the issues and the problems (quality of life; transport, health, and crime) are exactly the same. And four years ago we all made the mistake of believing promises that could not be fulfilled. We learned from our mistakes. And it’s clear from the spate of crowd-pleasing promises made already that we will have to learn from our mistakes again.
But this time it’s different. Fianna Fail sense some trouble ahead. That’s why they were panicked into bringing their manifesto launch forward to the Ard Fheis.
With good reason. For when you lick your thumb and raise it in the air, we can feel the first few gusts of more bitter winds. This campaign will be sharper, closer, more brutal, more verbose, and more gale force than five years ago. But from which direction is change coming? Is it from the west (Kenny and Rabbitte) or will the prevailing easterlies (Ahern and McDowell) continue to prevail?
This is my column from today's Irish Examiner
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - Focus Group: but focus on what?
I wrote about Frank Luntz in February, the last time he did his exercise for RTE (see piece here).
Now he has done his third (and possibly last) pre-election programme for RTE and my reservations about the exercise have been reinforced (see full programme here).
Back in February I wrote:
And that brings me to the second point. The momentary experience. The group was asked to respond to one - or two at the most - sequence(s) featuring politicians. It was a critique of one television performance, expanded into an unsatisfactory show of hands (based on that clip alone) on the worth and wherewithal of that politician.
I'm sorry, but you don't need a dialometer to telly you that Brian Cowen will bore the backside of you when he starts with Department of Finance Bullshit Bingo (and delivers it with all the enthusiasm of a kid who's been given ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys in confession). And you know that Brendan Howlin is never going to stoke up the masses using pretentious words like interdict.
But the problem, as far as this exercise is concerned, is that both have stood and delivered on many other occasions, with punch and pungency. It's like writing off Dublin's All Ireland chances on the basis of their defeat by Tyrone in Croke Park at the weekend. And why for that matter use a short Dan Boyle sound-byte on the environmental aspects of the Budget delivered on the plinth of Leinster House? Why hone in on Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin on health, rather than focusing on the essence of the Sinn Féin message, its stance on the national question? Granted, you have to select what clips you have. Indeed, you have to cut your cloth to suit your measure. But people will ultimately assess parties and personalities in a more complex fashion.
The third niggling feeling I have about focus groups (in general)is this. A disparate group of people are brought together in an artificial setting. Unlike a jury, they never have the time to settle down and get over that initial hump of discomfort and reserve. And often (and as far as I know you could see it here too) the debate is dominated by a couple of individuals. Others, either through reserve or politeness, will tend to row in and agree there and then. But at home later, while standing over the kitchen sink or staring into the fire, they may come to a radically different opinion on an issue or personality. I also think that also explains some of the inbuilt flaws of opinion polls.
This third of the RTE Week In Politics Specials came from the West of Ireland. Again the production values were super-duper and the three expert panellists (Terry Prone, Ivan Yates and Noel Whelan) as well as presenter Sean O'Rourke were all entertaining and incisive in their interpretation of what they saw.
But you must separate Luntz the PhD academic hot shot from Luntz the showman. And what he has done here is made a circus out of a focus group, made it interesting for telly by using some clever technology and graphics, and installing himself as the ringmaster.
The ingredients are simple. In traditional focus groups, participants are asked to state their opinions on leaders, their promises and presentation after they have heard a clip or seen a picture. Luntz uses a little electronic gizmo, a kind of dialometer, that he gives to each member of the group.
So if they like what the person is saying, or the person themselves, they will turn the dial up towards 100. If they don't, they turn down (and with Michael McDowell, the poor man is in freefall the second his image appears before them). All this information is collected, number-crunched, portrayed on the screen as a running graph, making it look very authoritative and scientific.
But what does it tell you, ultimately? That people prefer listening to Pat Rabbitte than they do Trevor Sargent; or that Bertie easily outranks Enda with this group of people. It's like a restaurant review. Interesting to read, a bit of an indulgence, but will it determine the groceries you buy? Will the performance of a leader in one speech make any difference on polling day? I think not. For if it did, Trevor Sargent would definitely be a goner.
This reality is that a small group of people in one geographical location, strangers to each other, are gathered together. They tell us a few interesting things, about personalities and about issues.
In relation to issues, they views to be so disparate and so localised and personalised they could never be deemed authoritative as a trend.
And when you get to personalities, it's a little more complicated. Bertie does well when he's talking on the level, about real things, about tangibles. Kenny fares very poorly. He's criticised for not being specific enough, for being too vague. But then a few minutes later the focus group loves Gerry Adams even though he is vague to the point of vacant. And they like Pat Rabbitte because Pat Rabbitte is such a powerful speaker. And they don't warm to Trevor because a) he gave a piss poor speech and b) they don't like the hard message he's selling.
A lot of seems to come down to whom the group instinctively warm, whom they recognise. If people are as disengaged from politics as we hear, it's no surprise that Bertie (who has all the cards stacked in his favour) will score higher on the Richter scale of recognition, love and warmth. All this tells us a bit, but it's hardly representative of wider society.
The second ingredient is Luntz himself. As ringmaster, he is all front and showbiz, busier and more furious in movement than an orchestra conductor as he brings us through the gamut of trick ponies and verbal acrobatics.
And boy does he make a great welcome for himself. He reminded the focus group that Enda Kenny's 'Contract for a Better Ireland' was a steal from 'The Contract for America' that swept Newt Gingrich's republicans to power in the mid 90s. Luntz is a first-class self-publicist - he also claims credit for euphemising the terms oil drilling and global warming to fuel exploration and climate change. The influence of Luntz and his methods has been well here (and in the UK and in the US) hyped but I'm not convinced that they tell us anything that will cause fundamental shifts within political parties.
Yes, it makes for compelling viewing. But some of the stuff that emerges from this focus group as the really important things will have zero bearing when people go to cast their votes - like Michael McDowell being to blame for pubs in the West of Ireland closing down (!!!!! - by the way, he has absolutely nothing to do with it); too many immigrants coming in; and the broadside a couple of them took at An Taisce for allegedly being anti-development and anti-progress.
Surprisingly, this week, a very trenchant criticism of his method was made by one of the programme insiders, Terry Prone one of three panellists on these Week in Politics specials. In her Irish Examiner column yesterday, Prone made some very salient points, that brought a bit of reality back into the debate - hitherto, there has been uncritical enthusiasm for Luntz's intervention into the campaign. Here's a little of the argument she made:
Luntz passionately believes that gathering 30 people selected by Red C into a room and barracking them with questions about politicians will throw up infallible predictions about what’s going to happen in the election.
He’s wrong. What you get when you put those 30 people in a room is pub talk, made seem more significant than it is by inspired editing of four hours of material so the dross ends up on the cutting-room floor.
Tough stuff. You can read Terry Prone's full column in the Irish Examiner here.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - Posters
The Kylie moment. Back in 2002, Pat Rabbitte, then a humble backbencher (that's an oxymoron if ever there was one) came out with a rapier comment that was never surpassed during the election campaign.
It was March, early April maybe - certainly a good few weeks before the election campaign was launched. And quicker than the Black Death had spread throughout Europe in the middle ages, Bertie posters had suddenly appeared on every lamp-post in the country.
Rabbitte couldn't avoid them in his Tallaght and Clondalkin heartland. Bertie's face was more ubiquitous in his constituency, he said, than Kylie Minogue's bum. (The Australian icon allegedly had surgery on her backside that - predictably - prompted oodles of pictorial coverage in the tabloid press).
The net point that Rabbitte was making was a serious one: under the electoral acts, there were strict limits on spending by candidates and parties.
In 2002, the limits for each candidate was:
- €25,394.76 (£20,000) in a 3 seat constituency;
- €31,743.45 (£25,000) in a 4 seat constituency;
- €38,092.14 (£30,000) in a 5 seat constituency.
During an election campaign, political parties are allowed, well, a great big zero to begin . The only income they are allowed iswhatever money is assigned by its individual candidates. So for example, a candidate in a 3 seat constituency was allowed 25 grand or so in 2002. The party allowed him or her to keep, say, €15,000 for personal campaign spending with the balance of €10 grand going to the party nationally. With 100 candidates, say, the party could then have an allowance of €1 million.
Not a lot of dough, when you are talking about TV and newspaper ads, leaders' travel expenses, daily launches etc.... all closely monitored by the Standards in Public Office Commission.
But the trick is that these limits only apply DURING the election campaigns (which last barely three weeks).
There are absolutely no limits on spending before the election campaign. That will give an answer as to why Fine Gael have launched a rake of billboards; why the Labour Party has followed suit and the PDs will launch their fourth in a series of five next Sunday when they launch a Health one.
Fine Gael's spend has been incredible, certainly running into seven figures. So far, FF has been the only party to hold back. Expect a blitzkrieg, a tidal wave, an epidemic, a blizzard, a plague of FF stuff from late March/early April.
We have the appearance of ethics and standards in spending and donations since the great unpleasantness of the middle 1990s. But in reality, there is little of it. What we do have is a total swiz, a magician's distraction.
For one, parties can spend as much as they like at any time other than those narrow three weeks of an election campaign.
And for two, what's worse is we don't have a clue how much they raise, despite the introduction of all these laws of transparency.
Sure, you have to declare a donation if it's above a certain limit. What parties have done is made sure that the vast bulk of their individual and corporate donations fall below that limit. So we hear about silent collections and envelopes at Fine Gael and FF shindigs - presidential dinners, Galway Races and the like. But when you see if there's any record of how much has been raised, there is nothing - because all the donations fall tantalisingly below the limit. It's the same with Bertie's Christmas fundraiser in Clontarf castle - it raises a huge amount of money for his well-greased organisation. But how much? The figure remains as much a mystery to the general public as Paddy the Plasterer.
Soon Bertie's face will start to appear everywhere. And for a couple of weeks the country will look like a tinpot former Soviet dictatorship as we succumb to the cult of personality surrounding the one and only The Bert.
By the way, The Bert's legend has spread far and wide - to Canada no less. Check out this comedy sketch:
Saturday, February 17, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - The Hurricane of Hype
WHO is the star of this week’s column? Take a wild guess. If you happened to die and are now pushing up daisies, you might not have noticed him this week.
Of if you happen to be an anchorite monk living on a remote island sometime in the 6th century, there’s a slim chance that he may not have crossed your path.
For everybody else, there was no escape. From the moment he choked on his Corn Flakes last Sunday morning, Michael McDowell has reacted to Labour’s tax coup by invading our every waking moment, policing our thoughts, and trying to wash, like rain, the trashy Labour promises off the pavement.
On Monday, he introduced the techniques of Sumo wrestling to Irish political discourse. In a matter of mere seconds, his ferocious and fierce onslaught removed Pat Rabbitte from the ring. The winning technique? Haiku. “I want to say this about the speech that Pat Rabbitte made the other night. That speech proves that he is now admitting that he has been talking rubbish for 20 years. He has attacked every aspect of our tax policies. He’s voted against them in every Finance Bill.
“He has denied our argument that tax rates matter. And here he is now saying, after 20 years of empty, unsuccessful, hypocritical rhetoric, that he accepts he is wrong. What a sadmoment for him.”
This outburst came during a so-called doorstep interview, where the politician takes questions (usually on the street) from reporters. There were no questions here. McDowell walked up the reporters, delivered his broadside, said “I’m finished” and walked away again. A few reporters sniggered. But for McDowell there was nothing funny about this.
For this was a Labour leader having the cheek to encroach on his territory. Though what came across washumorous, what bubbled inside was toil and trouble. This column has said it before: McDowell is a one-man walking Atlantic weather system. This week, it was storm force 10 stuff coming in furiously with no respite.
The really scary bit is that all this is just the lead-up to the Progressive Democrats national conference this weekend. You might have noticed the sly reference above to Travis Bickle, the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s classic film, Taxi Driver. On Tuesday, McDowell did his own bit of scary “you looking at me” stuff when he announced a package of anti-crime measures. The Tánaiste has a tendency to announce his measures in the manner that Twink introduced John Bruton at a Fine Gael Árd Fheis a long time. You initially think, great stuff, and then you think, this is over-the-top, and then you think, oh, God, this is going to finish up badly.
His crime package sounded very impressive on first hearing. Suspects could be detained for seven days. There were tighter measures for bail; further curtailments of the right to silence, as well as provisions to introduce the long-awaited DNA database.
But then we found out it was all based on an interim (and rushed)report of the expert group charged with re-balancing the law.
Not only that, but the package of measures didn’t include legislation — only an intention to legislate.
So what was that all about then? Optics? In reality, by the time that package becomes law, the general election will be but a dim memory.
McDowell wanted to give the impression he was being tough on crime (as usual the “crisis” has been hyped up by politicians and the media). Now he has come up with illusory measures to remedy an illusory crisis.
For one thing hit me between the eyes in the recent Frank Luntz focus group exercise for RTÉ. Crime was identified as a huge issue. Yet, not one of the group had been a victim of crime in the past five years, save for one guy who got his chainsaw nicked. And why were they all scared to walk the streets, leave the key in the door etc? They said it was because the media told them so. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.
Of course, the Tánaiste didn’t leave it there. He was just warming himself up. On Wednesday, he took on the Mahon Tribunal, claiming its legal bill could top €1 billion. By Thursday, that row deepened into a full-blown crisis. Characteristically, he robustly stood by his word that night, setting up the second grave stand-off with the judiciary in as many months. And that was the same day, he promised he would big it up at the PDs’ conference in Wexford, with his own proposals on tax cuts and stamp duty.
Batten down the hatches folks. A hurricane of hype and histrionics is fast approaching from the South East.
(This is my column from today's Irish Examiner)
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS: If you're happy and you know it...
Fresh from their national conference last weekend, Labour has its gander up. It launched a new webside makeachange.ie today, along with a poster campaign.
A lot of it is based on the non-tax and non-health aspects of Rabbitte's speech on Saturday night, where he referred to the "gilded treadmill", where people are earning far more but feel that the lives they lead are less happy. Or they sense they are less fulfilled than their parents, or that their lives do not match the poorer but happier world they remember from their childhood.
The Bert has championed this theme as well, with a task force and campaign on citizenship. But the language tused for that campaign was so technical, so full of gobblygedook, so darned ugly that it has had next to zero impact. Active citizenship and volunteering are unwieldy terms that have little purchase with people.
The slogan being pushed by Labour to grapple with this complex but nonetheless crucial theme is much more effective. 'But Are You Happy?' it asks. You can see it emblazoned across this new website.
But while the Labour message is more direct,I am one of those fatalists who believe that little can be done to reverse the downside of the massive changes that have taken place in Ireland in the past ten years. Society has become more urbanised, fragmented, individual, materialistic and ultimately dissociated. To encourage/compel/cajole people into caring a little more for those around them will require a colossal change... the kind that's only brought out by catastrophic or calamitous events. By the way, it's not half as bad as some portray it. But telling people they can't have a second car, or their own house as opposed to an apartment, or can't automatically have a holiday home in Wexford is like telling a brand-conscious child that they can't have that pair of sneakers that all their friends have.
Elsewhere this morning, I was flicking through the list of legislation to be published in this Spring term. The Government says it will publish 25 new Bills. Not a snowball's hope in hell. They'll publish the Finance Bill and the Social Wefare Bill, both necessary to give effect to changes announced in the Budget. They'll pass and publish a couple of other Bills. And that's about.
We're into election mode. After the St Patrick's Day break next month, all the big guys will be on the road. I will sing Danny Boy in falsetto in a public place in the Election isn't called by Easter. So legislatively, it's all over. And there's a whole pile of promised stuff (some very important) that will never see the light of day.
Labour's new website is interesting. It has embraced technology more than any of the other parties (including blogs, though Ciaran Cuffe and John Gormley of the Greens are still the best there). And the website even includes a little video of Pateen a la Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. Hell, there's a couple of politicians who have even got their own bebo sites (to get down with the kids!)
But sadly, technology isn't really going to be a factor in this election. We are usually a little behind the curve. It's big already in the US but it will be 2012 before it is fully embraced by all the parties. By the way, the Fianna Fail site is the worst of the lot, never worth looking at for anything.
The other big looming worry is flagrant auction politics by all the parties during the pre-election conference season. Within the space of two days, we have had tax cuts and a promise of a whopping 50% increase in pensions. Where is it going to end? Free holidays for everybody?
As I write, Brian Cowen is on The News at One vipering into Labour's tax-cut promise. He's denouncing it as irresponsible while defending the PDs equally grandiose promise of a huge rise in pensions as "not outside the bounds of possibility".
Good man, like a pint of you know what, consistency in a world gone mad!
A lot of it is based on the non-tax and non-health aspects of Rabbitte's speech on Saturday night, where he referred to the "gilded treadmill", where people are earning far more but feel that the lives they lead are less happy. Or they sense they are less fulfilled than their parents, or that their lives do not match the poorer but happier world they remember from their childhood.
The Bert has championed this theme as well, with a task force and campaign on citizenship. But the language tused for that campaign was so technical, so full of gobblygedook, so darned ugly that it has had next to zero impact. Active citizenship and volunteering are unwieldy terms that have little purchase with people.
The slogan being pushed by Labour to grapple with this complex but nonetheless crucial theme is much more effective. 'But Are You Happy?' it asks. You can see it emblazoned across this new website.
But while the Labour message is more direct,I am one of those fatalists who believe that little can be done to reverse the downside of the massive changes that have taken place in Ireland in the past ten years. Society has become more urbanised, fragmented, individual, materialistic and ultimately dissociated. To encourage/compel/cajole people into caring a little more for those around them will require a colossal change... the kind that's only brought out by catastrophic or calamitous events. By the way, it's not half as bad as some portray it. But telling people they can't have a second car, or their own house as opposed to an apartment, or can't automatically have a holiday home in Wexford is like telling a brand-conscious child that they can't have that pair of sneakers that all their friends have.
Elsewhere this morning, I was flicking through the list of legislation to be published in this Spring term. The Government says it will publish 25 new Bills. Not a snowball's hope in hell. They'll publish the Finance Bill and the Social Wefare Bill, both necessary to give effect to changes announced in the Budget. They'll pass and publish a couple of other Bills. And that's about.
We're into election mode. After the St Patrick's Day break next month, all the big guys will be on the road. I will sing Danny Boy in falsetto in a public place in the Election isn't called by Easter. So legislatively, it's all over. And there's a whole pile of promised stuff (some very important) that will never see the light of day.
Labour's new website is interesting. It has embraced technology more than any of the other parties (including blogs, though Ciaran Cuffe and John Gormley of the Greens are still the best there). And the website even includes a little video of Pateen a la Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. Hell, there's a couple of politicians who have even got their own bebo sites (to get down with the kids!)
But sadly, technology isn't really going to be a factor in this election. We are usually a little behind the curve. It's big already in the US but it will be 2012 before it is fully embraced by all the parties. By the way, the Fianna Fail site is the worst of the lot, never worth looking at for anything.
The other big looming worry is flagrant auction politics by all the parties during the pre-election conference season. Within the space of two days, we have had tax cuts and a promise of a whopping 50% increase in pensions. Where is it going to end? Free holidays for everybody?
As I write, Brian Cowen is on The News at One vipering into Labour's tax-cut promise. He's denouncing it as irresponsible while defending the PDs equally grandiose promise of a huge rise in pensions as "not outside the bounds of possibility".
Good man, like a pint of you know what, consistency in a world gone mad!
Monday, February 12, 2007
INSIDE POLITICS - Finally, a real Rabbitte out of a Hat
Since Saturday night, Pat Rabbitte has looked like a man who has entered a pub on Easter Sunday having just completed his 40 days of being on the tack. He has been brimming with goodwill, bursting with bonhomie, overflowing with mirth.
His coup at the national conference - the announcement of tax cuts at the standard rate - has proved to be the biggest political payload for Labour. Ever!
Fianna Fail and the PDs responded as if a fox had been let loose in their chicken coop. The fury of their reaction was redolent of how effective it all was. Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin were quick out of the traps. It continued yesterday with the Bert's gnomic put-down of both Rabitte and all us cynical journalists and our caustic charmless ways (forgetting that the Coalition itself announced a tax cut in December and the PDs are looking for another round or two of cuts).
Erm, no the Bert, we dont' know what editorial writers are.
But the best response was a glorious 30 second outburst from Michael McDowell. He came out to reporters, delivered it, took no further questions and just walked away. The little microphone huddle was stunned into silence. And his sermon was delivered in such a grave, mirthless, furious and over-the-top way that it was hilarious. Bitter. Bilious. But brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.
No wonder Rabbitte took so much glee at causing such mayhem within the Government. Maybe it's time for him to take his occasional drinking buddy - as revealed on Tubridy recently - for a confidence-boosting pint.
His coup at the national conference - the announcement of tax cuts at the standard rate - has proved to be the biggest political payload for Labour. Ever!
Fianna Fail and the PDs responded as if a fox had been let loose in their chicken coop. The fury of their reaction was redolent of how effective it all was. Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin were quick out of the traps. It continued yesterday with the Bert's gnomic put-down of both Rabitte and all us cynical journalists and our caustic charmless ways (forgetting that the Coalition itself announced a tax cut in December and the PDs are looking for another round or two of cuts).
If I was to announce this weekend, that I was to continue to cut taxes by 3pc, I'd be in the editorials this morning criticised for trying to buy votes. But then again, you know what editorial writers are.
Erm, no the Bert, we dont' know what editorial writers are.
But the best response was a glorious 30 second outburst from Michael McDowell. He came out to reporters, delivered it, took no further questions and just walked away. The little microphone huddle was stunned into silence. And his sermon was delivered in such a grave, mirthless, furious and over-the-top way that it was hilarious. Bitter. Bilious. But brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.
"I want to say this about the speech that Pat Rabbitte made the other night. That speech proves that he is now admitting that he has been talking rubbish for 20 years. He has attacked every aspect of our tax policies. He's voted against them in every Finance Bill. He has denied our argument that tax rates matter. And here he is now saying, after 20 years of empty unsuccessful, hypocritical rhetoric, that he accepts he is wrong. What a sad moment for him."
No wonder Rabbitte took so much glee at causing such mayhem within the Government. Maybe it's time for him to take his occasional drinking buddy - as revealed on Tubridy recently - for a confidence-boosting pint.
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