The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Regarding the last paragraph of the previous post, didn’t even make it to a day – eh? There’s been a lot to talk about, and we’ll get back soon to some of the other significant, or perhaps not so significant, events such as the abandonment of the armed struggle by the UVF.

But in the meantime, the election.

Sigh.

A revealing exchange on Prime Time this evening. In a debate between Noel Dempsey (FF), Eamon Gilmore (Labour) and John Gormley (Greens) the topic turned to the stamp duty policies of the respective parties.

Dempsey lauded Fianna Fáil’s latest rabbit out of the hat proposals released to day, retrospective inclusion to April 30th this year. Gilmore noted the Labour party’s proposals and the u-turn by Fianna Fáil. And John Gormley (who was pretty good overall) admitted that it wasn’t a significant priority for the Green Party, although they had some suggestions for reform. Furthermore he noted the ecological issues relating to unrestrained house building and suggested that social and affordable housing was a much greater priority.

So let me get this straight. In this debate (and I’m aware Sinn Féin were also extremely dubious about today’s little bidding war amongst the centre parties) the populists are hitching their star to the media frenzy relating to stamp duty. The social democrats concur with the overall idea albeit with their own spin, and only the Greens notice that there are bigger fish to fry.

What on earth is going on?

Re the stamp duty issue in broader terms I can refer you to no better analysis, to my mind, than Vincent Browne in the Sunday Business Post some weeks ago.