The Big Guns and Lisbon… the Cowen effect begins to work its magic? May 11, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Very briefly, perhaps everyone does love Brian as much as was suggested here. For the latest poll from the Sunday Business Post is fairly revealing.
As Pat Leahy in the SBP reports:
Support for the Lisbon Treaty has recovered slightly in the past fortnight and the gap between the Yes and No sides has increased from four points to ten, according to the latest Sunday Business Post/Red C tracking poll.
Not that it’s all good news for the Yes side…
However, over a third of voters remain undecided, reflecting the continuing uncertainty among the electorate.
Overall the figures are 38 per cent for, 28 per cent against and 34 undecided. That’s a shift of 3 points up for the Yes side and 3 points down for the No side. Early days, clearly, but perhaps indicative of the pro-Lisbon lobby beginning to cohere with Brian Cowen and Fianna Fáil back fully engaged. And that’s no small thing. A united Fianna Fáil, enthused by Cowen’s ascension is a strongly proactive force for pushing the process to a Yes. Cowen has made it his priority. I see no reason to doubt him, and with that there is a lot riding on it.
And, as the SBP notes, the farmers are back on board, having done the protesting thing…
Where previous polls had shown farmers were opposed to the treaty, today’s numbers show a small lead of four points for the Yes side among farmers, though a quarter remain undecided.
And inconceivable that the following demographic won’t weigh in on the Yes side…
Fine Gael voters, previously lukewarm, now back the treaty, with 42 per cent saying they will vote Yes. The poll was conducted between May 3 and7 among over 1,000 voters nationwide.
All rosy in the garden? Well, no, not at all. Many a slip twixt cup and lip, sure… for now, though, Cowen can be privately pleased at just how a tide might be turning. How different too, the reception for him contrasted with that of Gordon Brown. But that’s another story.
Incidentally, Vincent Browne has a fascinating column also in the SBP which bemoans the lack of experience or specialised knowledge of ‘at least five members of the cabinet’ in ‘the departments they are now expected to manage’.
There’s something in this. Consider his following points…
Brian Lenihan is a clever barrister and a skilled communicator, but does he have knowledge of economic management, fiscal policy, official and economic priorities? None at all.
As executive head of the Department of Finance, he is expected to manage that department, having had no experience of managing anything, aside from 11 months in the Department of Justice.
And he recognises that:
They are elected to the Dáil, not on the basis of their ability to manage anything, but on a hodgepodge of other criteria: likeability, party affiliation, geographic location, personal acquaintance, appearance and, maybe occasionally, policy grounds. But certainly not because they have any ability to manage anything.
Which is true as well. His solution?
I have proposed a resolution for this before: get rid of the government as we know it. Let the executive branch be unelected and fully professional. Let them get on with the execution of policies defined by the people (ideally), or the people’s representatives in parliament.
I’m not entirely certain about that. It’s a technocratic approach which is fair enough (and is it my imagination, but doesn’t something somewhat similar happen with the US cabinet system? Or indeed what of Gordon Brown bringing in external ‘talent’ to his cabinet, well, that’s working out just fine, isn’t it… errrr….lets not talk about the extraordinary Digby Jones). But he ignores the reality of a civil service which is meant to act and advise. Whatever about the egregious deflections of genuine ‘public interest’ by our current democratic structures, the idea that another layer of unelected managers are necessarily the best people to intercede between representatives and state structures seems a bit counterintuitive. Again, what do people think?
What Vincent is highlighting is that the ministers don’t know how to discern good advice from bad advice from the civil service because they don’t know the areas being discussed. Minister are simply at the mercy of their civil servants. Taking one example the E-Voting mess, because Cullen obvious couldn’t tell the difference between a computer and a kitten with rabies, he signed a contract that committed us to those machines and the software before the Dail committee had reviewed the deal. I covered it more baldly here last year
http://www.irishelection.com/03/did-any-of-you-lot-ever-have-to-make-something-for-a-living/
I admit it is going to continue to be problematic to see how we can have a cabinet of people with experience when they are drawn from the Oireachtas and people insist on electing people because they look nice or were captain of the football team.
Thanks for replying to my question recently, WbS.
With respect to Vincent Browne, he has discovered something which is really quite a basic point from many libertarians: that the state does not simulate the market. In the market, one expects to find people in positions appropriate to their skill set, for reasons we think we understand very well (for example, consider the law of comparative advantage applied to individuals). It is one of the central claims of libertarians that political mechanisms, such as those in a state democracy, will inevitably result in the allocation of responsibilities to people who are unable to fulfill them adequately – relative to how those reponsibilities would have been fulfilled in the market.
I doubt that Browne’s remedy would provide any improvement. After all, the achievement of democracy is to allow for the expression of some forms of consent from the people: nothing at all close to the consent in the marketplace, yet greater than that of some other modes of government.
Browne’s solution would pose a high risk of producing an additional class of unassailable bureaucrats. By expanding the unelected component of the state, it seems likely that it would further weaken the tenuous link there is between the consent of the people and the actions of government.
So that £50 billion pounds the British government just gave the banks had no effect on stimulating the market then?
Garibaldy, I said “simulate”, not “stimulate”.
My mistake.
Dan, that’s a fair point you make (and I’ve seen close up how that process of ignorance and bafflement works), but I do not see how in a representative democracy it is possible to have people who are entirely clued in. That said I think you point to a partial solution in committees having greater oversight powers, but I think, and this is an aside that the Oireachtas should have on call genuinely independent analysts for such situations as a sort of thinktank. Moreover I’m dubious about technocracy in any case. That ain’t democracy. Incidentally it strikes me how this resonates with those who call for List systems, another issue I’m dubious about. It’s also a cross party issue, as you implicitly note.
Graham, can I say that while I sort of disagree with your first point, since I simply don’t see how we can transit from here to the sort of system you propose I actually agree (mostly) with your last paragraph.
I don’t know that we can have people who are completely clued in but it would be sensible to have at least some. My post was really highlighting that almost none of the then cabinet have ever “had to pound sand for a living” as the yanks call it. I would be inclined towards a partial list system in a reformed Seanad and then allow the Taoiseach of the day to draw on that resource. I think it would workt to benefit the pool of talent and advice available to all governments.
Wbs, I’ve got to pipe up on a gripe about the presentation of the movement in the Lisbon vote, if it is farmers and FG voters that have shifted then I would contend the FG efforts are more responsible for that movement than anything Cowen has done. Of course, I would expect that if the Treaty is passed that the press in particular the tabloids elements will give the credit to the government but I’d have expected a more realistic assessment from yourself. FF as an organisation have been doing Sweet FA on the ground so far.
Ok simple solution to Vincents correct observation is for a list system. Then we can be sure gobshites don’t end up in cabinet.
Talking about opinion polls anyway notice the Sindo poll – appartenly carried out by some independent company, figures suspicously reflect a dream poll that the Sindo senior writers would want, and quiet amazingly the poll only adds up 91%.
Incredible people.
I would say as well that ‘68 and all that helped kick start the women’s liberation movement and feminism. The social movement of that period was a catalyst for change and launching the women’s liberation movement.
There was a conference in London yesterday on ‘68 and all that and had Sheila Rowbotham as one of the speakers but unfortunately…I couldn’t make it…. I have read her autobiographical bk of the time, Promise of a Dream, which does give a good snapshot of the time.
Oh dear…… commented on wrong post….
Louise
I’m not mad keen on a list system but I like the Seanad idea Dan.
A full system? We vote for representatives, not parties. Moreover this may lead to foiisting upon the electorate names they may have no links to at all.
Re Cowen. Well, who knows. It may just be marginal, hence the question mark in the title… but, a more coherent FF will reap dividends, particularly if as you say they’re not in train yet.
91%. Brilliant, cheers for that Dec.
Not a worry Louise. harpymarx in blogroll.
Cheers for that comrade.
L.
I think Dan is right, if there has been a shift its more I think to do with FG than anything else. FF are indeed doing nothing, Dick Roche is still the only minister debating the treaty and the local reps haven’t turned up to any meetings I have gone to in Dublin. By constrast both FG and SF are there.
Also noticed FG posters all around the city centre this morning.
Regretfully, for FG, and I agree with Dan, it will be Cowen not Kenny who will get the plaudits in the event of a narrow yes vote.
Oh WBS, I think that a partial list system would solve the problem.
My design would be a bunch of geographical four seaters, drawn in a way that only population and contigiouness are factors, and at least one third national list.
In that way the parties could put the brains, women and ethnic minorties and orators on the list and the grunts out into the constituencies.
May then get a bit of balance then in the dail and politics could become a option for people to dip in and out of rather than a 50 year career endurance test it has become.
The real problem with Browne’s proposal is that he completely ignores how it would be likely to be implemented in practice. In an environment where national politics continues to be dominated by local clientilism, why does he think that ministerial appointments wouldn’t continue to be based on the electoral concerns of the governing party, rather than more noble considerations. One only has to look at appointments to State Boards currently to see what kind of “expert” Ministers we would be likely to see in future.
In fact, Browne’s suggestion would likely represent a disimprovement on the present situation. Not only would we see the appointment of party hacks at Ministerial level but this would probably also apply at senior governmental level as well.
That said, it’s probably true that there’s a lack of substantial policy experience or engagement among Ministers. However, the solution to this – the question of how a Minister could distinguish competently between various options presented by civil servants – is to employ the very experts Browne believes should be Ministers as policy advisers. In many ways, one can judge the capacity of a particular Minister not by their previous experience in their particular portfolio, but by the quality of the staff they surround themselves with.
Depends what we mean as emply the policy experts as advisors. I think the civil service should have its own people looking at things as far as possible, especially in light of the experience of the UK with all the advisors that mushroomed before and especially after 1997.
Browne’s proposal is already in place with regard to local government. His platonic ideal of unelected professionals who will just “get on” with running things is not a theoretical parlour game – it’s been the norm with regard to city/county managers and local government since the 1930s. And with regard to “getting on” with the business of policy – George Redmond anyone?
Browne’s solution is nothing of the sort. All it does is swap one problem for another. It slips from “who decides policy” to “who decides the experts”? On paper, Moore McDowell is an expert – should his expert (and presumably unbiased) advice dictate government policy?
The reality is that this is a blip which I believe will not be sustained. There’s a post on politics.ie claiming that Cowen hasn’t read the whole treaty. If that is true it would make a great ad for the “No” side. When the people realise that the provisions of the treaty have already been rejected by 2 countries (France and Holland) without negative consequences for those states, I believe the momentum will swing back to the no side.
WbS, I guess it is possible that we will fail to move away from our current systems. My point only concerned the relative merits of the market and the government. The question of how political power can or should be reduced is a very hot topic on which there is no clear libertarian consensus as far as I am aware. And of course it might be completely impossible as far as our lifetimes are concerned.
Still, it’s nice to be in agreement with you from time to time!
I’m not sure if they count as Big Guns, but The Workers’ Party is having some guest speakers at its Ard Fheis debate on Lisbon
http://www.workerspartyireland.net/id159.html
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