It was the best of times… it was the worst of times… January 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.6 comments
Well, okay, not literally… but some of us might, I think, have been forgiven for being puzzled at the small debate over the economy that raged for the last day or two in the media.
Pity the hapless Dan Murphy, general secretary of the Public Service Executive Union who had the temerity to suggest that the economic situation was no so severe that it might necessitate of the guys from the IMF arriving briefcases in hand to shut down the Irish state. This information he had, or so the story went, gleaned at a meeting between Brian Cowen and the unions last Friday. The implication that the bould Brian had made the inference, or the averred to it, or bloody hell, had actually said it.
Cue horror and misery, particularly on the part of the financial markets…
The value of the euro dropped more than a cent against the dollar early yesterday but recovered after the Government moved to clarify its position. “I have never said that,” said Mr Cowen later yesterday. “We are a member of the euro area and we have the best-performing economy in the last 10 years in the European Union.”
And so awful was this happening that the Irish Times even devoted an editorial to it today where it thundered (under the heading Mr. Cowen is wronged)…
THE LAST thing a busy Taoiseach engaged on an important trade mission abroad needs is to have to deny remarks that he never made at home when they are wrong and deeply damaging for Ireland and the euro.
But also that:
This unfortunate misunderstanding about Mr Cowen’s remarks could hardly have come at a less opportune time for the Government or for the economy. The ratings agency Standard Poor’s (SP) last week warned that it may cut Ireland’s triple-A rating for its sovereign debt due to the sharp deterioration in the public finances. This warning of a credit downgrade was followed up some days later by the agency issuing similar warnings to Spain, Greece and Portugal. SP downgraded Greece’s sovereign debt yesterday, citing declining competitiveness and a rising fiscal deficit as reasons. For the euro zone bloc this is a serious development. It puts the currency under pressure. It will also raise investor concerns about the euro’s future, prompt market speculation and generate currency volatility. Moody’s became the third agency to talk of reviewing Ireland’s rating yesterday.
And curiously the Department of Finance was in a much more upbeat mood than the media:
The Department of Finance also moved quickly to correct the reference to the IMF in reports yesterday, with a statement that pointed out that Ireland’s debt position of 20 per cent of GDP at the end of 2008 is relatively low by international standards.
“Those briefings, which made no reference to the IMF, set out what the fiscal position will be if no corrective action is taken,” said the statement. “In those briefings, the Taoiseach stated clearly that the Government is determined to take the necessary action so as to ensure the stability and sustainability of the Irish public finances,” it added.
So, who could be responsible for this unfortunate series of events, how could Dan Murphy have got it so wrong? Surely not the Irish media and political class who have loudly proclaimed that the severity of the situation is so awful that the Irish public and the social partners have yet to understand just how bad things are going to get…
Surely not.
Meanwhile some pretty intriguing rumours of a serious event about to take place in the Irish financial sector have reached the ears of the Lounge.
Surely not squared… 
Gaza redux January 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Israel, Palestine.78 comments
Reading Vincent Browne in yesterday’s Irish Times was a frustrating exercise. It’s not that he’s incorrect in his article. For he notes that a ‘Monstrous Injustice [was/is] inflicted on Palestine’ and noted the machinations that underpinned the latest UN resolution on Gaza, in particular the craven way in which the United States having sponsored the resolution chose to abstain. As he notes:
[The President of the UN Council] then put to the vote the resolution drafted by the US, Britain and France. All members of the council voted for it, except the US, which abstained.
Rice read a statement expressing total support for the resolution and said the US had abstained because it wanted to see the outcome of the peace talks in Cairo, involving Israel and the Palestinians. CNN thought this was a significant breakthrough.
He parsed the text of the resolution noting too that:
The US, British and French resolution stressed “the urgency of and [called] for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza”.
The al-Jazeera people observed that the resolution was essentially meaningless, for how could there be an “immediate” ceasefire that was at the same time “durable” and “fully respected”?
They said this allowed Israel to continue the bombing, the destruction and the slaughter of people in Gaza because there would never be “an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire”.
Then there was the word “leading”: “leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza”. “Leading” could mean an immediate withdrawal or a withdrawal anytime in the future.
They predicted Israel could continue doing what it had been doing, which of course was precisely what happened.
And all this is true. The US abstension provided a space which the Israeli government was able to use to continue to prosecute their campaign.
Browne continues by arguing that not merely has Israel, and effectively the international community, ignored previous UN resolutions (most notably 242) but that the “UN’s role in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict has been inglorious from the outset”.
He continues:
it was the UN that played a large part in igniting the conflict at the outset by calling for the partition of Palestine and the creation of Jewish and Arab states, without any regard to the wishes of the people of Palestine.
At the time, Arabs constituted more than two-thirds of the population of 1.78 million.
The state of Israel was declared on May 14th, 1948. There followed a war, during which 700,000 Arabs were driven or fled from their homes.
More than three-quarters of the territory of Palestine was incorporated into the new state of Israel.
The international community was guilt-ridden by the then recent revelation of the Holocaust and its appreciation of its complicity in the pogroms against Jews over the centuries. The infliction of another historic injustice, this time on the Palestinian Arabs, was the means whereby that guilt was idly assuaged.
And concludes:
That monstrous injustice lies at the heart of the conflict in the Middle East since then.
The refusal of the international community to acknowledge the origins of the state of Israel is the obstacle to a resolution of the conflict.
The problem is how to take his final sentence and use it as a basis from which to proceed. Because Israel does exist and will continue to exist. Its population, the majority of whom were born well after the events of 1948, and its societal dynamic have assumed a direction that has it’s own intrinsic internal self-legitimation. Israel has a right to exist. But that its existence may become essentially entirely insular and arguably paranoid as it attempts to find ‘security solutions’ that depend upon force rather than negotiation and persuasion with its neighbours – and may not necessary find itself receiving upon the largesse of the US in the mid to long term future – makes the current issues more rather than less intractable. And with that right comes further responsibilities still.
Or to put it another way, yes it is true that a monstrous injustice was committed against Palestinians, a result in part of a monstrous injustice committed against Jews in Europe that resulted in the displacement (and death of many) of the former, but that doesn’t much help us as we try to chart a way forward. What should, but probably won’t happen, is that the international community and the United States should exert genuine pressure on Israel to understand that it has responsibilities as well as rights and that primary amongst those former is the necessity to address the issue of those who were forcibly displaced and their descendants. That responsibility has been entirely lacking in the relationship between Israel and the truncated Palestine that now remains. Across four decades the consistent Israeli policy appears to have been to limit and constrain and curtail Palestine and its political and social expressions, and where ‘concessions’ were given to keep these as minimalist as possible. And all this when by any reasonable criteria it had absolutely no right to do so.
The Guardian referenced this in its editorial yesterday when it noted that:
The Times’s chief leader writer last week attempted a measured explanation of why international pressure on Israel often seems so futile and inadequate. The experience of Jews in the first half of the 20th century, he wrote, meant that Jews no longer felt safe as the wards of world opinion. “When Israel is urged to respect world opinion and put its faith in the international community the point is rather being missed,” he wrote. “The very idea of Israel is a rejection of this option.”
There may well be a psychological truth in this, but it will plainly not do in other respects. It does scant justice to the noble, democratic and broadly admirable ideals of the founders of a Jewish homeland and it is impossible to reconcile with Israel’s obligations as a member of a wider community of nations. This wish to join the world on equal terms was, after all, the aspiration of the first Zionist leaders. The question – as Israeli tanks grind into Gaza City – is what actions or arguments the rest of the world can take or make that will have any resonance in a country which now gives every appearance of having turned its back on global opinion.
And it continues…
The final area for discussion is Israel’s obligations as a member of the community of civilised nations. Israel should take no comfort from the protracted wrangling that led to last week’s UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, nor from America’s abstention or Britain’s hand-wringing. All the signs are that the Obama administration is not going to be sympathetic to a future of failed blockades or the intransigent refusal to talk to Israel’s enemies.
I think both the Guardian and Browne may be touching upon something that is very noticeable at the present time. The criticisms of Israel in our parliament this week have been of a level that to me seems unprecedented. The direct criticism of the Israeli ambassador and the calls for his expulsion as a response to the events in Gaza appear to represent a significant change in attitude to that conflict and to the Israeli government. And this isn’t restricted to this state but is seen in varying degrees internationally. It is as if a consensus is emerging that the actions overseen by the Israeli government have reached the limits of toleration. And this is intriguing.
Because I’d hazard that the Israeli government did not expect such a response. Indeed I’d bet that they supposed that during the transitional period between the end of the Bush White House and the arrival of the Obama Presidency they were offered a perfect opportunity to deliver a message to the latter (and to see how he would respond) that they were going to exercise their self-perceived prerogative to exercise their military might as a means of subduing Gaza and that they would also seek to destroy Hamas as a functioning political entity.
However, it seems to me that they chose precisely the wrong time to do this, or rather that circumstances were not quite as they might have wished. For far from the transition providing a period when they could operate without criticism due to the lack of focus in Washington what has happened has been a remarkable concentration by the media on their actions in Gaza. Perhaps even an unprecedentedly critical concentration. It’s difficult to pin down precisely the reasons for that. In part I suspect its because what they’re doing is simply too redolent of what has been seen in the last eight years in Iraq and that there is a general sense that such actions are most likely counterproductive. Also the studied and rather ambiguous messages emanating from the Obama camp, tied into the generalised lofty rhetoric of his campaign (whatever about his tactical shifts on the issue of Israel and Palestine during that campaign) seem to hint at a more optimistic way forward. Sure, that’s all hot air until it is made manifest, but it seems to have informed at least some of the discourse albeit at second hand. This appears to have allowed the media to operate ‘off the leash’ as it were in a way which otherwise might not have happened. Thirdly the very circumstances of the current events, or rather their lead up, make the Israeli case harder to make… there was a cease-fire, it was effective, the breaching of it by whatever side and the media seems to be pinning this on Israel, makes the current actions appear self-interested. Which they most evidently are. And then added to that is the clear impetus given to them by Israeli domestic political concerns. Finally there is the unbelievably counterproductive nature of the actions and most importantly their impacts on the inhabitants of Gaza. And all this played out in the international media. Of course there are other elements, but it is remarkable how strong the critique of the Israeli government is, and indeed it is heartening.
It is less heartening to see the reductionist arguments of some of those both abroad and closer to home who have championed Israeli government and military actions in a manner which would be laughable in another context. To hear the earnest analyses of Hamas as an ineradicable evil (and let’s be clear, Hamas is an organisation that few progressives would or should feel comfortable with) and to further hear this as a justification for the current events merely points up the futility of the exercise. That Israel and Hamas have, and will again, dealt to construct ceasefires – or indeed the dismal pragmatism of the reality that Israel and Hamas are probably already in contact to construct the next ‘twelve month’ ceasefire – is curiously omitted from the narratives we’re presented with as is the absurd notion that if Hamas could be eradicated in some fashion then all would be well. That merely demonstrates an inability to distinguish – or to deliberately confuse – symptom from cause. The wellsprings that Hamas has drawn upon run far deeper than any individual organisation or movement. They will continue to exist long after Hamas is but a memory and will remain active unless Israel eschews military force and moves to deal with the underlying problem in a manner which sees it living up to its responsiblities. And these aren’t responsibilities limited to a notion duty of care – which has been abrogated on far too many occasions – but a responsibility to see that the events of the 1940s which saw a disaster for two peoples are remedied to the greatest extent possible. And in that Vincent Browne is very right indeed.
Trouble at the top… or not? Medvedev and Putin… January 14, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Russia.16 comments
Intriguingly the Financial Times this week has a piece on a degree of discord between Medvedev and Putin. It reports that:
Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, on Sunday took another apparent swipe at Vladimir Putin, rebuking the prime minister’s government for moving too slowly to alleviate the country’s economic crisis.
And that although…
Most Russians had believed Mr Medvedev would play second fiddle to Mr Putin, who named him as his chosen successor ahead of presidential elections last year…[although] several attempts by Mr Medvedev to pursue independent policies have been thwarted, Kremlin watchers have noted a new assertiveness in the president of late.
The FT certainly has a bee in its bonnet on this issue. For on December 31 they reported that:
…in the six days since Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, described his feelings about taking the oath of office in May, the corridors of power have been buzzing.
“The final responsibility for what happens in the country and for the important decisions taken would rest on my shoulders alone and I would not be able to share this responsibility with anyone,” Mr Medvedev told an interviewer.
And that:
For a normal president in a normal country, such a remark would have been a statement of the obvious. But to a select few, it was a “dog whistle”, a message audible only to those Mr Medvedev wanted to hear.
And on the 1st of August one could also read that:
The relationship between the two men [Putin and Medvedev] has been mostly harmonious, but the new president would clearly like to move out from under his predecessor’s shadow.
To add weight to his normally soft-spoken persona, Mr Medvedev has recently begun mimicking Mr Putin’s tough guy television style, lacing his official-sounding pronouncements with slang and street jargon. There was also plenty of finger jabbing, fist clenching and table slamming as he ran a carefully staged and nationally televised meeting in Gagarin between the town’s small business owners and a contrite looking group of government officials – driven in from Moscow especially for the purpose of being public whipping boys – as Mr Medvedev announced a new plan to fight official corruption.
Talking about rhetoric, Medvedev during the Russian Georgian conflict was strikingly harsh and his overt use of slang – and wow, do I sound prurient as I read this back – very evident.
It’s hard to know what the truth of this matter is. But it is hardly strange that Medvedev, proxy or no, would seek to carve out his own niche or that he might with time come to enjoy both the trappings and the substance of his office. Can’t help though and wonder whether there is any great substance to all this.
Still, in a year when the US Presidency might be thought to be of a certain fascination, and it is – it is, no harm in casting an eye eastwards every once in a while at the Russian Presidency.
Sean Fitzpatrick [formerly] of Anglo Irish Bank… the gift that never stops giving. January 14, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, Uncategorized.7 comments
First there was this…
[he]….called on the Government to reduce corporation tax and tackle the “sacred cow” of universal child benefit, State pensions and medical cards for the over 70s.
… he said the forthcoming budget needed to be bold and “brave” and not revert to a tough budget.
then this…
“This balance [in Anglo Irish Bank] is substantially higher than in the 2007 report because in prior years I had temporarily transferred my loans to another bank before each year end. I had done this on my own initiative over an eight year period..”
The loans in question resulting in…
…the resignation of three senior officials at the bank following the revelation that the Banks’ Chairman, Seán Fitzpatrick concealed 87 million euros in loans made to him by the bank.
The loans to the former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick exceeded €87 million over the eight years he concealed them from shareholders and the public, the Oireachtas Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs heard this afternoon.
Former Revenue Commissioners chairman Dermot Quigley, who investigated the Financial Regulator’s handling of its investigation into the loans, told the committee there were “variations up and down from that figure” over the period in question.
How much more? We are not told. But one hopes we will be one day.
But look, here’s the fun part. Or the tragic part. You decide. Because in a way FitzPatrick was prescient, since in a climate of public sector pay cuts and news that carers allowances are to be cut, his heartfelt appeal to ‘tackle sacred cows’ is coming true. After all, we’ve just seen our state put itself in hock to the financial sector by guaranteeing it with… er… our monies so that there’s nothing left to go around. Or at least so we are told by the great and the good.
And there really is some amazing stuff swirling around at the moment. Talk of four day weeks, pay cuts in the public sector of 5 or 10 % and so on and so forth. To be honest it’s a bit scary. And this is hardly unexpected because it’s meant to be a bit scary. Or at least that’s my interpretation.
Recently I had the opportunity to talk to a number of people involved in the Green Party and to take soundings of their views on the current crisis. And I have to be honest, whatever about the realities or otherwise of the economic problems this state faces, the really worrying stuff is just how much the tropes of the day have been assimilated by our smaller government party. For no-one will tell you with more self-evident sincerity that there is no alternative, that our situation is utterly unlike that of any other nation on the planet, that only the direst measures are necessary but that the measures abroad are not appropriate for here.
Oddly though when one probes a little the facade of assuredness begins to melt, just a bit here and there.
For example, much play was made of the idea that we couldn’t borrow our way out of trouble. “Our credit rating is poor, much poorer than Germany’s”. True indeed, but also true that it was the Governments actions which by underwriting the financial sector in the way it did, including the guarantee on deposits, which pushed the interest rate on borrowing for the RoI higher than our ‘competitors’ in the market for borrowing. Remind me again who is the junior partner in the government?
Then there is the idea that we, alone of all other countries, cannot borrow, whether the interest rate is high or low. The oddity here is that we already borrowing, that we will continue to do so and that this is now seen as the natural, indeed the inevitable, course for other nation-states.
Then the impact on demand seems to have been almost totally overlooked. I was a little heartened by David McWilliams piece on Sunday in the SBP which appeared to recognise the necessity to maintain demand in the economy. Of course to do that, and were we to follow the US and UK examples, we’d be maintaining jobs in the public sector, and increasing their numbers (as well as pump priming the private sector… look at how the UK is now guaranteeing loans to companies). But not here, for we blew much of our disposable income on the banking guarantee, so now the attitude is scalp the public sector. Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but it’s not much more complex.
But here’s the nasty little secret that has only just become apparent… the scale of the crisis is so much greater than the public sector wage bill that to place that front and centre of our response to these problems, as our media and economic commentariat did for the last month or so, is pointless since even the greatest savings would still account for a vanishingly small amount of the monies being borrowed.
Now since we can – I hope – assume that the state doesn’t intend to shut itself down as a functioning entity (although who knows, I have no sense of what the bottom line is for the Government in all this, I doubt they know themselves) some issues are coming into focus. Firstly there is the hand-waving at Government level. Latest example? Dermot Ahern sent out to defend the indefensible.
“We face probably the most drastic decisions any government in the last 30 or 40 years has had to make”, he said.
“But we have to do it and we need general support from the public,” he said.
“I think there is an understanding now, when you even hear some of the comments from the social partners that they do accept that the financial position of the country is difficult, that we can’t go on spending the way we have been spending.”
That doesn’t sound to me like a man who is entirely confident that his entreaties will be heard with anything other than an entirely reasonable scepticism.
“We have to cut our cloth to meet our measure. We need support and we need people to understand… We all have to make sacrifices and I think the Government has shown a lead in that respect.”
“At the risk of being unpopular we have to make decisions that will sustain this country for the next few decades.”
Again one wonders. And ferreted away in the details are intriguing gems such as…
The Cabinet is to hold meetings next week to identify savings but Ministers do not believe that major service cutbacks can produce hundreds of millions worth of savings by year’s end.
Add to that the news that Green Party seeks reductions in the number of Junior Ministers and one does begin to wonder how much fo this is simply cosmetic stuff. The reason for the cuts?
[Dan] Boyle said there had to be changes in the political system and in the structure of government in order to mirror any curbs in public expenditure. “Otherwise getting public acceptance of those expenditure curbs is not going to happen. Obviously, as a party of government, we are going to make that case very strongly.”
And what happens if there isn’t public acceptance of the cuts? What then?
It would be nice to think that within the Dáil there was a strong and vigorous centre left argument being made that while elsewhere left-wing approaches are being pursued in order to combat these problems here in Ireland our political elites remain wedded to a sort of Progressive Democrat redux programme of cuts, despite the fact that we’re already starting from a low base as compared with our European partners. It would nice too to hear some party, or another, or better still both or many, articulate the notion that they intend to protest this slide towards reaction – publicly, nationally and strenuously. But oddly I’m not hearing that (and yes, the Dáil has yet to sit after it’s Christmas ‘holiday’).
What I am hearing is stuff like the following…
TAXPAYERS MUST be shown that public services can be provided efficiently and existing waste must be eliminated before the public will be prepared to support them properly, according to a draft Labour Party reform plan.
While entirely aware that in the public, as in the private, sectors there is waste my experience is that the level is overstated and often a function of high level political decisions rather than systemic problems. But for Labour to phrase this in precisely this way is disheartening, and particularly now at a time when it has become a convenient media shorthand for all the woes of our society rather than the engine of growth during the coming times. And while the report continues by being more strikingly pro-public service the fact that it must wrap the candy in a razor-blade – so to speak – perhaps tells us more about the Labour party in the current period than all the boosterism of its ‘new-found confidence’ in recent times.
And that leads back to a comment made in the article above about the carers allowance.
The Carers Association….chief executive Enda Egan said: “You can’t give money to somebody and take it away again.”
I hope he’s right. But I fear he’s about to be proved wrong. Again and again and again.
Well it made me laugh… January 13, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized, US Politics.add a comment
I’m not one for the somewhat lazy trope that G.W. Bush was a fool. But I applaud a good article on Slate by Jacob Weisberg from yesterday on which was entitled on the website….A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Moron
After Gregory: Dublin Central and other matters… January 13, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.39 comments
The Irish Independent had an interesting (words you won’t read here every day), and broadly correct, article yesterday about the arrangements at the funeral of Tony Gregory under the somewhat incorrect heading ‘No seats for elite at my funeral, Gregory ordered’. Quite naturally he restricted the numbers of the great and the good and – as noted here previously – had the first six rows reserved for canvassers and active supporters. Only three others were given places, the President, the Taoiseach and the Lord Mayor. After that, however exalted, you took your chances on getting a seat in the body of the Church. That this appears unusual to the Independent perhaps tells us more than we might wish to know about the way this society is going. But, the article more broadly indicates that the by-election has started. It suggests that the date of the contest will be the same day as the local and European elections.
So, since normal politics resumes perhaps it is time to consider the by-election and the identity and disposition of the forces preparing to engage.
A long time ago I overheard Tony say to someone that one of the mistakes people and the media make about Dublin Central is to believe that because it has/had two national profile candidates that somehow made it ripe for candidates from outside the constituency to be elected. His point was that the national profile was largely coincidental and that it remained – despite the demographic changes across the decades – a very local constituency indeed. And there’s something to that.
Mary Lou McDonald fought a doughty campaign last time out and yet it didn’t catch fire. Patricia McKenna a less comprehensive one which seemed to fade out well before the end. I’m not suggesting that these were ‘celebrity’ candidates, but I am suggesting that not being from the constituency was problematic for them. I believe that this will be less of a problem for McDonald at the by-election and less again the next time out after that. Indeed my sense would be that if she is willing to think long-term she has a seat and most likely within the decade. That’s a tough one. Christy Burke tried again and again without success, not least because one T. Gregory happened to be in his way. But Gregory has gone and in the absence of a clear candidate from his sector of the political landscape there is all to play for.
Will there be a “Gregory candidate”? I have no idea. I’m not close enough to the circle where such a decision will be made. I suspect though that yes, there will. It makes sense, both political and personal. If there can be a vindication of Tony’s work it surely must be in the retention of an Independent left seat in Dublin Central. And that requires that a campaign is established and fought. Whether, in the absence of Tony’s most unlikely charisma, the fire that was in previous campaigns can be replicated is a most interesting question. But worth noting that fighting for someone after they have departed can be as energising as when they’re alive.
But the issue of celebrity is an interesting one in other ways. Quite some time back I heard rumours that Tony was willing to have Joe Higgins contest the seat at a byelection. I dismissed them, and still do. Joe is a formidable candidate, and yes, it was he who delivered the oration at the graveside, but contesting Dublin Central would be a tall order. Again it comes back to his links to the constituency. Tony was fortunate in that the Independent left gave him a certain degree of cover as regards his programme. Or to put it another way, people on the left or right or centre could easily enough give him a first preference because although plainly of the left sometimes Tony, by dint of not being a member of a party, appeared not to be in the left. And I remember once asking him how important it was for him that the Starry Plough was on his leaflets. Very, was his response, but he noted that relatively few people knew the meaning of it. A Joe Higgins cadidacy, even blessed by the Gregory organisation, would suffer from that party tag. At least, that’s my sense of it. Which isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be worth doing. Tony and Joe might have had their differences, but they were pretty close and there was no mistaking the real liking each had of the other. And to have Higgins back in the Dáil would be a prize, no mistaking.
A candidate from within the Gregory organisation would be more likely. There are obvious problems with this. Maureen O’Sullivan proved herself an excellent and measured public performer at the funeral, she was co-opted to Dublin City Council this last year, her profile is increasing. That may be enough, with some judicious work on the ground across the constituency (and as someone who lives in the same general area as her I can testify to her work on the ground already). But it may not. Her campaign to retain the local election seat is already in full swing and I think it’s reasonable to suggest that she will do so. But to ratchet that up to a by-election campaign will be more difficult. It’s not that there aren’t bodies aplenty to canvass – one thing that surprised me when I first encountered Tony’s election operation was just how massive it was with fleets of canvassers at any given time. But name recognition is the thing. None of this is insuperable. She’s already operating from a level many candidates would give their eye teeth for, but it does mean there’s a mountain to be climbed. Can it be done? I’d say on balance it would be very very difficult indeed.
The Irish Independent argues that:
Cllr Maureen O’Sullivan is likely to represent the fractured Gregory camp as it attempts to hold onto the seat.
“Fractured”? In what sense? I haven’t heard any hint that there are problems in it. It is possible that they are getting the wrong end of the stick as regards the divisions on the broader Independent left in the constituency over the past five years or so.
The position of other further left candidates, particularly independent ones, will be crucial. Two independent left candidates running and the seat is lost. It is as simple as that. But that’s the thing. Independence brings a degree of autonomy, and anyone can – often entirely reasonably – justify any actions as being worthwhile. Whether it might be better for people to play a long game, to establish favours given and set up circumstances where favours must be returned later down the line, is an interesting question. If it were me a public show of unity behind an agreed candidate with iron-clad guarantees that at some specified future date the mantle would pass and would be fully supported would make considerable sense. And that’s the sort of approach which a public show of solidarity and unity at the locals would be a sensible token of trust. Or to put it another way, the old WCA axis combined with the Gregory organisation could theoretically deliver two independent left councillors and either provide a strong base for a go at the Dáil seat in 2012 by an agreed candidate, or just barely win the seat this time with an agreed candidate. That might necessitate some serious compromises by those involved on both sides, and some pretty strategic thinking by people in those formations, in other words how best to retain an Independent left seat and then to establish it for the future. A two-stage process in my view, but others might disagree. I don’t know if that’s possible, but it makes political sense.
Much the same holds true for Labour. On paper it’s not beyond them to bring in a second seat in the constituency. This has been a long term strategy, probably more with an eye towards the departure of Ahern than to this specific set of circumstances. Emer Costello is in situ, and has been for years, has a certain profile and with a push could do the job. How well they wrap themselves in the Starry Plough, a somewhat ill fitting garb after years of the Red Rose of social democracy, will perhaps be pivotal. I would certainly rate their chances on paper as being better than those of the Gregory organisation. But only slightly and in part only due to their already having two councillors on the ground.
For Sinn Féin this is one to be thought through pragmatically. It’s hard to credit the Irish Independents idea that:
It appears the Government will hold the by-election for his seat on the same day as the European and local polls in order to wrong-foot MEP Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Fein.
Look at the first preferences that Sinn Féin got in 2007. Not fertile ground from which to mount a by-election bid. I simply don’t think they can take the seat in a by-election. Lack of transfers will hobble them. Competition for what votes there are will do likewise. But the flag must be flown.
And that leaves Fianna Fáil. They have a vast pool of votes from the Ahern years that they can call on. Their presence at the removal on Tuesday last was such as to leave no doubt that they would squeeze every last drop out of the Gregory legacy that they could in such a way as to make it seem they too were part of it – with no small assist from Ahern’s ‘best friend ever’ routine in the media over the past week or so. And despite the well-known detestation of Tony for that quarter their operation is formidable. Remember, the polls that have Fianna Fáil scraping the floor in Dublin don’t necessarily reflect the reality on the ground in this particular constituency. I would be very surprised if they aren’t in poll position from the start.
But look, it’s difficult at this remove to know how all this will pan out. The day before the last election I had no real feel for how the election would go. I thought Sinn Féin could take a seat, thought it was likely, not least due to their presence in various parts of the constituency. I was very concerned at how Ciaren Perry’s campaign might impact on Tony’s vote. I was even willing to concede that Fianna Fáil could take a third seat on a very good day for them. Look how that worked out. At best we can assess the balance of forces and hope to make some sort of a guess.
So, for my money, despite all the travails of Ahern and Fianna Fáil, this remains Fianna Fáil by-election to lose. Yes, there is a strong case that on a good the Labour Party could take the seat (not least, ironically, because of a growing but still relatively small Fine Gael vote eager to recapture what used to be a seat for them that in all likelihood will transfer to Labour for lack of another home to go to). And it is just possible that a Gregory candidate if positioned with the blessing of the various other smaller left formations in the constituency might just do it on the day. But I’m not hugely optimistic on that score. What is definite is that such a candidate would have to be agreed between the various groups, a solo run by any of them isn’t going to work.
And all that said, I guess I have to admit to looking forward to the interview with Tony to be published in the next edition of Hot Press. The Independent today noted that:
Mr Gregory, in an interview to be published posthumously this week, criticises the former Taoiseach with whom he shared a city constituency for more than a quarter of a century.
But there’ll be more…
Finally, as requested (and somewhat unusually) feel free to use this thread to discuss issues about Gandhi of North Strand. He’s willing to field them. Can I ask, once more, that people keep in mind that even with that willingness on his part it would be better for all of us if this is kept civil and within the laws of libel.
Any other prospective candidates of left parties are welcome to use this facility in the run-up to the local and European elections… don’t all put up your hands at once!
Uh-oh! Someone better tell Chairman Ganley the Prague Libertas office doesn’t appear to be returning his calls. January 12, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, Irish Politics.12 comments
Now, for those of us following the fascinating machinations around Libertas, and really – what a show that has become… what to make of the news today reported in the Irish Times?
For under the headline “Anti-Lisbon party launches in Czech Republic” one will read:
A NEW political party dedicated to campaigning against the Lisbon Treaty in the Czech Republic will be launched today by close associates of Czech president Vaclav Klaus.
Yes, yes. This we knew already…
But in a blow to the pan-European ambitions of Declan Ganley, its founder Petr Mach has ruled out adopting the Libertas brand to compete in the European elections.
Why would that be Mr. Mach?
“I tried to explain to him that…”
Hold on… ‘tried to explain to him…’ ‘him’ being Declan Ganley one presumes... ‘tried to explain’... that suggests that the effort was unsuccessful… but that it was seen as necessary… oh dear.
Anyway, continue.
“I tried to explain to him that setting up parties is a different thing than setting up businesses. If he has a business he can set up subsidiaries and he would then be the main shareholder of it. It is different with political parties,” said Mr Mach, who held talks with Mr Ganley on whether to join forces and form a Czech Libertas.
Now this, this is fascinating. It would appear that Libertas, or its founder, by Mach’s account, regarded itself as a business with Ganley as its CEO. What a telling insight into the worldview of our leading Irish eurosceptic… I mean of course… eurorealist.
And what’s this?
The talks broke down because Mr Mach wants to focus his party – which is called the Free Citizens’ Party (Strana Svobodnych Obcanu) – on national rather than EU politics and not simply become a subsidiary of Libertas. It will campaign in the European elections, but its main goal is to become a force in Czech politics that can rival the ruling Civic Democrat party (ODS), which has recently distanced itself from Klaus over his Eurosceptic views ahead of the Czech Republic’s elevation to the position of president of the EU’s council of ministers.
A subsidiary of Libertas, on Czech soil. Amazing stuff.
It gets better…
Mr Ganley will now try to set up his own Libertas branch in the Czech Republic without Mr Mach. “Petr Mach is a Eurosceptic and I am not,” Mr Ganley said yesterday…
Which, of course, is why he sought to have an agreement with Mr. Mach and went into talks with him. One wonders how long it took him to realise that his interlocuter was a ‘eurosceptic’…ten minutes, fifteen? Still, perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies since…
“Where we run candidates on the ballot paper; they will be Libertas candidates and they won’t be Eurosceptic,” said Mr Ganley, who was in Poland at the weekend interviewing potential candidates. He said Libertas officials would visit the Czech Republic this week.
Interviewing potential candidates? Really, doesn’t this strike people as quite utterly bizarre that an Irish businessman who has run a successful campaign against an EU Treaty is attempting to establish a pan-EU political party and is hot-footing it around the continent ‘interviewing’ candidates? Like, who gave him the keys of the kingdom?
And on that point Mach has harsh words about Ganley’s remaining ambitions in the European political field…
…said Mr Ganley’s proposal to set up Libertas branches in every EU state was unlikely to work because there was no single European “demos” or public opinion.
“I think his [Ganley's] concept won’t work. You simply cannot know the situation in all member states,” Mr Mach said.
“In all countries the public will always consider him a stranger because he speaks a different language. It is impossible to campaign in a foreign language. I think you cannot apply a business concept to politics.”
Now put aside the notion that cultural and linguistic differences are quite so essentialist as Mach appears to believe, although on a practical day to day level they obviously present massive problems, but surely the fundamental problem here, and one that Ganley appears to be ignoring, or worse still be unaware of, is that quite contrary to the cries of the most ardent eurosceptics and to the dismay of the most vociferous europhiles the EU is far from the all powerful political economic hegemon of popular imagination and that – like it or not – national cultures and political environments will for the foreseeable future always be the primary context of political action. They provide the intrinsic brake on integration. And the very lack of serious trans-national political activity – even, crucially, amongst like minded political parties from one country or another – and the concentration on the EU dynamic on the Council of Ministers tells us just how real, if sometimes difficult to see clearly, the limits to European integration actually are.
And furthermore it makes no sense… for eurosceptics to assemble under a single banner across Europe. They have, as we see above, directly divergent ambitions and goals. They are innately averse to ‘other’, even the ‘other’ that shares their world view.
Mach points to this also when he suggests that there is no place for Libertas within the Czech political environment since that space is already occupied… but, magnanimously…
…his party would be willing to co-operate with any Libertas MEPs elected to the European Parliament in other EU states to oppose the Lisbon Treaty following the European elections in June.
“In principle I think we both share the same goal . . . so it would be practical if he would accept our party as part of a loose alliance, but I have not received a reply,” he said.
But beyond that no formal linkage on the pan-European level. And here’s another thought. Mach’s Free Citizens’ Party, while not my cup of tea, is clearly an organic element within the Czech polity. It grows out of the disenchantment of the Vaclav Klaus wing of the ruling ODS conservative party with the shift towards a pro-EU stance by the government. In other words it is a part and parcel of their political ecology, even to the point that Mach accepts that on most issues it will be ‘close’ to the ODS. Sure, there’s some talk that polling data sees a Libertas-style party getting up to 22 percent of the vote. But that’s now and then is then. The Treaty will most likely be ratified in the Czech parliament, and whether signed or not by that great appointed democrat Klaus (oh yes folks, for he didn’t get his position at popular vote election but by a parliamentary vote), will dissipate as an issue in the Czech polity.
But what of Libertas? There are a lot of half-baked notions that it might co-opt a PD vote, but I’ve no real sense that PD voters are antagonistic to the EU in any serious fashion, or that FG voters or FF voters (or more importantly activists) are either. Nor does it seem to have roots into the Irish political system, and whatever about the hand-waving and prognostications of doom relating to the supposed fracture of our current system it seems a safe bet that within five years Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will remain the two largest political blocs in the Republic.
And where is the space for an avowedly ‘Eurorealist’ formation? That will, as has the green agenda and others before it, be co-opted by the big battalions, at least rhetorically while the substance remains more or less the same. We’ve already been treated to two examples of same during and after the last Lisbon referendum when both Fine Gael and Labour blew hot and cold over the Treaty. I’d imagine any future feints in that direction will be a bit more thought through, but if they have to be done they will be.
And as with Prague, so with other states where internal political activity will dictate the pace of change, such as it is. Poland’s indigenous political class already has its Eurosceptic representation, with no real call for external interference.
Which leaves the Libertas looking decidedly threadbare. An Irish solution to an Irish problem, which would be mostly right, except for the solution bit, or the problem bit. And that leads to the thought that if Libertas has any hope, any hope at all of making serious political inroads it will be here in this state. Worth returning to soon.
The Irish Left Archive: “The International Socialists and the Russian Revolution”, published by the British and Irish Communist Organisation, 1975 January 12, 2009
Posted by irishonlineleftarchive in British and Irish Communist Organisation (BICO), Irish Left Online Document Archive.26 comments
I’m very grateful to Ken MacLeod for scanning (all 28 pages!) the following for the Left Archive. The document provides an analysis dating from 1975 by BICO of the International Socialists. As Ken notes:
In the 1970s and 1980s the back room of Collet’s in Gray’s Inn Road, London sold literature from any and every leftist group. I probably came across this pamphlet in 1977. I opened it out of idle curiosity and was hooked. On the train back to Hayes I read it from cover to cover with shocked fascination. Re-reading it thirty-odd years later, the shock has faded but the fascination remains. I think it’s still worth reading.
This pamphlet was, going by the inimitable style, written by Brendan Clifford. The B&ICO is usually identified with the Two Nations theory, and their articles and pamphlets on Communist history and on the problems facing the British Labour movement in the 1970s have been somewhat overlooked. They were always interesting to read, even if you disagreed with them. They sold very well from that back room in Collet’s.
This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… the Chills January 10, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to..., Uncategorized.4 comments
Somehow this seems suitable for the week that’s in it.
Heavenly Pop Hit. Surely you must have heard that song? Eco-friendly. 1990 or thereabouts. Taken from the album Submarine Bells. No? Really? Well here it is.
Not sure about that multi-coloured shirt thing that’s going on there Martin, but otherwise, pretty good.
Martin Phillipps, for it was he, and his merry troupe, and troupe it was because membership of New Zealand post punk/new wave/psychedelic group The Chills was – for most – a short-lived affair, spent much of the 1980s and a bit of the 1990s producing some quite gorgeous (as Steve Jobs might say) alternative music. Melodic, a mixture of the jangly psychedelic tinged guitar rock of the 1960s with a darker harder edge drawn from proto-punk. So think the Velvet Underground crossed with the Byrds, but gloomier… sometimes. And a crucial element to their sound were the faux 60′s keyboards.
As ever I’m not sure how I encountered them, I had their earlier collection of singles on vinyl sometime in the late 1980s, but I purchased Submarine Bells in London in the early 1990s, probably second hand in Reckless Records off Wardour Street. I seem to remember hearing recently that Reckless has gone from there which is a terrible pity. At one point my record/CD collection absolutely depended on second hand records, and later CDs, from there. That said I tended to prefer Sister Ray further down the Street which had a more pointedly indie/dance/psychedelic thing going on, and even now would drop in there whenever I’m in London.
Anyhow, the Chills. Purveyors of the Dunedin sound along with the entertainingly daft The Clean, The Bats, the Verlaines, Straitjacket Fits and others, many many others (and often the membership of these groups overlapped). The Chills never did hugely well commercially, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good, perhaps, in that it maintained a certain authenticity to their music, bad in that they never had the exposure they deserved. They went to London in the late 1980s. Didn’t do much better. But came up with gems like this:
Or the all too accurate Doledrums with a closing verse that went:
In the doledrums
On the dole
But the benefits arrive and life goes on
The benefits arrive and life goes on
The benefits arrive and life goes on and on and on… (etc)
I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for Australian bands such as the Church, the Crystal Set, The Go-Betweens and suchlike, so their Antipodean colleagues, albeit from islands well to the east in the Pacific wasn’t such a stretch.
I had a copy of their later Soft Bomb, but it was robbed out of the house I rented at the time during the 1990s and I never got around to replacing it. Also stolen was a masterful Best of collection which stretched across two CDs really captured the essence of the band. I see that it is now only available on a single disc which completely truncates their output.
There was a fragility to the sound… take Pink Frost about a dream he had (although sheesh, the video… Philipps looks like me and my friends did in 1978 at the age of fourteen, all tucked in tight jumpers, hands by our sides pumped up on Dirty Harry movies and sugary sweets. Not cool).
Apparently they’re gigging again and making the odd record here and there. Let’s hope they’re as odd as they ever were.
I’ll leave you with I Love My Leather Jacket…
