No Minister, don’t say that, whatever you do… or Lisbon II and the economic crisis… March 17, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, European Politics, European Union, Irish Politics, Uncategorized.add a comment
Have to admit, my heart sank when I read the following in today’s Irish Times…
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan predicted Irish voters will back a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, as a worsening economic crisis builds support for Ireland’s position within the European Union.
The Government is due to hold a new poll on the treaty on a date yet to be set later this year following its rejection last June.
Mr Lenihan said voters will embrace the EU and reject a go-alone policy after the collapse of Iceland’s economy.
“A lot of political pundits say the choice next time for Ireland will be Rome or Reykjavik,” Mr Lenihan said in an interview with Bloomberg Television today. “Most people will vote for Rome.”
It’s not that I’m agin Lisbon, which I’m aware is not a hugely typical position on much of the left, critical support as long as the opt-outs are more than just rhetorical is about where I am. And I’ve mentioned only recently that despite my support for Lisbon One I do believe that only by reworking the nature of our relationship to the Treaty would it be justifiable to bring it before the people again, even if some of that reworking is – to be honest – operating against my own beliefs. But that’s democracy, however imperfect, and that is also intrinsic to actually listening to the complaints of the electorate.
It’s the implicit second guessing of the electorate that irritates me. Who knows if the financial crisis is responsible for the current swings in polls to the YES side? Who knows if that swing will be sustained. I’d much prefer if the government were out there saying why they think it is necessary to vote YES which is a distinctly different approach.
So to hear Lenihan offering up hostages to fortune like the above, particularly to an external media outlet, seems to me to be an exhibition not of confidence but of complacency. There is absolutely no need for such rhetoric, no necessity to be suggesting:
“There’s growing support for a Yes vote,” Mr Lenihan said. “As the economic crisis has deepened, the population realizes how important Europe is to Ireland.”
It sounds to me like pointless boosterism, not least since there has as of yet been no effort on the part of the government to actually, y’know, do aything about it…
Hoping that the polls will continue to swing the way of the YES vote is all very well. So far so good. But there is a lot of this yet to run and even the smallest hint that they are beginning to engage with this rather than hoping it all comes right on the day might be no bad thing.
John Waters doesn’t believe that the current economic problems lie with systems but with an incapability for earthly satisfaction. No doubt that will be of great comfort to the victims of those economic problems. March 17, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Complete nonsense, Economics, Economy, Irish Politics.11 comments
Granted this is a couple of days late, but it’s sort of suitable for St. Patrick’s Day as you’ll discover. And incidentally, what happened to the freezing rain and biting cold of previous St. Patrick’s Days? It’s an almost balmy 11 degrees in Dublin, although standard operating procedure hasn’t been entirely superceded. The sky is gray. I was working in Dublin city center yesterday (incidentally I’m guessing most made a long weekend of it, where I was was a ghost town) and at lunch went out for a few minutes to find the streets filled with tourists clutching tricolours and/or with fluorescent dyed green hair. Ah, our national holiday.
As regards John Waters. He’s in fine form. Oh yeah. He’s in fine form. Revived and revitalised from his break earlier in the year John Waters has decided to give us the dubious benefit of his opinions on a range of issues. Now he starts with a reference to his book “An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Ireland” which I have to admit is one I like more than usually. Sure, there was a hint of later problems seeping into the text, but it remained a pluralistic and essentially grounded work. But now he seeks to quote from it in reference to a point he made about the Éamon de Valera 1943 St. Patrick’s Day speech which is often misquoted as mentioning ‘comely maidens’.
He argues that:
…recently I’ve taken to floating an idea I ceased promoting over a decade ago because you cannot argue it with success: that Éamon de Valera, when he delivered his 1943 St Patrick’s Day “dream speech” was not wrong about everything. For years it was impossible to say this without being run out of town.
He continues;
At the mention of Dev, my recent researches have established, the national expression still creases into a sneer. The objections haven’t changed, in spite of everything.
And then that:
I find it infinitely interesting that, even now, in response to such provocation, someone will immediately mutter disparagingly about Dev and his “comely maidens dancing at the crossroads”, although the speech referred to neither phenomenon. Unfazed by such semantics, the speaker will invariably plough on to condemn de Valera for urging us to remain poor and isolated.
But here’s the problem. Even though the speech contained no such phrase, that doesn’t suddenly mean that the speech was correct in all or part. But for Waters it is not just a speech, it is never – as his words on Brian Cowen’s recent speech to businesspeople demonstrated – just a speech, but instead a sort of psychological mine that dives to the hidden depths of the Irish essence. So he argues that:
[De Valera's] purpose was to establish a philosophical bedrock on which a coherent society might be built. The idea that Ireland might be “the home of a people living the life that God desires than man should live” is surely recognisable as code for a society in which connectedness with absolute values would enable a balance in which human happiness would be maximised. Dev was speaking at the level of metaphor, outlining not a literal landscape but a parable of a society in which human beings might prosper without succumbing to illusions or false gods. He was proposing the cultivation of a collective consciousness wired to the true meaning of human existence, bounded by a healthy sense of sufficiency and capable of growing by its own lights. The nearest he came to fantasising about comely maidens was the expression of a desire that his ideal Ireland would include the “laughter of happy maidens”, which always stuck me as fairly unexceptionable. He made no mention of crossroads at all.
Was de Valera really doing any such thing? Did he genuinely attempt to generate such a parable, or was it more likely that in a time of war, this was after all the Emergency, when a small impoverished neutral and essentially undefended state on this island attempted to stand aside as best it could, he decided to give a pep talk to the nation, one that remained within the limits of what was achievable?
And like all pep talks it consisted of saying back to the recipient the truth varnished with some stirring rhetoric about just how fabulous we as a people are. Ireland was dilapidated, in material terms there was little to be done about it at that point, what else would de Valera have suggested but that “Ireland was the home of people who value material wealth only as the basis for right living”? He was hardly going to usher in the consumer society. And Waters mistakes or elides the loftily worded but essentially pragmatic statement of the now in 1943 with some sort of template thereafter.
Which makes his subsequent statements seem just a little bit odd…
Is what scares us the thought of being satisfied with frugal comfort? Are we still offended by the notion that the population of this ideal Ireland might devote its leisure to the things of the spirit?
That’s all fine and dandy, but it seems wildly at variance with the reality of life in a somewhat secular democracy. Because it’s not due to offence at such a notion as to a sense that it is simply not a plausible mode of life for people. Nor, quite frankly, does it seem terribly attractive, or even hugely worked out. What is the detail of this life of the ‘spirit’? What would it entail? How would it be imposed and so on?
Because the reality away from the life of the mind Waters parades for us is that things haven’t been quite as wonderful at the coal-face as he might like to suggest. The boom in this state lasted about fifteen years, a little more or a little less depending upon analysis (I’m of the view that things really took off in 1997 – 1998 – late enough in the day). It’s impacts were far from even either geographically or demographically.
And the major complaints that one will hear expressed, if one asks about fears are not about the fripperies of life, DVDs, Flatscreen televisions, new cars and so on, but about the fundamentals. Will I have a job next week? What sort of health care can I expect as I get older? Will my private or state pension be sufficient unto the day? Will I get by?
And when the job goes the questions get simpler again, but worse. Much worse.
The last time I was made redundant, some five years ago, and I’m hesitant to bring this up again, those were thoughts that went through my head. Life gets awful simple in that context, dismantled to its most basic elements. How will I eat? How long can the redundancy be eked out? How much dole will I receive and how long can I get by on it? How do I explain to prospective employers what has happened? Then there is the basic raw shock of the situation, so powerful that it saps even the energy to try to get a new job. The fear that nothing will improve, that the responsibilities to family and others won’t be met. And that’s happening to thousands of people across this island.
But for Waters, seemingly insulated from such petty concerns it is all about the big stuff. The very very big stuff. And it’s all a bit absurd and, frankly, more than a bit self-indulgent…
A caricatured version of this speech was used for several generations to sell an entirely different kind of existence: one in which the sense of an absolute relationship with reality was replaced by the idea that limitless progress could one day meet all human needs. In this dream of Ireland, happiness would be predicated on belongings and sensations. Dev’s speech became the key weapon in an ideological war that, in truth, has brought us to this sorry pass: reduced to a dependency on the material and no longer able to maintain the habit.
Which is close enough to nonsense if you think about it. He sounds for all the world like a child who has had their iPod whipped away from them, or rather, he appears to believe that everyone else is like that child. But the situation we face is vastly more serious than such trivialities.
And when he does attempt to make a linkage with the economic he staggers badly…
What has happened, it is surely obvious, is more than an economic crisis. It is a crisis in the relationship between human beings and the systems they created to serve their wants. Human desire has burst at supersonic speed through the fragile edifice of the money system, leaving nothing in its wake but shattered illusions and unsatisfied appetites. The problem lies not with the systems, but with the fact that human longing, being infinite, is incapable of earthly satisfaction.
Which again is near meaningless. The human longing for security of employment, for security of income, for healthcare, for provision for family and friends are all eminently capable of earthly satisfaction and entirely subject to socio-economic and political processes.
The sort of ‘longing’ he refers to sits above such matters, is indeed the product of societies where there is time to ponder such matters. Which ironically is precisely the sort of society we live in today where people have disposable time as much as disposable income.
Oddly enough André Gorz, and indeed most Marxists and post-Marxists, have had similar thoughts, about societies which would eschew the commercial and the mass produced, of humans unshackled by economic concerns so that they could live the sort of insightful and enquiring lives that are a cousin of those proposed by Waters, but their proscriptions (quibble about the details as we might) was that it would take an engagement with the material, not a sort of headlong rush away from it, in order to generate those societies and those reformed human relations. Which means that glib talk about ‘unsatisfied appetites’ when unemployment increases seems at best off the point, at worst callously detached from the day to day concerns of hundreds of thousands.
But that wouldn’t fit into an analysis which concludes:
The idea that “regulation” could have saved us from the present calamity is as ridiculous as it is pervasive. This now constant refrain implies that some among us should have kept their heads, gone against the mood of the moment and sought to deny us our due. But the mindset epitomised by the caricature of Dev and his dream had made this all but impossible. Central to our post-de Valera imagination was the idea that restraint was a reactionary idea, that limits were for losers, that values were whatever the market decided. And despite everything, we remain incapable of making connections. We have learned nothing and understood nothing. Our towers of Babel fall around our ears, but still we hear only what justifies our deluded determination to make the same mistakes all over again.
There is no ‘we’ in this discussion and debate (at least not in the sense that he means it), no meta conversation about the Irish psyche (however that may be defined), no reason to berate people one more time for their supposed failings in not living the life of the mind as defined by Waters. There are only people in a society trying to get by as best they can, as they always have. No help though from articles like that.
And for the day that’s in it… Happy St. Patrick’s… however you choose to interpret that… 
The Budget in April is going to be both the severest ever seen, and… er… maybe not so severe as foreseen. Or maybe it could be too severe and damage growth. Fancy that! March 16, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, Irish Politics.16 comments
If one is confused by the noises emanating from the media on the Budget, don’t worry. That’s perfectly reasonable. Because there is no end of divergence about the severity of the Budget and the outcomes from that severity. Read Stephen Collins on Saturday in the Irish Times and you’ll be told:
The only way that the State’s solvency and its ability to function can be guaranteed is if the April 7th budget cuts deep into the level of public spending and raises significantly more tax to plug the yawning gap between income and expenditure. The tragedy is that the Coalition’s authority was severely weakened by the budget decision on medical cards for the over-70s last October.
And…
The situation is now so bad that Cowen and his colleagues have nothing left to lose by going for broke and bringing in the toughest budget in living memory.
And:
In the Dáil during the week Cowen had the appearance of a man resigned to doing what is required. While the hysterical reaction to the October budget doesn’t give him any great grounds for optimism about the electorate’s ability to understand its own interests, in the short term Fianna Fáil’s best option is still to do what is necessary and hope for the best. In any case, there is no other choice.
Is there really?
Read Pat Leahy in the Sunday Business Post – and for my money both he and that newspaper, whatever one may think of their overall ideological and economic position are a must-read – and the story is altogether less clear:
Fears that massive budget cuts in public spending and steep tax increases could prompt a further slowdown in economic activity are likely to lessen the severity of next month’s emergency budget.
Ministers and officials are worried that taking too much money out of the economy could further depress demand, leading to lower tax receipts and worsening the economic crisis.
And…
These concerns could lead to a further expansion in borrowing this year, beyond the €20 billion already anticipated.
Oh.
Even Cliff Taylor on the inside pages is far from sanguine about the effects of the Budget arguing that:
Ironically, the criticism post budget could well focus on whether the government has actually gone that bit too far in raising taxes and cutting spending.
Why that is ironic, particularly since we’ve been told that those tools of fiscal policy are the only thing that will save the economy. And remember when we talk about spending in the context of his usage we’re really talking about spending on the public sector in all the multifarious ways that encompasses.
If it tries to raise billions through massive income tax hikes, there is a real risk that it will fail and, by doing so, will drive the economy even deeper into recession.
Raising taxes and cutting spending both take cash out of the economy and depress activity, in the short-term at least. In the longer term, of course, having a credible policy builds confidence and sets a platform for growth.
But there won’t be a longer term if we screw up the economy, or more specifically economic activity, in the short to medium term.
Read Colm Keena in the Irish Times today and yet further confusion – or what I like to call complexity – enters the equation.
If we try to fill the hole between the January plan and the end of February revision we need to get €4 billion plus from harsh tax increases and harsh expenditure cuts.
That sounds bad but in fact the situation is worse. When you suck €4 billion out of an economy it has a contracting effect. Because the economy shrinks you get less than you targeted. So to get €4 billion you aim for above €4 billion.
And even more intriguingly:
This is something the department seems to have overlooked in February when bringing in the public sector pension levy and other measures aimed at raising/saving €2 billion.
Overlooked? Surely not… In a context where the media, economic commentators and others were baying for blood – or money – somehow that particular aspect of this got lost in the mix. Which is odd, because both here on the CLR and at the Irish Left Review and Notes on the Front a number of people have been arguing strenuously against the sort of precipitate cuts that Stephen Collins et all envisage.
Indeed one could argue from reading the comments above that Brian Cowen ‘going for broke’ might just break the country.
And Keena makes a further point that seems also to have been forgotten:
The idea is complicated by the fact that people may have already begun cutting back, in anticipation of what is to come, and so when the cuts come the contracting effect may not be as big as it would otherwise be.
Anecdotal evidence… no wait, not just anecdotal, the data from retail sales is very clear, demonstrates precisely this point, that consumption and expenditure is down. But hey, throw in the ‘harshest budget’ on record and no doubt against all logic and rationality consumption and demand will rise again.
Won’t they?
Patently not. One of the most lamentable aspects of this ‘debate’ has been the way it has been conducted in soundbites where ‘pain’ is something that only the public can and should feel and proposed options are entirely without negative economic consequence. But any of us with half a head and even the vaguest sense of economics know that if money is taken out of the economy it is more than likely that economic activity will fall. And this, naturally, is why in the US and the UK fiscal stimulus is all the rage to the point that those governments have either started or are considering previously unheard of measures such as quantitative easing.
But here, locked into our twin crises of a financial sector that has conducted itself ruinously and a tax base that has been entirely inappropriate for the state this nation faces, such thoughts have been anathema, and the posited solutions have been back of the envelope ideological reductionist stuff. And it is difficult not to be profoundly cynical at the nature of the discourse because many of those proposing such ‘solutions’ are aware of how thin they are and that their outcomes will near inevitably worsen our plight. Perhaps their rhetoric was used because they thought it necessary to arrive at a consensus on something that would be nearly right (in all senses of the term). But as the dust clears its possible to see just how potentially incorrect the policies they currently champion will be.
And this is something that David McWilliams notes in a thoughtful piece where he argues that the emphasis in policy terms is wrongly on short term change in the face of cyclical events and entirely ignores how we should reposition the ship to account for the inevitable upturn:
This is why it is depressing to hear the uniformity of opinion backing the government’s emergency budget proposal. When the mainstream economic profession, the Department of Finance mandarins and the commentariat are foursquare behind any idea, it is time to worry.
Remember, none of these guys in the mid-2000s saw the bust coming and, possibly more to the point, back in the mid-1990s, none of them predicted the boom, so why trust them now?
Why indeed? Their track record is far from exemplary, the policies they championed previously are shown to have been a bust leading us to this very spot.
McWilliams argues that:
Cutting wildly now and raising taxes simultaneously is not the answer. In fact, this will precipitate another fiscal crisis – and another and another. Ireland’s problem is one of liquidity, and this is a short-term dilemma in a monetary union.
As this column argued last week, some time in the next few years, this problem will right itself, either through a Euro-wide bond issuance, a national recovery bond or through the international cycle playing out its course. We simply need to think clearly and stop behaving like accountants, terrified by the tyranny of the balance sheet.
And add to that some thoughts that Michael Taft raises today on Notes on the Front and at the Irish Left Review…
There is one sentence, not elaborated on, that appears in the Ulster Bank report:
‘. . . the likelihood of a significant fiscal contraction between now and 2013 – with the Government taking about 2 percentage points out of the economy each year – adds to the negative influences and pushes out the timing and extent of the eventual recovery.’
Taking out? Adding to negative influences? Pushes out? So what would happen if the Government put 2 percentage points back into the economy? We don’t get those calculations because the orthodoxy slaps down anyone bold enough to suggest stimulus.
Keena makes a final point that to me is at the heart of this matter, current crises set aside.
The next few years will be a grim period in the economic history of the State but could be a good time to at last debate what level of public services people want the State to provide, and how we should pay for them.
That is the vital terrain on which this must be fought… because counter-intuitively this environment offers an opportunity for a rebalancing of the feasible with the optimal. The language we are hearing doesn’t give cause for optimism. At best we look as if we are going headlong towards a two tier society where universal benefits in health, welfare and education are replaced by means testing. I can’t think of anything more destructive to a society and a polity. I also can’t think of anything less egalitarian. The left has be out there arguing that general taxation should pay for general provision of benefits free at point of access and that for that to occur all the nonsense about lower taxes (a game that the Labour Party indulged in at the last election but thankfully appears to have rowed back from in more recent times. Sinn Féin to their credit were less inclined to join that particular bonfire of logic – although there were wobbles and unnecessary ‘compromises’. The Green Party, to their credit, has long argued for increased taxation but, and this is less creditable, only for very specific ends) that there genuinely is no such thing as a free lunch. If we want world class services we must pay for them and pay for them out of general taxation.
It is that simple, but that requires the debate is framed very carefully indeed.
The Irish Left Archive [Remembering 1969]: United Irishman: Sinn Féin March 1969 March 16, 2009
Posted by irishonlineleftarchive in Irish Left Online Document Archive, Irish Left Online Document Archive (Remembering 1969), Sinn Féin.7 comments
This was first posted in March 2008, but as this is the 40th Anniversary it seems only proper to repost it in the Remembering 1969 series of the Irish Left Archive, with slight amendments to the text below…
Cast your mind back to March 1969. The Troubles had yet to manifest themselves. Sinn Féin was a single organisation, as was the IRA. Almost unbelievably [and I'd like confirmation of this] Eamon Mallie and Patrick Bishop in their work on PIRA suggest that the first Civil Rights Association branch in Belfast was organised that April]. And April was to see the first serious clashes there between CRA members and the RUC.
So, if not quite the calm before the storm, it was certainly only in the first stages of the storm. But, as Richard English has noted, in 1966 the IRA’s strength was about a thousand, and in that year a plan had been drawn up to restart a campaign in the North. Indeed English writes that ‘in Belfast the IRA had grown significantly between 1962 and 1969. All of this should caution against too simplistic assumption that the organisation was militarily dead in the 1960s… in part however such martial noises as the IRA made during the decade were required precisely because Goulding did indeed want his army to embark on a new departure into radical politics’. Brian Hanley of Queens University Belfast has conducted further research which supports the contention that radicalism was entirely the order of the day and far from a clear demilitarisation there was a considerable level of activism.
In this context what then was the message coming from the Republican movement?
Well, a mixed one which clearly tilted towards civil activism but hasn’t forgotten the past, as evidenced by an article on the 1939 campaign. One can but applaud the series on the counties of Ireland (Gaillimh in this edition) and the sidebar on estates of more than 400 acres, or indeed the tips on ‘defence tactics for demonstrators’. Roy Johnstone has an article on the Irish Labour Party. We read a piece on the Independent Orange Order.
The editorial criticises Peoples Democracy (not least for its stance on partition) and interestingly argues that ‘confrontation in the Six Counties must not be pushed beyond its real use’. An indication of future directions perhaps in the following sentence ‘In its extreme form as in Newry it polarises religious attitudes, as each side springs to defend “its own”.
The design of this newspaper is good with a strong visual approach that would put some commercial publications of the time to shame.
This will be the first of a regular posting of successive UI’s through 1969 and on through to 1972 which will be an interesting means of charting the changes that occurred as Republicanism ruptured and very different approaches established themselves in those crucial years.
The Irish Left Archive [Remembering 1969] seeks to bring into the public domain documents and publications from 1969 with a left and Republican slant. Already there are a number of documents that have been donated or are on file, but if you have any material you think might be appropriate – and, in particular, Official and Provisional Sinn Féin publications would be welcome – please don’t hesitate to email me at worldbystorm@eircom.net. Can I also take this opportunity to call again for any donations to the Archive – we’re adding trade union material and other materials of interest would include left-wing unionist publications from the last thirty years…
This text and these files are a resource for use freely by anyone who wants to for whatever purpose – that’s the whole point of the Archive (well that and the discussions). But if you do happen to use them we’d really appreciate if you mentioned that you found them at the Irish Left Online Document Archive…
Chairman Ganley limbers up for the European elections… Or, let’s play the establishment card… twice over March 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, European Union, Irish Politics.4 comments
The Chairman is standing in the European Elections. Ireland North West is the constituency. And his message is clear…
“A vote for us is not a vote against Brussels, it is a vote against those in Brussels who ignore you, don’t listen to you, and don’t care about you.”
And…
“But our message is true. Our principles are correct. We are on the side of the people, not the establishment in Dublin. If we work hard, stay focused and make our case, we will win.”
Two establishments to take on? Kudos to the Chairman. Although whether that will work quite as well as it sometimes does in US politics remains to be seen.
That Cramer/Stewart ‘smackdown’ and ‘moral seriousness’. March 15, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economics, Economy, US Media, US Politics.17 comments
Very briefly, not sure how many people saw the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer ‘smackdown’. To fill those who didn’t in, Jon Stewart of the near peerless Daily Show, made the more than fair point that CNBC had completely misinterpreted the financial crisis. More pointedly he criticised Rick Santelli, CNBC editor who had had a rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in which he derided the government, and Obama, very directly for giving homeowners any level of financial assistance – this latter group he termed ‘losers’.
Now, one might argue that this was chutzpah of the highest order seeing as the financial wizards who applauded Santelli’s outburst were themselves benefiting directly from Federal largesse to the financial industry, and that the amounts going to home owners were a minor element of the financial packages (in fairness to Santelli he has also criticised the bail-out more broadly – but his charges about ‘losers’ were ill-made and inaccurate). Santelli backed out of an appearance on the Daily Show.
Cue a Daily Show offensive against CNBC’s financial coverage which also brought in Jim Cramer, host of “Mad Money”.
Response? A week long clash in the media, entirely overhyped that purported some sort of feud between Stewart and Cramer.
You’ll find the details here.
But look, all that has been gone through at length elsewhere. What really struck me was how the eventual ‘debate’ on the Daily Show between Cramer and Stewart went, because it encapsulated (and this presumably was Stewart’s purpose) so much of the artifice in the media. First up it had to be highly embarrassing to Cramer for footage was shown of him discussing various trading tactics while a hedge fund manager that were… well, let’s put it this way… not entirely best practice. What was interesting was how civil the discussion remained, even as Cramer essentially (and also in fairness with some grace – although he had little choice) capitulated, and how removed all this was from the media hype which surrounded the issue.
Indeed for an example of how the media trivialises critiques of the financial sector, or indeed any supposedly weighty topic, you’d be hard pressed to find a better demonstration than the way they publicised this supposed ‘grudgematch’. No word of their responsibilities as media, merely an artificial ‘dispute’ that obfuscated the reality. This isn’t to suggest that the media presentation alone is the problem. The issues with the US and global financial sector are intrinsic to that sector, but the sort of frothy coverage that surrounds it – particularly in the US media – does everyone a disservice.
You can see the footage here…
I found it almost unwatchable, not least because it rips away the facade of the media as ‘entertainment’ and drives home the point that for all the gimmicks and suchlike programmes like Mad Money evade their responsibility to consumers, something that Cramer explicitly admitted. And it was unwatchable too because here was someone willing to call it and directly, not using the usual blustering evasions that characterise what passes for public debate, but actually sitting another individual down with no bombast, no grandstanding, instead an almost forensic dissection of where and how this has gone wrong. This personal, but not personalised, aspect to it was remarkable.
As Matt Miller noted on the latest Left Right and Centre on KCRW (at 22.30 minutes in or so – and if you want to hear Tony Blankley not get it in an heroic fashion, well listen to his response.) :
There is something striking… that Jon Stewart has to step in… that it’s a fake news show… that’s the only one which has the moral seriousness to call this question.
Libertas… in trouble… again… Never! March 14, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, European Union, Irish Politics.5 comments
You know, for an organisation that promotes itself as containing the brightest and the best one has to worry a little about its propensity for tripping over itself time and again. For after the strangely flaw-filled trip around Europe as the franchise branches open, with splits, allegations of all manner of behaviour, defections and denials it is at home that the cruellest blow to Libertas yet has been delivered.
The Standards in Public Office Commission has announced that Libertas:
…has failed to provide information on loans… according to a report on the Lisbon Treaty referendum commissioned by Minister for the Environment John Gormley.
Now ponder that for a moment if you will. There is some irony in John Gormley – of all people, given his track record on matters EU – being where he is at this point on this issue. But again, for every sinner that repenteth… etc, etc. And in fairness, one could argue quite convincingly that the Green Party for quite some time has had an approach to the EU which could at no great stretch be considered euro-critical rather than eurosceptic (although it also has the latter strain, no mistake there).
Anyhow, the tome that has landed on Minister Gormley’s desk argues that:
[The Commission] said it wrote to Libertas regarding the provision of loans to fund its referendum campaign after Libertas informed the commission of a loan provided by its founder, Declan Ganley.
The commission asked whether other loans had been provided to fund the campaign. “At the time of writing this report, and despite a number of written and telephone reminders to Libertas, it has failed to provide the required information to the standards commission,” the report said.
The meat of the Report deals with loans from the Chairman to Libertas, of which no details were provided to SIPO despite repeated requests. It also requested details of employees of Libertas (and possibly Rivada, the Chairman’s communications tech company) and … and this seems to me to be as tricky although less is being made of it, the distribution free of charge of a book “The Lisbon Treaty: The Readable Version” by the Foundation for European Democracy which SIPO argues:
The commission wrote again to Libertas, advising that if the books were provided free when a charge normally applied and were given for the purposes of seeking to influence the outcome of the referendum, “it would be regarded as a donation to Libertas”.
Needless to say Libertas disputes these assertions… sort of.
But as ever a slightly whinging tone enters into the discourse as when it says:
…it would not have been subject to such scrutiny by the Standards in Public Office Commission if it had campaigned for a Yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
Hard to prove and beside the point. Here’s the full response:
Libertas remains willing to provide the information required by SIPO. The latest correspondence to Libertas from SIPO dates from February 19th 2009, and Libertas has not been informed of a deadline for publication of today’s report. It has always been our intention to provide SIPO with all of the necessary information by March 31st, and that remains our intention.
Libertas has had an ongoing dialogue with SIPO regarding its inquiry. Libertas has particular concerns with SIPO’s regard for confidentiality following, for example, appearance on national television of correspondence sent from SIPO to Libertas which, at the time of recording, had not been received by Libertas. This breach of confidentiality was of significant concern to Libertas, and was raised with SIPO.
As indicated above we are willing to provide outstanding information, but the SIPO report released today does not change certain fundamental truths about the Lisbon Treaty referendum:
· The people of Ireland voted no and the government is not prepared to accept the outcome
· The government will use any means to attempt to discredit those who supported the no vote
· If Libertas had campaigned for a yes vote, it would not have been subject to this scrutiny.We note that the Liberal Group in the European Parliament has said it will provide whatever resources necessary in support of a yes vote at a future referendum. One can only hope that the appropriate scrutiny will be given to this side of the campaign too
I’m not sure, if I were they, having spent months claiming that they had fully complied with SIPO that to take the antagonistic tack, which implicitly seems to call into questions the bona fides of the relevant statutory authorities – bona fides which they’re never questioned before, indeed have used to support their contention that they’re in the right, and entirely evades the questions raised by SIPO itself is a good idea. Because the idea that this runs along ‘deadlines’ is a thin defence to use when requests for information are made. Nah, not a good idea at all… And to then use a sort of blustering one size fits all grand theory of the rights and wrongs of the campaign doesn’t convince at all.
You have to wonder at the advice they’re getting.
This weekend I’ll mostly be listening to… William Orbit’s Hinterland March 14, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....10 comments
Hard to choose in a way between Strange Cargo III and this album which succeeded it, Strange Cargo Hinterland. They’re both rather fine. So I’ve included examples from both.
I find it hard to explain the attraction of this music to me. It’s very polite. That much is true. But it’s also melodic. It’s dancey and/or ambient (I note its classified as electronic ambient), but I like the inclusion of guitar. And it’s undeniably of its time. Well, it sure ain’t Seefeel – another favourite, but it’s none the worse for that.
In a way I admire Orbit no end. Here’s a person who has continued to produce music on a continual basis under a variety of names across three decades. More dance oriented? Bass-o-matic from the early 1990s. Synthpop your thing? Check out Torch Song from the early 1980s and mid 1990s. Classical music? Why try his late 1990s album which saw a dancefloor crossover hit with a version of Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Got to admit as regards the last that I’m highly suspicious of classical/electronica crossovers – perhaps that’s a vestige of progs effects on me. Out and out pop, why step forward the man who produced (and co-wrote in part) Madonna’s Ray of LIght, the only example of her output that I can really take in any large dosage. And production and remixing has – for him – included the likes of Kraftwerk and… unfortunately… U2.
So, here is some of his work… a YouTube generated video for the reasonably upbeat “Water from a Vine Leaf” on Strange Cargo III…
This is Gringatcho Demento
And, here’s Montok Point from Hinterland which apparently has a sample from Joe Frank used in it. Joe who? This might enlighten you…
The sample is about 3.53 or so which allows a short respite before the music kicks back in. Well, kicks back in is probably overstating it. This is gentle stuff. Not quite dancefloor filler, more for mellow reflection. But why not?
And here is Say Anything…
And finally Milliontown… a meditation on the reality of Hollywood…
There’s a cracking version of She Cries Your Name, sung by Beth Orton, on this album and later covered – in a much lesser version to my ears – by her on her first solo album, but I can’t find a video for it. Which is a pity.
So tell us again about why the Lisbon Treaty didn’t pass… March 13, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, Irish Politics.5 comments
Interesting piece the Irish Times about research on the Lisbon Treaty. In the Irish Times it is suggested that:
Analysis of voting behaviour in the Lisbon Treaty referendum last June concludes that concerns about the loss of a permanent Irish commissioner were a “substantial consideration” in leading people to vote No.
A report was commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Data was collected between the 24th and 31st of July, around a month and a half after the referendum. Those doing the analysis included Professor Richard Sinnott of UCD.
It’s worth reading the report in full to get a sense of the information collected and the outcomes that the researchers come to. And it’s quite a tome too. The PDF available here runs to 61 pages. First up the report in the Executive Summary states bluntly that:
The purpose of this report is to analyse why people voted yes or no, or abstained in the referendum.
And hard on the heels of that comes the hardly unexpected news that:
This analysis shows that the outcome of the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was determined mainly by a combination of (a) overall attitudes to European integration, (b) knowledge or lack of knowledge of the European Union and correct and incorrect perceptions of what was in the Lisbon Treaty, (c) a number of specific policy concerns and (d) some domestic political factors.
An intriguing symmetry emerges. Firstly sentiment was as important on the YES side as the NO side for the report concludes that:
The overall positive attitude that Irish people have towards the European Union contributed substantially to support for the Lisbon Treaty in the referendum and was indeed the strongest single factor affecting people’s voting decision. This is an important finding because this widespread supportive attitude, which is regularly confirmed in Eurobarometer surveys, is sometimes dismissed as unlikely to have any impact on behaviour. This is clearly not the case.
If that sentiment was the ‘strongest single factor’ then it is clear that the idealistic vision of the EU remains a potent societal ‘myth’ (in the Barthesian sense) and one which could – and should – have been tapped into by the proponents of the Treaty.
And yet that sentiment was more than balanced by a confluence of disparate influences on the NO side.
A low level of knowledge about Europe and about the treaty had a double effect by, firstly, making people more likely to abstain and then, for those who did vote, increasing the likelihood of that vote being NO. In particular, low levels of overall knowledge of what was in the treaty had a very powerful effect on increasing the NO vote. This conclusion regarding the importance of knowledge is very robust in that it is confirmed by evidence ranging from responses to open-ended questions, on the one hand, to multivariate analysis using objective indicators of knowledge on the other.
Indeed the report is at pains to note that:
Further statistical analysis showed that there were two dimensions of knowledge at work. The first was the degree to which a person perceived provisions to be in the treaty that are in the treaty1. The second dimension was the extent to which people perceived things to be in the treaty that are not there, namely the introduction of conscription to a European army, the end of Ireland’s control over its rate of corporate tax and the end of Irish control over its policy on abortion.
These two sub-sets of perceptions of the contents of the treaty had opposite effects on vote choice, a high score on the correct perception sub-set leading to a YES vote and a high score on the incorrect perception sub-set leading to a NO vote. The latter finding strongly suggests that the failure to convince or reassure people that the issues of corporate taxation, of abortion and of conscription were not in the Lisbon Treaty played a substantial role in the defeat of the ratification proposal.
This failure to convince is central to the outcome of the referendum, but it is also crucial to an understanding that the NO campaign was, by locking into quite distinct and in some respects paradoxical issues, able to generate a perfect storm that sank the ambitions of the Government. In short by presenting numerous critiques it allowed quite different voices to articulate within specific niches their discontents. Again, none of this should be or is a surprise. A document like the Lisbon Treaty was almost in and of itself going to be a mirror reflecting both the hopes and the fears of those investing time and political capital either for or against it. The opacity of the text was a cover that could either support or undermine the contentions of proponents of either viewpoint.
And it is fascinating to read that:
…voters were concerned about two particular policy issues and both concerns tended to increase the NO vote. The first concern is
about the scope of EU decision-making and the belief that too many issues are decided on by the EU. This belief contributed significantly to the NO vote.
And also that:
The second policy-related concern has to do with the EU decision-making process and specifically with the issue of the rotating commissionership. Eighty per cent of Irish people believe that the commissionership is an important issue for Ireland; 65 per cent said it was an important issue in making up their minds how to vote and 17 per cent put it at the very top of their agenda of issues of importance to Ireland in the EU. A multivariate analysis controlling for a wide range of variables showed that the belief that it is important for Ireland to maintain a permanent presence in the Commission was a statistically significant and substantial consideration in leading people to vote NO.
The two issues when elided obviously had considerable potency, because whatever the actuality of the function of the Irish EU commissioner, the perception of that individual operating as a sort of proxy for Irish interests at the highest levels of decision making within the EU obviously carried the day.
I recommend a glance at the results on page 57 to the question “Which of the following do you think are included in the Lisbon Treaty?”
Loss of Irish Commissioner for 5 out of every 15 years – Yes 65% No 9% Don’t Know 26%
Ending of Ireland’s right to decide its own corporate tax rate – Yes 53% No 22% Don’t Know 35%
The introduction of conscription to a European army – Yes 33% No 37% Don’t Know 30%
The reduction of Ireland’s voting strength in the Council of Ministers – Yes 48% No 18% Don’t Know 34%
The end of Ireland’s control over its policy on abortion – Yes 34% No 33% Don’t Know 33%
The erosion of Irish neutrality – Yes 42% No 30% Don’t Know 29%
Improved efficiency of EU decision making – Yes 56% No 15% Don’t Know 29%
Strengthening Europe’s role in the world – Yes 61% No 12% Don’t Know 27%
Improved protection of workers’ rights – Yes 49% No 19% Don’t Know 32%
Strengthening the role of National Parliaments in EU Decision Making – Yes 43% No 20% Don’t Know 37%
The Charter of Fundamental Rights – Yes 36% No 14% Don’t Know 50%
Some of these figures are fairly startling. The two that leap out at me are the support for the contention that Conscription and Abortion was an element of the Lisbon Treaty. As interesting is the support for the proposition that the treaty contained improved workers’ rights. But what is telling is how the more nebulous charges, for example about erosion of neutrality, which are difficult to entirely contest appear to have operated as a means of informing views on conscription and vice versa. Another thought. The beliefs expressed there seem to indicate that even the muted progressive concept that the Treaty improved protections for workers, not one incidentally that was altogether incorrect although the linkage to the Charter of Fundamental Rights appears to have been tenuous at best, didn’t inform viewpoints as to the utility of the Treaty. Or to put it another way even though clearly people on both sides of the divide must have believed that the Treaty was a positive in that context other issues such as neutrality and influence overwhelmed them. And it seems, on the face of the figures presented, that the Commissioner does indeed appear to have been crucial as a focal point for discontent, although taken in conjunction with other figures it seems to me that the Commissioner is only one of a number of high level concerns. Because that 65% who knew that it was – correctly – in the Treaty indicates a level of knowledge far in excess of that of other issues. And even the second closest issue ‘Strengthening Europe’s role in the world’ at 61% is a fairly vague formulation. Incidentally, is there something of a paradox in the attitude to workers rights and regulation?
There is a shocking indictment of the lack of efficacy of the Referendum Commission literature to be found in Q.23 where only 4% found Advertisements very valuable, and only 6% found the booklets very valuable. By contrast 19% found national radio and television news programmes very valuable at respectively 18% and 19%.
And what of social class?
Analysis also points to the differential effect of a number of socio-economic variables on the probability of voting NO. The variables are the belief that the EU means low wage rates, the occupational status of being a large farmer and level of education. The fact that these effects are conditional on participation in the labour suggests that we should think of them as operating through labour market channels and as demonstrating the impact of economic interests on voting decisions. The fact that the education effect only works for those in the labour force is particularly noteworthy, as it suggests that it is not so much education per se that matters, but rather education as it relates to people’s experience in the labour market. In the light of this we believe that education is acting here as a proxy for skill levels, as it has been shown to do in many international studies, and that, the higher the skill level, the less likely is it that the person involved will have voted NO in the referendum.
That strikes me as a most interesting finding and one worth parsing out further at some point.
Overall though, does this tell us anything we didn’t know? Well, probably not. But it does point to the absolute necessity for clarity in referendum campaigns. Will the EU’s compromise on the Commissioner be sufficient to carry the day? Not on its own, if we are to judge from the smorgasbord of complaints outlined above, but it may go some way to achieving the Government’s goal. The Government must certainly hope so, and hope the data is correct.
Libertas arrives in France. A split cannot be far behind. What’s this, you say, it’s already happened? March 12, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in European Politics, Irish Politics.12 comments
The excitement. The pomp. The ceremony. The trail of destruction.
Yep, Libertas arrives in France spreading the word of the good Chairman. And what a fascinating word it is, but before we get to that, let’s note that the Chairman has at last succeeded in forging a serious enough political machine for the European elections… and even better it’s one that is under the Libertas.eu name. Okay, it’s pre-existing parties, but… full marks for getting some sort of political vehicle into the driveway.
For as Lara Marlowe in the Irish Times reports:
[Yesterday saw the launch] of a joint European parliamentary election campaign uniting his Movement for France (MPF) and Frédéric Nihous’s Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Tradition (CPNT) party under the Libertas.eu banner yesterday.
And nothing but happiness from the leader of the MPF, Viscount Philippe de Villiers. Well, happiness for the good news about Libertas and an encomium directed at the Chairman.
But intriguingly not such great news for Turkey for it appears that de Villiers is very very clear about one issue:
“Europe must draw its borders, once and for all, without Turkey”
Is this the open transparent approach to the EU that we can expect from Libertas? What if “Europe” wants to open its borders to Turkey? Who knows? Certainly not Libertas which has, as noted by EWI, now indefinitely delayed the publication of its policy platform. As EWI notes:
But besides Lisbon, what is Libertas’s economic platform?
The leaders of Europe failed to recognise that the engine of job creation and growth, of a new European renaissance, is not banks, but the ability to stimulate people to take a bit of risk, to go out and start more small and medium-sized businesses of their own.
We have to create an environment where people are prepared and encouraged to take those risks. That’s where Europe’s economic recovery is going to come from. More medium-sized businesses across Europe will create more new jobs than any other sector in business. It’s where innovation and the true genius of European creativity resides. That’s where we need to shift our policy focus, and that is something you will hear Libertas talking about in the months to come.
Err, ok, maybe not. But, sometime soon, we were promised.
Imagine my very great disappointment to read today that:
Meanwhile, the launch of Libertas’s electoral manifesto, which party founder Declan Ganley told EurActiv “will lay out our policies in a very wide range of areas,” has been postponed from 25 March to an as-yet-unnamed later date. This event was due to take place in Rome.
I feel somewhat like the octopus character in the Mighty Boosh who continually opines “It’s an outrage!”. It sure is. It sure is.
The Irish Times points up an interesting confusion.
Mr Ganley confounded several sources who had the strong impression that he supported Turkey’s EU application and Nato.
“I completely agree on Turkey,” he said.
Which is very strange indeed since as People Korps (an unlovable name, but fair dues on the research) has unearthed this gem by Paul-Marie Couteax a French MEP who just split from the MPF stating that…
“I reject the sponsorship of Mr. Ganley. Whether in favour of a Europe that would be made ‘democratic’ by the election of a President of Europe by universal suffrage, an ‘open continent’ which precludes any form of protection or preference to begin by the CAP, both the integration of Turkey or membership of all Member States of NATO, [these] beliefs are not those for which we fight since Maastricht”.
Now how could he have got such an impression? Surely not, as Lara Marlowe reports, from…er… Declan Ganley himself – say during preparatory meetings before the merger into Lisbon.eu – who also…
…in an article he published in the US in 2003, attacked the constitutional treaty on the grounds it would damage the traditional defence relationship between Europe and the US.
And let’s not forget, as Marlowe also notes:
Still standing beside Mr Ganley, the defence contractor who has just named four former senior defence officials from the US and Britain to the board of his company, Mr de Villiers condemned Mr Sarkozy’s announcement yesterday that he is bringing France back into the integrated military command of Nato. “The return to Nato is the end of the independence of France. It is the end of the very idea of European defence.”
But what words of wisdom on this matter from the Chairman?
“On the matter of Nato, this is a decision that must be made at member-state level. Ireland is neutral.”
Hmmm…
Meanwhile, remiss of me to ignore the launch of the German franchise of Libertas – I blame the economic crisis. But some further pearls of wisdom were forthcoming…
For example:
In a five-and-a-half-page document, Libertas Deutschland introduced itself as a party of “traditional values and European goals like freedom, truthfulness, tolerance, common sense, family and human dignity”.
Truthfulness… okay.
And what of this?
Asked how Libertas planned to make an impression on Germany’s political landscape, a party strategist said it was a “surprise”.
25 or is it 24 countries in Europe to go? Keep it up lads…
