Sarah Carey’s love letter to the Labour Party? Well… not quite. May 20, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
Now… before I start, let’s remember that for Fine Gael there is one route to power, and one only. They refuse to do a deal with Sinn Féin, the Progressive Democrats are no more. Few would bet on the Green Party returning a cohort sufficient to make up numbers in the aftermath of the next election…
So… that leaves…
Ah no, wait a while and let’s consider the latest column from Sarah Carey in the Irish Times. And let’s look into the soul, or at least the deep blue throbbing heart, of Fine Gael to assess what their attitude towards their only potential coalition partner is.
Finally, poor Eamo [Gilmore] got the message [from the weekend polls] and did what he should have done at the start of this campaign – ruled out coalition with Fianna Fáil. I only wonder how he thought he could get away with it for so long.
You can’t campaign for change if you end up putting Fianna Fáil back into power.
Poor Labour. Of all our political parties, Labour has the least self-awareness and so it is the unhappiest. It’s also the most divided, torn between dreamers and pragmatists who pull and push it from one strategy to another.
Let me stop right there. For anyone to argue that Labour, of all our parties, is least self-aware is quite a statement. If anything one could argue that it has suffered from a surfeit of awareness and a consequent inability to act.
The pragmatists accept that they live in a perverted tale of Cinderella. They have to go to the ball with one of the Ugly Sisters.
The dreamers cling to the hope that the Fairy Godmother will show up with 40 Dáil seats and a rotating taoiseach. As always in life, the pragmatists are happier. They hunker down and get on with the dirty job.
Which is?
The dreamers are miserable and frustrated. They disdain Fianna Fáil, but loathe Fine Gael even more. They speak in the loftiest of tones about the national interest and cannot understand that people vote in their own self-interest. They stand up for what is right but then go all self-righteous. In a nation reared on self-deprecation, it’s just not the right tone. Left-wing people don’t just believe they have better policies, they think they are better people and that bugs the rest of us.
But mostly, they sulk because they think our traditional loyalty to civil war politics is a poisonous wart on the face of a respectable western democracy. They dream that one day the veil will be lifted from the masses in the great estates of Dublin and Leinster.
There is a nation (and a state beyond those geographic locations). But a telling statement nonetheless.
Soon, surely, and especially now, these old-fashioned notions will be abandoned and a natural left-right split will shatter the status quo. At last the Labour Party will emerge as big brother instead of little sister in a coalition.
This dream ignores many realities, not least that Labour is the only party that actually was around during the civil war.
Er… which means precisely what? If she’s trying to say that that somehow means only Labour is locked into civil war politics… no, no… why am I even bothering here? If she was to hand this up in an history essay in secondary it would be a risible point. That it appears in our paper of ‘record’…
They keep talking about offering an alternative to “working people”. But we’re all working people. Well, except for the unemployed, and I presume they want to offer them an alternative too. What we are is a deeply conservative people with broad agreement on where we want to go, if slightly different views on how to get there.
Are we a deeply conservative people? I’m not so sure. I think many are conservative, that much is true, but to argue that we’re deeply conservative begs the question as compared to who? The American mid-west? Portugal? Saudi Arabia?
Or is the truth that on some axis, like all peoples, we’re conservative and on others we’re liberal, and on still others we’re progressive (at least in some measure)? And let’s – for further good measure – throw in a significant dose of hypocrisy wherein our elites (oh, yeah, even including FF and FG members) have amongst themselves led lives wildly at variance with the supposed ‘deeply conservative’ norms of this society.
There is no politically identifiable group called “the workers” who will rise up and demand the redistribution of wealth. Instead, we have a diamond-shaped society. The vast bulk of people are happily middle-class with an isolated underclass and a privileged oligarchy existing untouched at the edges.
Now, this is most instructive. No doubt that is the view from where Sarah Carey lives, and unfortunately it is one that is shared by more than a few in this society. But it’s a crock. We don’t actually have a society where the vast bulk are ‘happily middle class’… what we have is a society where there are still very clear differentiations between classes. Where the vast bulk are working people.
That many people are aspirant, that there are blurrings of categories, that there is a degree (although nowhere near as much as is made out) of social mobility is true. But as Conor of Dublin Opinion, who has engaged with this issue as it pertains to Ireland in the most forensic and effective way I’ve seen yet on the internet, here and here, notes:
The point here is to show that talk of a disappearing working class belongs with Mark Twain’s obituary. Nor should the fact that the majority of Irish working people find themselves in working class occupations and positions be of any surprise to anyone with even the faintest understanding of how a capitalist economy works. The middle class majority in Ireland is a middle class myth.
And, by the way, Conor also deals on this issue here…
Of course, as we can, such niceties (or as I prefer to call them ‘interpretations based on facts’) aren’t an issue to Carey.
Labour complains that “the workers” have to bail out the banks, but the truth is that those with most to lose have been hit the hardest. The upper middle-classes have lost their shares, their pensions, their jobs and their dreams. They are not going to swing to a party that alienates them by using loaded political terminology.
One has to wonder at how this particularly asinine analysis made it onto the page. So, only the ‘upper middle-classes’ bleed – eh? Only they have dreams, or at least dreams that have been ‘hit hardest’. Honestly, this is such nonsense.
Why should today’s unemployed architect vote to become tomorrow’s kulak – shot for trying to save himself?
Fantastic. So the Labour Party, that mildly centre left formation, that essentially moderate grouping, is somehow the equivalent of the worst excesses of the Soviet Union (and these are the views of the people Gilmore regards as his future partners in government?).
Yet this hyperbole – offensive hyperbole as it happens – is interpreted by Carey as the necessary data to arrive at her chosen QED…
So, there is no left and right; there is a cereal shelf on which Fianna Fáil is cornflakes and Fine Gael is porridge. Labour is muesli which is just porridge with nuts and dried-up fruit. Muesli is expensive and the unemployed middle-classes can’t afford it.
How droll. Or not. But entirely unsophisticated, if not downright crude and incorrect, in what one presumes is meant to be a more than half-way serious piece of political analysis. And note again that the concern is for ‘the unemployed middle class’. I’ve got to say I’m enormously impressed by how overt she is in her class allegiance – however impoverished her understanding of class. For I think back in vain for such compassion for the ‘unemployed working class‘ in the past from tribunes of Fine Gael (with one or two honourable exceptions).
But Labour still shifts between those who persist in the false dream and those who accept that a general election is simply a referendum on Fianna Fáil.
You’re either with them or against them.
But why? What essentialism does she divine that puts Fianna Fáil beyond the pale? When the choice is between cornflakes and porridge, what sort of choice is that at all? Which makes me wonder if in a sense she isn’t ultimately arguing for the continued domination of Fianna Fáil? Because she doesn’t make any effort to explain what difference there is between our parties – our post-Civil War parties [sic] – in this middle class wonderland and why that would weight our choices one way or the other.
That’s why for a party that prides itself on its honesty, Labour’s effort to play both sides of the coin was completely dishonest.
Actually there she’s utterly wrong. If there is no choice between the two, and again she does not give us any reason to believe otherwise, then it is entirely honest of Labour as the party with even the most mildly ideological divergence to play them off each other to its own advantage. Were the position reversed would she make such a clearly foolish point?
The poll shoved Gilmore off the pot but he still has work to do.
He has to stop complaining that we are bailing out the banks and get on with explaining where we’re going to find the money to do it. He has to accept that the public sector gravy train is over and how he intends to reform the system. He has to convince that in a coalition government, Labour can contribute something other than hand-wringing over public service cuts.
I believe he has explained that, so that’s something of a spurious argument. As to the others…what gravy train? What reform? Has she even read the OECD reports on this very matter? Answer – to judge from this encounter with Carey on the Irish Left Review – most probably not.
If he wants honesty in politics then he has to start being honest with the electorate and with himself.
In other words, he has to stop dreaming.
In other words, he has to be Fine Gael.
So, everything that the LP stands for, its long history and its far from ignoble efforts to attempt to articulate an alternative view, everything that differentiates it from the other parties, is irrelevant to her. It’s only purpose is to support Fine Gael. Why? Not because of any superiority as regards that party’s ability to govern, for she gives us no examples of same. Simply… because.
And this, this is a prominent voice of the ‘new’ Fine Gael speaking. This is what the future holds for us. The same blend of arrogance and ignorance, not entirely different from the current one, but with an added dash of ‘upper’ middle-class supremacism. If I were Eamon Gilmore I’d be putting as much clear blue water between myself (and my party) and this bunch. Because the naked contempt for the Labour Party and what, in its own inchoate and sometimes messy but entirely genuine way, it stands for isn’t just near palpable. It’s absolutely explicit.
They disdain Fianna Fáil, but loathe Fine Gael even more.
On the evidence of this, who could blame them?
And how, precisely, does Sarah Carey think her words are going to improve the mood music for a Fine Gael/Labour coalition after the next election. Because that’s the thing with arrogance. It’s remarkably cloth-eared.
Just askin’ – y’know?
to judge from this encounter with Carey on the Irish Left Review – most probably not.
That is a good educated guess. Based on my encounter with her I would say definitely not. On that occasion the only economic information she had came from a particular press officer in a government department. As that was my experience when I tried to find out what she based her claim on in one article I think it is fair to extrapolate that she doesn’t go anywhere near hard information from the OECD or any other verifiable source.
Ah yes, our Eamo is off to a blueshirt re-education camp until he realises the error of his ways.
It’s sad that this stuff gets published in our ‘paper of record’. But not surprising. The clear narrative that the It has been peddling for months now is that everyone should grow up and become Fine Gael.
I hope to God our lot tell them to feck off after the next election. Sadly, I’m not hopeful on that front.
Great stuff as ever WbS. I read the piece today and was wondering if you’d have a go at it.
I was initially baffled why she’d make attacking Labour a priority. I suppose because it’s the biggest threat to FG in the by-elections. How ridiculous, too, to make it all about Gilmore when he came out best of the leaders, even as Labour’s support declined. It just begs the question, if Gilmore needs to make big changes, what about Enda?
Has she run any columns extolling FG’s charms recently? When she used to blog Labour was rarely a target, it was all about attacking FF.
Christ, what a stupid person this Carey is. Dimwitted, smug, self-satisfied, the adjectives just keep springing to mind. Truly a walking argument for a law prohibiting Fine Gael councillors from spawning.
Now… before I start, let’s remember that for Fine Gael they have one route to power, and one only. They refuse to do a deal with Sinn Féin, the Progressive Democrats are no more. Few would bet on the Green Party returning a cohort sufficient to make up numbers in the aftermath of the next election…
To judge by the outpourings at Crank Central, they believe that the 38% in last week’s MRBI poll means that they’ll either have an overall majority by themselves or that they’ll be close enough to one not to need Labour.
Anyone who can remember the last election campaign at Crank Central can write the rest of the script (although one of the prominent participants back in 2007 seems to have reinvented himself since then).
Now… before I start, let’s remember that for Fine Gael they have one route to power, and one only. They refuse to do a deal with Sinn Féin, the Progressive Democrats are no more. Few would bet on the Green Party returning a cohort sufficient to make up numbers in the aftermath of the next election…
So… that leaves…
Since Gilmore has ruled out FF … so … that leaves …
I was initially baffled why she’d make attacking Labour a priority. I suppose because it’s the biggest threat to FG in the by-elections.
I’d say it was a reaction to the attacks on FG from the likes of Alex White, more than anything else. Elements of Labour can be as smug, superior and condescending as anyone else when they put their mind to it.
Anyway, I am a bit taken by the idea that Sarah Carey is the voice of ‘new’ Fine Gael – whatever that is. I would consider myself somewhat up to date on what is going on in FG, but have to express my ignorance of this new FG and Sarah Carey’s role as its spokesperson. I normally take my cue for FG thinking from the elected members, candidates and party officials – not generally from IT columnists of a blue hue, no matter how much I may agree with them.
I was being a bit rhetorical Donagh…
I was mighty impressed that you called her on this, and not at all by her “response”.
Thanks Betty, that’s something I hadn’t thought about, as regards her blog, I guess it is the by-election issue kicking in…
I’ll say nothing Mark P…
Paddy, that’s the first time I heard it called that… but there’s an awful lot of hot air floating around, isn’t there? And yeah, 2007 was a doozy in terms of supposed experts from that quarter opining at length on their inevitable march to victory… TheAnalyser was it, something like that… who vanished the day of the count. Remarkable I thought.
John, there’s no denying that in the IT in particular she is a steadfast champion of the party… and her performance on VB the other night was likewise. Incidentally, I remember at one point some near social democratic voices inside FG…
Crank Central, to paraphrase As You Like It, is a poor name but mine own. It just fits
The Analyser – who did indeed vanish without trace on the day of the count never to be seen again having opined at length during the campaign on Paschal Donohoe’s inevitable march to victory amongst others – is completely, totally, absolutely unrelated to TommyO’Brien, who is currently opining at length on Paschal Donohoe’s inevitable march to victory.
The fact that both were/are late-thirties/early-forties ex-journalists who happened to be Fine Gael activists in Dublin Central and that both have quite similar writing styles is completely co-incidental.
I couldn’t possibly imagine what real-life individuals might match that description.
Analyser and Tommy O’Brien (and NotDevSon and a few others) are all names that have been used on politics.ie by a FG full-timer in Dail Eireann, originally from Co Meath, who made his name at the time of a particular Presidential election.
I don’t deny she is a champion of the party in the IT, however to go from that to claiming she is the voice of ‘new’ FG – whatever that is – is just a step too far.
Anyone who can remember the last election campaign at Crank Central can write the rest of the script (although one of the prominent participants back in 2007 seems to have reinvented himself since then).
I think the attitude of FG posters on p.ie in the 2007 GE has taken on a bit of legend in the meantime. Sure there was a few very excitable posters, but I reckon if any party was getting the poll results that FG got in ‘07 compared to the ‘02 result, they would have some fairly excitable elements.
I think the attitude of FG posters on p.ie in the 2007 GE has taken on a bit of legend in the meantime.
Sorry, John, but no. I remember passing remarks on it at the time on p.ie and I remember WbS posting on it here in the immediate aftermath of the 2007 election.
There are plenty of very reasonable and rational FG posters on p.ie – both now and then – but there were (and are at the moment) an awful lot of threads which turned into FG mutual admiration sessions, and it was/is completely offputting for anyone not born into The One True Faith.
I don’t deny there were some exuberant FGers, but I think that the way it has been presented since is a bit OTT. But as I was an FGer posting sporadically on politics.ie around then, I suppose i would say that
They refuse to do a deal with Sinn Féin
Wanna bet?
John, you’d come under the heading of “reasonable and rational” (as would Dan Sullivan).
I’d be thinking more, for example, of a certain prominent press conference-infiltrating member of Young Fine Gael and of a host of others who vanished after the general election result (although not as abruptly as The Analyser did).
Wednesday…
Too soon to tell – eh? Or perhaps you know something I don’t!
I think Paddy points to an important issue. There are people on P.ie – and elsewhere like yourself – from an FG background whose judgement, even if I don’t share that politics, I very much admire. And a few I’ve met in person who’re darn nice people as well. But, there’s also a small but vociferous contingent and it was more obviously FG oriented than FF oriented in 2007 who I fear were much more clearly simply partisan boosters. Does this reflect on FG, well it certainly didn’t make the party go up in my estimation (despite a certain fondness for Enda Kenny). And that sort of boosterism, or let’s call a spade a spade, arrogance is very off-putting to us lesser mortals.
Actually I got into a bit of hot water for the post here on that very topic around the election with certain people who I wasn’t attempting to diss.
Re; the voice… I’ll certainly change that to ‘a’ voice… no problem and you’re correct, she’s not the only one.
Sarah carey in her blogging days put up some excellent posts on social issues, but with her Denis O’Brien and tech startup background, she has always had an anti public service blind spot. Even to the extent of denying evidence that doesn’t fit her world view: I mentioned on another thread how she dismissed the OECD report that found no evidence of a ‘bloated’ public service in Ireland by saying it was public-service approved and therefore worthless. She’s up to the same thing here, of course: ignoring evidence that contradicts her opinion.
Wednesday: Couldn’t see FG doing a deal with SF any time in near future (leaving aside would SF find it possible).
Think Leo Varadkar and Brian Hayes would have heart attacks.
That’s a very telling anecdote you cite Crocodile, I’d heard it before and it struck me as indicative of a sort of lack of ability to process contrary information.
Its called ’screening in favour of the bias’ in psychology terms. Most of the time its an uncouncious thing when we do not compute information that goes against our Gut, even if our Head is telling us to take notice of it.
What a numpty though.
[...] The Cedarn Lounge response Sarah Carey’s love letter to the Labour Party? Well… not quite. The Cedar Lounge Revolut… [...]
Leveller – if Labour said no, and the numbers added up, I don’t think wild horses would keep FG away from a deal with SF. Whether SF responded to such overtures is another matter entirely.
Good to see the IT propaganda machine is still is working order. It would be a lot simpler if we all did as we’re told and joined FG like proper grown ups and stopped messing around with this childish lefty nonsense.
And Mark P – on this occasion I heartily agree with every word…
Screening in favour of the bias. Sounds about right.
Useful thought on the IT Damian…
In the small town I grew up in, the Sinn Feiners and Fine Gaelers got along much better with each other than either did with Fianna Fail. I’m talking socially, in the local pub etc. Michael Collins was in many ways more congenial to republicans than Dev. The odds are long but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Funnily enough I know what you mean re Michael Collins.
“There is a nation (and a state beyond those geographic locations). But a telling statement nonetheless.”
I would presume this is a reference to Labour’s targeted seats at the last general election, which were in Dublin and Leinster. Contest this interpretation if you wish, but the Labour Party is quite Dublin focused, and in the “…nation (and a state beyond those geographic locations)” Fine Gael can be found in every parish and town large or small.
“Er… which means precisely what? If she’s trying to say that that somehow means only Labour is locked into civil war politics…”
My reading of it is literal. That people have had the choice to vote for the Labour Party from 1912 onwards. They are the oldest party in the state.
“Are we a deeply conservative people?”
No, although one has to give some credence to the old Kevin O’Higgins cliche, about our conservative revolutionaries. As you point out, it can often depend on the given issue. A more appropriate question would be are we a particularly ideological people? No would be my take on that, and one can point to the limited appeal of the PDs, Socialist Party, PBP as evidence for it.
“what we have is a society where there are still very clear differentiations between classes”
Clear? Certainly the difference between either extreme is very clear. I’m currently in the process of helping to canvass a ward in North Dublin. And I wouldn’t discount that there are parts with very real poverty in some areas. But what of the difference between “working class” and “lower middle class”. It is, at best, blurred. As someone from the former in family background, I’m probably hovering between the two at the moment, as a young professional worker on a pittance of a salary in Dublin.
Speaking of social class, Fine Gael can hold its own in comparison to other parties. Like Fianna Fáil, it has a fairly wide cross-section of people, from different geographical areas, family backgrounds and social classes.
Given their demographic, The Labour Party cannot claim Fine Gael is the party of angst ridden middle classes, as people in glass houses…
“And let’s look into the soul, or at least the deep blue throbbing heart, of Fine Gael ”
I’d take umbrage at the suggestion that Sarah Carey is qualified to speak for a party with over half a million voters. Based purely on her known political sympathies? The fact that she is happy to identify herself as middle class says more about the Irish Times readership base than it does about Fine Gael. Unless you want to argue that a Labour Party supporter in the same paper, Fintan O’Toole, is some sort of working class hero?
“… the continued domination of Fianna Fáil”
You’ve correctly identified the fundamental leitmotif of Irish politics. I’m a frequent reader of your (excellent) blog. For you, your loosely defined ‘progressive’ parties (the only common thread seeming to be to exclude our two main parties) are the B all and end all. Those same ‘progressive’ parties would and have gone into coalition with Fianna Fáil, and thus are at best indifferent to the said domination of Fianna Fáil in our body politic. Eamon Gilmore is in this camp, and performed a volte face on the matter on the basis of a poll. Should such decisions be made on the basis of a poll? Personally, a choice between the Fianna Fáil government and a Labour Party that will prop up a Fianna Fáil government is a false choice. You disagree.
We agree on one thing I’m sure, Ms. Carey has not made the transition from blog to print. Conor Brady wouldn’t have brought her in methinks.
On CL’s point: In my native Louth FG and SF have a good transfer rate (very high in some local election wards). There is no hostility towards each parties supporters, not least in my own immediate family!
As WBS has pointed out here, Paschal Donohue got quite a healthy share of Mary Lou’s transfers. A pattern I hope will be repeated with Christy Burke. He’ll need all the transfers he can get.
We used to have a leitmotif out the back yard, but the wheels fell off it.
At least Carey’s criticism of Labour, that it is alienating the middle classes, is original. I thought the standard criticism was that it was the party of the leafy suburban champagne socialist middle classes.
Actually Fintan does come from a manual working class background as it happens….
As do I, as it happens.
But Fintan is hardly less smug, middle class, self satisfied, sniffy, superior or condescending in tone than Ms Carey, is he?
Fintan is working class himself then, you reckon?
Don’t see it myself.
Class is pretty soft-edged in most parts of the country – no point in denying it.
Marc Coleman, who is quoted in today’s IT as demanding 20% pay cuts for public servants, is – I’m fairly sure – a trinity contemporary of Carey’s. I think there’s a strain of conservatism there that’s the product of a generation as much as of a class. They are late 30-somethings who were at college in the post-Thatcher 90s and were taught by the prophets of fiscal rectitude and trickle-down theory. They despise trades unions and idolise Denis O’Brien and have a sneaking regard for Mick O’Leary.Their faces are on posters, now, as FG’s new generation of candidates, clear-skinned and hair-gelled.
In my native Louth FG and SF have a good transfer rate (very high in some local election wards). There is no hostility towards each parties supporters, not least in my own immediate family!
Now that Brendan McGahon is gone from the scene, it’s all gone to seed up there.
’sneaking regard’? That subliminated Crocodile?
Soft edged or not class exists and if you come up against it in certain ways you’ll know all about it.
Whether it matters or not, and fair play to him in some ways for not playing it up as he could by putting on a more pronounced Dub accent, Fintan is from Crumlin and his dad was a bus driver as far as I know.
Mick O’Leary on the other hand comes from a well off family, who sent him to a fee paying school and his dad bought him a flat to live in while he went to Trinners. His sugar daddy Tony Ryan fast tracked him up the corporate ladder; yet he’s an ordinary guy and a man of the people of course.
Class; he either have it or you don’t.
Stíofán, thanks for taking the time to go through the piece so comprehensively. I take your point about what she says about Dublin and Leinster, but I think it remains open to question since she didn’t qualify it.
As it happens I don’t see the domination of FF as the issue. Not by a long shot. I see the historical domination of centre right parties in this state as the issue. I want the centre left parties, be they SF, GP or the LP to be in a position to lead a government. And again, I know there have been and still are progressive minded people in FG, but FG is a broad coalition of interests… perhaps too broad.
RE the working class and the lower middle class, yeah, surely, there’s a blurring there between the two. I find that not unpersuasive as a way of looking at things. But that is not what Carey is saying. Indeed her ‘diamond’ shape class structure seems to me to ignore that analysis when the reality is that we live in a pyramidal societal structure, particularly in terms of access to power and autonomy.
I take the point about Carey not being the only voice of FG, but, she seems to me to be of a piece with a new hard right section of that party that I personally find unattractive and unconvincing. That cohort is lauded as the ‘new blood’ in the party, and has been promoted to front bench positions.
It’s been said by others that the positions that group take are problematic in terms of future coalition with Labour. I guess the article I reference shows up some of those problems.
The other thing to say is that Carey’s piece is reminiscent of the tone struck by FG back in 92 – the arrogant assumption that Labour would do the usual deal with them. And we all know how that played out. Warnings perhaps to Labour, as much as FG about how to proceed…
Very true. It is the tone that is so significant…
“take the point about Carey not being the only voice of FG, but, she seems to me to be of a piece with a new hard right section of that party that I personally find unattractive and unconvincing”
I guess it depends on how you define it but I’d never have defined Carey as being a member of the hard right.
Vociferous right?
I’m being serious here. I think it is fair to say that in FG at the moment there is a generation, as noted above, that came up at the tail end of Thatcherism, who are dismissive of the state/welfare/etc… entranced by business and whose rhetoric is very very hard edged indeed and a world away from GFG and the social democrat strand within FG. So hard right, or just right rather than centre right… now, sure, this may all just be rhetoric, but it’s fairly sustained and consistent. And look, we all know who I’m talking about, a group of x number.
The clue is in the name – eh, JD?
the reality is that we live in a pyramidal societal structure, particularly in terms of access to power and autonomy.
I’m not so sure about this. The upper echelons of the business world are dominated by the rugby set alright, but the political classes are pretty much entrenched in the middle classes at this stage.
“Vociferous right?”
Maybe. I’m just not sure you could call the likes of Carey right when it comes to international issues, feminism or most social issues. On economic matters, maybe.
Again, a fair point, but I think she does have a blindness as regards the nature and spread of class in this society.
I do accept alastairs point that it is a bit more nuanced, although I think its telling how the structures combine to impose certain ’solutions’ against the wishes of people in the society.
Thanks.
‘I think it is fair to say that in FG at the moment there is a generation, as noted above, that came up at the tail end of Thatcherism, who are dismissive of the state/welfare/etc… entranced by business and whose rhetoric is very very hard edged indeed ‘
Right, WbyS – and crucially they’re just young enough to have hit adulthood when many of the big social battles had been won. I’m sure they see themselves as post-ideological, but I’ve been around long enough to see a contradiction between being vaguely liberal on social issues and way out to the right on economic ones.
Sarah Carey seems to be one of those slick young right-wing commentators who hide behind the assertion that there is no such thing as “right wing” any longer. It’s just common sense. We’ve all moved on. Class barriers blurred: upper-middle class are the new working class…….blah de blah….If Labour want to make the cut in Carey’s brave new world they’d better start adopting the Carey world view: slash the “bloated” public sector, de-rail the “gravy train”, bail out the poor misfortunate banks. In fact, start thinking like bankers.
But you see, Sarah, if Labour started doing all that, they wouldn’t be Labour any more. Their “out-dated rhetoric” is the only Left (ish) analysis we’ve got, They’re never going to make it with you because you are just too…..um….right wing? That’s ok. Why do you want to re-make them in your own image? What you really need is a nice Monetarist party somewhat to the right of Maggie Thatcher, but with a better hair stylist (have we one of those already?)
“We” are not a “conservative” society. Just some of us are. And yes, Sarah, there still is such a thing as Left and Right, Crunchy Nut Cornflake analogies notwithstanding. Dreaming a little is ok too and is only despised by the kind of people who say “going forward” a lot. The kind of people who believe the class system has recently become diamond-shaped, and that “we” and “people like us” are all bunched happily in the middle,
I think it is fair to say that in FG at the moment there is a generation, as noted above, that came up at the tail end of Thatcherism, who are dismissive of the state/welfare/etc… entranced by business and whose rhetoric is very very hard edged indeed and a world away from GFG and the social democrat strand within FG. So hard right, or just right rather than centre right… now, sure, this may all just be rhetoric, but it’s fairly sustained and consistent. And look, we all know who I’m talking about, a group of x number.
It’s not just the Hayes/Varadkhar/etc. generation. Quite a few Young Fine Gael’ers who have close personal links with the Tories and US Republicans, and have self-identified in the past as admirers of Thatcher, Reagan, W Bush (and even Augusto Pincochet, in the case of the many YFG’ers who were part of the far-right student group the Freedom Institute – some of whom subsequently went into Libertas/Rivada).
I’ve engaged with several YFG’ers over the years who were unwise enough to try to dispute my recollection of this – and all of whom were themselves in the FI, inevitably:
http://www.irishelection.com/04/young-fine-gael-fiddling-with-knobs-and-boobs-for-lisbon/
Sarah Carey seems to be one of those slick young right-wing commentators who hide behind the assertion that there is no such thing as “right wing” any longer.
Wasn’t it Carey who did an opinion piece a while back claiming that everyone else was too ideological? (she, of course, speaks only the epitome of common sense).
The problem with FG is that unlike FF which has always tended to eschew an ideologically harder right position (for tactical reasons), while using such at times, there has been in conjunction with quite progressive strands an element that is on that hard right. it’s one of the things that drives me crazy about Irish politics, firstly that two such disparate groups can coexist and secondly that the LP seems to have a greater affinity for them than FF (not that I’m suggesting it should have an affinity for either).
In defence of Sarah Cary and the casual associations with the Freedom Fries gang – it’s not that long since she had her blog spat with Richard Waghorne over his Udaras emailgate shenanigans. She ought to be judged on what she writes, not on tenuous associations.
Isn’t it fair to say that the main guiding lights of FG over the years (with the probable exception of Bruton) have been pretty removed from the right wing of the party? I’m still inclined to think of FG within the Fitzgerald frame, no matter how objectionable Varadkar et al appear these days.
Fair point re SC and RW, although wouldn’t it be also fair to suggest a commonality of aims (albeit he is further along the scale)?
Re FG and GFG style social democracy, I’m always minded of Dukes wish to push it briefly as an overtly social democrat party in the late 1980s. He was swiftly rapped across the knuckles – not least and publicly by our beloved FG candidate for the EU elections in Dublin. My understanding is that 2002 saw off a large tranche of the remaining SD leaning people (and let’s not get carried away, I think it would probably be fairer to call them centrists, than SD’s). I think that in general terms we could say that on personal social issues they tend to wards somewhat more progressive approaches. Economically and otherwise they’re less progressive.
Well – I couldn’t see Dickie Waghorne flagwaving for Obama’s candidacy, but Sarah Cary seemed entirely sincere in doing so. She’s obviously got a distaste for Labour (and FF), and some views well removed from a leftist perspective, but I’d peg her at mildly right-of-centre if I had to make a call.
Duke’s so-called Tallaght Strategy in 1987 was based on supporting FF’s willingness to put the boot in to the health service and endorse fiscal rectitude. Dukes was seen as a genuine right wing alternative to FitzGerald, who had bowed to some Labour demands during the 1982-87 coalition. Social democrats? I don’t see it.
You can add your man Deasy to the list of ideological right wingers above; he worked for the Republicans in the US.
“Deasy to the list of ideological right wingers above; he worked for the Republicans in the US.”
Lucinda Creighton, part of the supposed “New Blood” worked for the NY Democratic Party.
That’s a fair point Omar re the Tallaght Strategy, but Dukes comments on social democracy were apart from that. Clearly in complete contradiction with the TS.
Well, the Democrats are centre/centre right so that’s not necessarily a contradiction Stíofán. Although her language has modified somewhat in recent times. But I think it’s fair to say she’s of the centre right to.
alastair, I would see her as further centre right than you do, but in a sense that’s irrelevant. This is, as people are no doubt aware, a left of centre blog, so its not entirely odd is it that we might have ideological (if not personal) problems with analyses from those who are right of centre?
Centre-right and centre-left are fairly self-defining these days: I’m sure people like Sarah Carey don’t really consider themselves right wing. Her blog was always fairly right-on…. until it came to putting on her pro-business goggles.
There are people who look at what services we need and then set about finding the money to finance them; there are people who look at what the tax take is and see how services can be trimmed accordingly. To contemporary Fine Gael the latter approach is the only one conceivable: George Lee is a great fit.
There is, though, a national newspaper columnist who, though no leftie, consistently argues that this country has, not an expenditure problem, but a revenue problem. That is Garret FitzGerald. Where would he fit in with the hairgel generation?
That too is a fair point. His success – relatively speaking – no doubt is a great mitigator of any too leftward inclinations on his part
In defence of Sarah Cary and the casual associations with the Freedom Fries gang – it’s not that long since she had her blog spat with Richard Waghorne over his Udaras emailgate shenanigans. She ought to be judged on what she writes, not on tenuous associations.
Hi Alastair (al?). I didn’t intend to suggest that Sarah Carey was part of that set! I’m wary of Denis O’Brien and his associates, and often find Sarah’s reasoning to be infuriatingly lazy and given to easy clichés (and disinterested in anything which challenges her world view), but not that.
And I wouldn’t refer to her post (which was commenting on my own disgust with Waghorne’s ratting out a summer student who had emailed him from Údaras) as a ’spat’, exactly – Waghorne was being a prick, as was obvious to everyone at the time (and was commented on across many blogs, leading to his second disappearance off the Internet).
Re: Creighton:
(i) US Democrats are not necessarily ‘left’ in every sense (or even at all in some cases), even in New York; and in NY, associating with the Democratic machine opens doors for Irish people (and Creighton’s CV i worth looking at that in that regard).
(ii) She and McGuirk clearly have a grudge going, which seems from reports in Phoenix to be the result of the breakup of a pretty pally relationship in YFG beforehand. Anyone who knows McGuirk’s politics can draw their own conclusions as to what that suggests of Creighton’s.
Any thoughts on the reply?
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0529/1224247665182.html
Hi Alastair (al?).
Yep -one and the same.
Hi Alastair (al?).
Yep – one and the same.
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