And so… It begins! November 22, 2010
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Well, I guess making some news rather than being the subject of it may well have seemed a good idea for the Green Party this morning. But this wasn’t in any real sense unexpected whatever Brian Lenihan might have said earlier about ‘very, very loyal partners’. It had seemed to me from stray straws in the wind that the GP was becoming increasingly antsy. And in truth what to gain? Political reform drifting ever further away, climate change? Not exactly a massive step forward there. So why eke out yet more painful months holding together a government that by almost any measure must be the least popular in Irish history since Independence.
It’s also possible the polling from Donegal may have concentrated minds. An FF hold would have calmed nerves a little, even given some hope for an easier run forward into the new year. Doesn’t look likely now.
But where from here. An FFer of my acquaintance said to me today that FF won’t roll over, so the latter half of January might be extended a little, who knows what treats might be arrayed before the GP to keep them on board another while longer?
And if passing the Budget is so crucial, well let’s not forget the Finance Bills that will also need to be passed subsequently. So let’s say an election in late January or early February or even…
Is any if this any use to the GP? It’s hard to believe that it is. There have been so many previous points which offered themselves as tailor made for departure that weren’t taken that this seems simply too late in the day. Interesting though to see if they register any uptick in support from here on out. For them though this experience governing has been as bruising as it was for those being governed. Whether that’s a fair exchange is a different question.
There’s a lot more to be said about this government and how it came to be, the decisions that kept it in place and so. Plenty of time for that though…
The Greens Statement says
“So, we believe it is time to fix a date for a general election in the second half of January 2011.”
Is that in the second half of January 2011 they would fix a date for an election
or
Fixing a date for an election to be held in the second half of January 2011?
I had a conversation recently with a GP member of the Oireachtas who was canvassing members and ex-members for their views on how things have gone since entering government.
This person did not demur when I offered my opinion that Gormley, Ryan and the rest know their political careers, and the GP as a live entity, are effectively dead and buried and so they might as well hang on for as long as possible while they plan and prepare the next phase of their lives.
It looks now, given the dramatic changes over the past week, like they want to get out before the IMF start dictating terms and are just bringing forward the inevitable by a couple of months. It’s bad enough being members of a government has brings the wrath of IMF onto the country, but it looks like the Greens have no stomach for being the IMF’s stooges. Evidence, very faint, of a shred of decency remaining in the GP parliamentary party?
I suspect that what spooked the Greens were rumours that FF backbenchers were going to revolt. The Greens went into government knowing that it wasn’t so much a case of if they’d withdraw from government, as when. They couldn’t let somebody else do it.
I feel sorry for the Greens, not as sorry as I feel for the rest of us, but I believe that at least some of them genuinely felt that they were doing the right thing. When they went into government, some, who written they off previously as a protest party, speculated about whether they’d be “mature” enough to be members of a coalition government. The numbers didn’t really let them exercise any real power over their partners, so they were left waiting and hoping. They had to hope that Fianna Fail would make good on their promises, because otherwise, they’d look foolish for having gone into government in the first place.
Now, they get the blame not only for what they could have stopped, but also for the many things they never could have stopped, and they have so little to show for it.
I look forward to the Lib Dems in the UK having to do precisely the same thing in a couple of years.
Can they with the guaranteed 5 yaer parliament but? Or did that not come into effect yet?
Not yet, unless I am ill-informed. Though I grant you I’d forgotten about that particular scam.
‘Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it’-Macbeth, Scene 1
The Greens finest hour, alas two years too late.