The subtle pleasures of political stability for the mainstream left… January 24, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
… a stability that will see the Labour Party join a coalition with…er… Fine Gael.
Conor has an excellent post here from last night. It shows Martin Ferris and Roisin Shortall on TV last night.
Hearing Roisin Shortall talking about ‘stability’ it was curious, I seemed to hear an echo of the Green Party and their justification for being in government as the economy collapsed.
And look how well that turned out…
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There’s no point in bemoaning the betrayal etc. etc. What else did we expect. The Labour party is beyond saving it seems and I don’t know whether there is any point in even giving them a last preference.
I think they’ve done their psychological polling and found that people ‘want’ stability – or can be made to want it if they phrase has “people want stability” is repeated often enough. People want to believe this mess can be fixed and life as they imagined they could live in the early 2000s can return. FG/Labour will peddle this notion successfully for this election, and then 3 to 18 months in, the next crisis will expose them.
The real left has to have answers for this kind of thing, and point out that the only stability they will get is that of stable debt-slavery, unemployment at a stable high rate (possibly), a stable lower population after the emigration and a stably lower life expectancy. We have to be honest and say that we will only make progress as a result of further instability and conflict with those who created the problems.
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How can any government hope to be stable with Joan Burton at the cabinet table?! Good grief!
?!? indeed. Or even ?!$%!&
The VB show is going to be a dangerous place for the next few weeks, clearly.
Excellent… must see television.
I only got to tape a few seconds of it but here’s joan burton on Vincent Browne tonight.
Disgraceful behaviour. As my father would have said, she’s nothing but a pup.
http://youtu.be/DFJV9RZ716A
Given the nature of the show parties would be well advised to put on people who don’t get too excited. There does seem to be, and maybe it’s just a matter of perception, an unseemly relish being taken by Labour politicians in slapping the far left round the head. It’s all a bit Bill Clinton proves his strength by clobbering Sister Souljah at the minute. Shane Ross showed more respect for the ULA at the weekend than Shortall and Burton did.
The sad thing is that it basically represents a middle-class, ‘respectable’ politician utterly married to the idea that they are entitled to speak and that ragbags like ourselves should just shut up and let the grown-ups talk. A sickening display but one that’s gonna do the LP damage given how unpopular the finance bill is.
When did Joan Burton become middle class (presumably as opposed to Joe Higgins)?
“When did Joan Burton become middle class (presumably as opposed to Joe Higgins)?”
Around the same time roman Polanki stopped raping 13-yr-olds I expect. Sometime in the 1970s.
I think you’ll find that Polanski has never been charged or convicted of rape, and that Higgins is no less or more working/middle class than Burton.
Will you please give it a rest with the Polanski crap every time alastair posts? It’s tiresome, at this stage and has been more than well ventilated in the past.
I was referring more to her attitude than anything else, though since Joe only receives the average industrial wage and legitimate expenses, his lifestyle is more working-class than that of someone on a full T.D’s salary.
I didn’t realise voluntarily giving up some of your salary got you honourary working class status. Seems awfully convenient/pointless – and miles removed from any sort of Marxist definition I’d be familiar with.
I’m a bit surprised to hear you claim familiarity with Marxist defintions of anything Alastair.
Again Alastair, I was referring to her attitude. Accountants are, to my thinking, working-class and from my experience, some of them are borderline pauperised. However, the point of a Workers TD on a Workers Wage is that our public representatives live a lifestyle broadly in line with that of the average Irish worker and so not become disconnected from the people they represent. Are you suggesting that someone on roughly 35,000 a year earnings like Joe is no closer to leading an average working-class lifestyle than somebody on 100,000 per year?
I’d say that weekly commuting between Brussels and here, regularly appearing in the media, and having the luxury to opt out of a significant portion of their salary isn’t really connecting with the lifestyle of the ‘average Irish worker’. Grand if Joe feels it grounds him, but artificial and tokenistic is what it is, worthy or not. Jarvis Cocker had the last word on this kind of thing, didn’t he?
“I’m a bit surprised to hear you claim familiarity with Marxist defintions of anything Alastair.”
Given that you don’t know me, I’m not sure why you’d be surprised at my familiarity with pretty much anything.
Tonight was a kind of double whammy. Crazed enough to drive centrist voters towards FG and mean spirited enough to drive left voters to SF and the ULA. Which is a pity because one, almost completely unremarked, interesting point from the weekend’s opinion poll was that the Labour vote was on the rise again and getting back into Gilmore Gale territory.
Why would that be a pity?
Joan Burton really made my night. What a bizarre, hectoring, display.
It would be a pity if, as seems likely, that vote went to FG instead and they ended up with 70 plus seats. I maintain a small touching faith in Labour as a left wing party. Though increasingly I wonder if this makes me kin to those Russian peasants who thought that the tsar cared about them and would ease their plight if he only knew about it.
If Cowen didn’t exist, tonight’s tour de force would have been the worst media performance ever given by an Irish politician.
As well as everything else, she managed to distract attention from the great big vacuum to her left, Simon Coveney.
the worst media performance ever given by an Irish politician
Kebabs threatening the law on Vincent Browne last week?
Any of Martin Mansergh’s “respect your betters” screaming fits?
Pee Flynn talking about Robbo’s new-found interest in her family, or about the challenge involved in maintaining three houses?
It’s embarrassing, but I wouldn’t have thought it quite in that league.
I’d go as far as this isn’t Burton’s worst TV performance. She might have been hectoring and petty, but she stayed on-message (however bogus that message might have been), unlike one cringe-worthy (Primetime?) effort about a year / 18 months back. She swings from awful to impressive, and always has done.
Admittedly there are a lot of magic moments to live down to. Perhaps it’s just that you’d expect better from Joan Burton, or I would anyway, whereas Mansergh’s lunacy, Lenihan’s ignorance and Flynn’s whatever it is you call what Flynn does just seem like natural outcrops of their personalities.
“Ireland’s next ruling coalition will include a strong centre-left member in the Labour Party but it will be leftist with a small ‘l’, posing little danger to Dublin’s commitment to fiscal austerity and debt repayment.”
http://aprnonline.com/?p=81866
I think people are right to ask the question that at a time where the government has imploded, and even if Fianna Fáil and the Greens all voted for the Finance Bill they are still short of the numbers to pass it, why the Labour Party withdrew it’s No Confidence Motion when they could bring down this government without the Finance Bill being passed. Is it not democratic that an immediate election should be called and each party should debate their opinions on what should be in the Finance Bill and the Four Year Plan? This government has no support and no democratic mandate to implement an austerity FB. I really hope every voter in Dublin West was watching tonight.
I really hope every voter in Dublin West was watching tonight.
Well the screeching Harpie performance really was car-crash telly, but I doubt Joan has lost too many votes a direct result.
The audience for VB Tonight is just too small, and more important too firmly aligned, to make much of a difference.
But add the ground hurling from Burton to the Shortall ragbag denunciation on Sunday, and we see a Labour Party extremely nervous about its leftward flank and seriously over-reacting with a come-out-all-guns-blazing strategy.
It is weird isn’t it?
I reckon the strategy, if we can dignify it as such, is not so much to stop leakage to the left, as to reassure voters in places like Dun Laoghaire, Dublin S and SE, where they’re after second seats, that they won’t end up with a left alliance: so, in an attempt to woo those who might otherwise vote FG, and to attract disillusioned FFers, they try to be indistinguishable from FG – which really doesn’t make sense, because the rational floating voter will simply go for the original of the species.
Labour is not actually particularly threatened from the ULA or SF except in a few very specific seats – Bacik v Barrett, Lab2 in DSW v Crowe – but the difference between 30+ and 40+ seats comes down to the divvy up of the 35+ seats FF will lose, between them and FG.
The floating voter, that obscure and capricious object of desire, is now a reality in Irish political life, as in the UK: I’m sure there are people under 40 who have, in their lifetimes, voted for 3 or more of FF,FG, Greens, PDs and Labour. What we may see, though, is parties obsessively chase these, and miss the real story – which will be where erstwhile FF loyalists go: because they will go……
I’d agree with that (and as a soggy liberal/social democrat, I’d consider myself some way to the right of most posters here).
Labour’s appeal over the last two years has been based on not being “business as usual”, with the old firm of FF and FG representing business as usual.
The danger for them now is that they come across as being too eager to play obedient junior to one of the old firm, while SF (and to a lesser extent independents and the further left) take over the mantle of the honest outsider.
While it’s fair enough to point out the differences with their competition on the left, they need to distinguish themselves from the two old parties and tell ex-FF voters who are wavering between Labour and FG why they should go with Labour.
That should mean putting some energy into sticking it to FG (because the Blueshirts will have no compunction about sticking it to Labour if they think an overall majority or feasible minority government is on the cards).
Of course, it’s possible that the worst won’t happen (either because of opinion poll momentum or because of FG’s capacity for f***ing things up) but it looks hazardous at the moment.
Your point re eagerly playing the junior partner is key Padddy M. That was precisely what struck me watching Shortall’s performance. I’d also think you’re right about the volatility of the vote.
“which really doesn’t make sense, because the rational floating voter will simply go for the original of the species.”
I’m not so sure. Gilmore has a higher approval rating that Inda with floating voters, so there could well be mileage in courting that vote by Labour.
As to the rag-tag stuff etc – ehh – there’s an election campaign under way – what do you expect them to say about the competition? Maybe it isn’t pretty – but unexpected?
Pope in reply to your original point.
FF,FG and unfortunately Labour are now presenting the bailout and cuts to public services as an economic necessity, in reality they are a political choice. This is a choice deriving from the dominant economic and political doctrine of our time, a doctrine that for the last thirty years has tried to destroy the gains that organised working (and middle class) people have made since the end of World War 2.
The neo-liberals are grasping this opportunity to remodel the state and society along their preferred lines. Much as the the Tories are doing in Britain.
Will the same austerity be applied to the financial sector the next time it gets itself into trouble? Of course not, in that case the state will once again come riding to the rescue: indeed, the £7bn we are getting from Britain is to help protect British financial interests.
The situation is best summed up by the American Nobel-Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. In December, Stiglitz proffered “a deficit-reduction package that boosts efficiency, bolsters growth, and reduces inequality”.
The first ingredient of Stiglitz’s alternative economic plan is “spending on high-return public investments… Even if this widens the deficit in the short run, it will reduce the national debt in the long run. What business wouldn’t jump at investment opportunities yielding returns in excess of 10% if it could borrow capital … for less than 3% interest?” .
Stiglitz also calls for the elimination of “corporate welfare” and “a fairer and more efficient tax system, by eliminating the special treatment of capital gains and dividends… Why should those who work for a living be subject to higher tax rates than those who reap their livelihood from speculation (often at the expense of others)?”
As Stiglitz notes, “a deficit-reduction package crafted along these lines would more than meet even the most ardent deficit hawk’s demands. It would increase efficiency, promote growth, improve the environment, and benefit workers and the middle class.”
Can’t disagree with the thrust of that Chet – it’s quite conceivable that a more efficient and somewhat less unjust form of capitalism is theoretically feasible. However given the balance of forces (capital has captured and suborned most state regulation and control across the world and social democracy is disappearing) and the ideological position of most capitalists and of their economist priesthoods, I can’t see it happening.
I guess I am an old fashioned European Social Democrat at heart! Still I’ll be flying over to campaign and knock on a few doors in Dublin wherever the ULA have a chance of a seat.
Alastair
When did Joan Burton become middle class (presumably as opposed to Joe Higgins)?
Well I was gonna say that working class would be a bit of a stretch for even the most right-on of chartered accountants.
But then wikipedia tells me her primary profession is actually lecturing in the DIT, from which she has taken extended leave.
Pity the poor sap who\’ll have spent half their career on a temporary contract, filling her shoes in the job she\’s keeping open just in case Joe pulls the seat out from under her again.
“Pity the poor sap who\’ll have spent half their career on a temporary contract, filling her shoes in the job she\’s keeping open just in case Joe pulls the seat out from under her again.”
Maybe so, but by that measure Tony Gregory was equally suspect on the ‘not working class’ front too?
Think you’ve got it wrong there alastair if you think Bartley is a left wing class warrior…
No problem where s/he’s singing from – I’d just like this ‘middle-class Joan / working class Joe’ to be articulated (by whoever), as it rings hollow to me.
I’m not sure that his point was much different to yours.
I’m sensing the half-arsed vilification/beatification quotient is set to rocket in the next month.
With the ‘rag-tag’ stuff initiating the ultra-sensitivity switch. The outrage! I do love an election campaign.
That works all ways though. Ultra-sensitivity isn’t restricted to the left.
And to be honest there are some fairly glaring inconsistencies as regards, say, Shortalls, position on rag-tag – given that her own party subsumed people who barely a decade earlier – and I know this from personal experience they were lambasting in much the same terms.
As for Burton, well, she came out looking a little bit silly – or as one person I know close to the LP said to me today, there goes her last hopes of the Finance portfolio. That may be an exaggeration and who knows the dynamic post the election between the LP and FG, but that they would say it and would raise the issue unprompted struck me as interesting.
Why would I think it’s only a left-wing thing? But first out of the sensitivity trap is Conor Lenihan, closely followed by the ‘rag-tag’ flag-wavers and Burton-watchers. Given the tepid nature of these insults, and the subsequent overblown outrage, this is shaping up to be the thinnest skinned campaign to date.
Never said you did, just passing the time really.
You know it’s funny, reading your thoughts above about the rhetoric and mud-slinging, and not least your anticipation of the ‘outrage!’, they reminded me of something someone posted as a comment last week on this thread http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/a-united-right-alliance/.
I’m with Michael D on the depressing failure of so many to avoid mud-slinging. You don’t have to like Shane Ross’s ideology to dislike fabricated claims against the man.
“Assertion and counter-assertion doesn’t constitute a rich political engagement. The fact of the matter is we’ve paid a very heavy price for anti-intellectualism in Irish political discourse generally . . . If politics is to mean anything it should be an engagement about ideas.”
Noble sentiments. Wise words.
Now who was it who wrote that?
Seems like it was you!
Fantastic…
“Noble sentiments. Wise words.”
Try as I might, I can’t find any mud slinging in the rag-tag business, nor the testy Burton incident. And this is an election campaign – where things are expected to be adversarial – more so than the day-to-day political discourse. And finally, aside from those who make up stuff about their opponants
Doh! – fiddly iPhone keypad fail…
opponents, there’s no-one who enjoys the theatre, desperation, and bluster of an election than me. No contradictions there!
I know the problem…
But look at the entirety of the programme…
25.30 Burton asserts……erstwhile partners of Joe in the Technical Group’ Sinn Féin ‘voted for the guarantee’.
Whatever about the details about The Technical Group was an explicitly non policy based alliance allowable under Dáil rules to share resources. Her own party leader was a member of one in the late 80s or early 1990s. To suggest any policy alignment between SF and the SP or the ULA is simply…well mud-slinging.
She then called him a Trotskyite… I hardly need explain the provenance of that term. That too, at best, is mud-slinging.
Rag-tag, demeaning language…
There’s more… but God knows I only have so much time to watch VB… entertaining – and you’re right there – as it may be.
But look, election or not, these aren’t simple cut and thrust, this is a political attack, or else why make it, and done in a very calculated fashion. To be expected? I don’t know. I’d hope for better. I really would.
Bah, as if to prove your last point but one, ‘ whatever the details about the bank guarantee vote…’
By the way, by the way like eamonnn below I also agree with your point about overly thin skins. as I said in another post there’s halls up and down the state ringing with denunciations of the LP but… In fairness to Higgins both he and the other ULA crowd seem much more measured in their points. So far…
The thing is that this won’t play well in Dublin West where I think quite a few people would have put both Burton and Higgins somewhere on their ballot and would, to one extent or another, have been sympathetic to both of them. I think it’s likely that those people, having watched the VB show, or more likely seen it replayed on youtube or tv3.com, may put Higgins number 1 rather than Burton.
I think Alastair may have a point on the ‘thin-skinned’ thing.’But the rushing through of the finance bill is only going to encourage such theatrics given that it empties the election of actual political conflict. Hence there is going to be an increased focus on personal conflict in an effort to extract some drama from the campaign.
I suppose what I found objectionable about both the Burton and Shortall performance is that Labour supporters had to put up with this kind of stuff from FF people for years. You don’t bother engaging with your opponent’s arguments you just go straight into the ‘how many seats have you got then’ number. Someone posted an interesting thing here about ‘the bullying style in Irish politics’ and I do think there is an idea out there that the aforementioned style is a winning strategy. Remember all those fawning descriptions of Cowen as ‘the rottweiler of the government.’ In fact, no more than Bertie’s oft lauded deviousness this is nothing to be proud of and probably alienates rather than impresses many voters.
Unfortunately both Burton and Shortall gave the impression that they were kicking the ULA and SF just because the ULA and SF are the right size to kick. You can find it objectionable without going the whole hog of reaching for the smelling salts and fainting.
The FF point is very true. Indeed were it not for FG having to enter govt with the LP can you imagine the rhetoric, and whoever wins tomorrow no doubt we’ll b treated to som red scare tactics, bu it’s what you say too it’s dispiriting to hear the wa this I going.
And as I said above to al I agree being thin skinned ain’t a viable way forward either.