What you want to say? Open Thread, 26th October 2011 October 26, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
As ever… following on Dr. X’s suggestion, it’s all yours, “announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose”, feel free.
For those of us who are trade unionists in the UK, this is scary:
Firms would be able to sack lazy and unproductive staff without giving them a reason under a radical reform of employment law being considered by David Cameron.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2053546/Lazy-workers-sacked-explanation-government-told.html
What happens in Albion eventually happens in Inis Fail …
Or more correctly, firms would be able to sack staff who they claim are lazy and unproductive.
Aside from all the other good reasons to oppose this, I very much doubt that any employer, anywhere, ever, has chosen not to take on workers that they needed, because of unfair dismissal laws. It’s an absolute crock in every way.
+1
Michael, it will be even be scarier for non-union workers. This will make excellent recruiting material.
I see that the clown running for Fine Gael in Dublin West (we can only presume that she was chosen so as to prevent anyone challenging Varadkar) has posters up claiming to be the only government candidate! This is pretty obviously a reference to the Labour candidate’s record as one of that most endangered of species, a social democrat still in the Labour Party.
Nulty’s people can quite reasonably regard this as dirty politics. He is, after all, the candidate of a government party. And more importantly, he has repeatedly stated that he will vote with the government on every issue, regardless of his allegedly critical beliefs about austerity. It must be galling to have his commitment to being a reliable hand-raiser for cuts questioned like that by his party’s partners in government.
Any feel for how it will go tomorrow?
Reliable hand-raisers?
Sure isn’t that what the ULA want as membership?
Certainly there was no meeting/discussion as to who would be the ULA candidate out in Dublin West. It was the Socialist Party’s candidate and that was it.
when you have a faction within the organisation calling the shots, it’s hardly a democratic movement.
reliable hand-raisers indeed.
Michael:
It’s always hard to predict an election without any independent polling, particularly a by-election. In theory it should be a three horse race, between Loftus (FG), Nulty (Lab) and Coppinger (SP/ULA). In practice, the Blueshirt is such an obviously poor candidate that I’d be very surprised if she won. I think that Ruth will poll very well, but transfers will probably let Nulty (Labour) win.
Nyles:
Hmmm, second ever post here. The nasty cynic in me suspects a sock puppet.
However, in case anyone is misled. you misunderstand both the nature of the United Left Alliance and the point I was making. The ULA is an alliance, not a party, and it endorsed the Socialist Party’s candidate. ULA members from all “factions” and none are out working for Ruth, and the experience of working together like that can only strengthen the alliance.
Further, I didn’t call Nulty and Loftus simply reliable handraisers but reliable handraisers for cuts, something no Socialist Party or United Left Alliance candidate will ever be.
Loftus is a blueshirt to the core and thus a true believer in the austerity programme of the government. Nulty is a lonely social democrat in the Labour Party, but has repeatedly declared that he will vote the government line, which is to say he will reliably vote for austerity. Both are also rather inarticulate, in my experience, and would be anonymous backbenchers.
On no grounds more scientific than a hunch, I fancy Ruth Coppinger to spring a surprise in Dublin West tomorrow. At the very least she won’t be outside the top two.
Given the way the presidential campaign panned out, the extreme volatility of the electorate, the fact that none of the candidates seemed to run a good campaign, are the ULA sorry they didn’t run, or at least back, a candidate? Or was that not a realistic option? Genuine question.
As regards tomorrow I think McGuinness might well do much better than expected though the way the vote will splinter will make the whole contest look less like a presidential election than the scramble for the last seat in a general election. I still can’t work out why Mary Davis is going to come last, uninspiring as she is there are surely at least a couple of other candidates deserving of the hatred of the public.
Good luck anyway. Say hello to the comrades: there should be a couple who remember me (Mick Murphy probably; Ruth maybe).
Eamonn:
The ULA would probably have run a candidate if the numbers were there, but they weren’t. There simply aren’t the requisite numbers of Oireachtas members or local councils that would nominate a left wing candidate.
And backing any of the people actually standing wasn’t really an option either. They’ve all, predictably, run campaigns within the right wing consensus, with the exception of Dana who managed to be slightly critical of the consensus from a further right position.
Michael, if you don’t mind me asking what’s your political home of choice in the UK? Not meaning to be nosy, just curious.
Re Nulty’s position, it’s almost entirely incoherent. If he’s agin the cuts then he shoudld be… well agin the cuts. If not…
“The ULA is an alliance, not a party, and it endorsed the Socialist Party’s candidate.”
yes, but how? Was it through the representative body of the ULA – you know, the one elected by the membershi…. oh, sorry, there isn’t one.
“I didn’t call Nulty and Loftus simply reliable handraisers but reliable handraisers for cuts, something no Socialist Party or United Left Alliance candidate will ever be.”
Yes, but it’s the members who paid ten euro to join the ULA who are the handraisers, Marp P – at least, that is the role assigned to them by the democratically-elected executive of the… oh, sorry again.
By the way, who issues membership cards and charges ten euro to individual members of an alliance?
I reckon the Socialist party is waiting to see if Ruth wins tomorrow – and if she does (and I do hope she does win whatever my thoughts on the anti-democratic nature of the ULA) I reckon it’ll be sometime after christmas when the Socialist party calls it a day within the ULA and leaves.
I see that my sock puppet detector is properly calibrated. Is it really necessary for you to use quite so many aliases to post here making the same arguments obsessively?
The ULA is an alliance, which is slowly (too slowly in both my opinion and that of the Socialist Party) developing its structures. Its steering committee, which currently represents affiliates though it will hopefully soon also represent independent members, decided to back Ruth Coppinger, the Socialist Party candidate in Dublin West. There has been absolutely disagreement from any quarter with that decision as Ruth was the overwhelmingly obvious candidate – someone who is articulate and passionate and has a long record of campaigning work in the area. Independent members of the ULA have been playing an important role in her campaign, something that will only help strengthen the alliance.
The Socialist Party will not be leaving the ULA any time soon and is fully committed to helping the alliance grow and develop.
For someone who claims to wish the ULA well and who claims to want to see the socialist candidate win in Dublin West. you have an extremely odd way of showing it. This is what your fifth? Sixth? Different alias you’ve used here almost exclusively to attack the ULA. Some dreadful cynics might even suspect you of dishonesty.
I wish to bring up the matter of the pint. Around the time of “Arthurs Day” here, someone proposed meeting up in some “independent” pub for a few pints of “micro-brewed” beer or somesuch piss. This as some kind of protest against the commercial invention of Arthurs Day by the evil multi-national Diageo.
I wish to state the following: I have tried all that micro-brewery, independent ale and stout and beer and it is all Queen Victoria’s poolie. Nothing compares to a well pulled pint of Guinness stout. The cool, the black, the beautiful.
Further for “independent” pub above read “anti-union”. The same for “micro-breweries” – no union here you can be sure. Whereas there are still plenty of well-run union houses in Dublin where you can partake of a nice pint of Guinness brewed in the highly-organised environment of the St James’s Gate brewery. Said brewery having the over 250 years experience in brewing the finest stout in the world.
If we were to rely on these mickey-mouse piss-producing micro-breweries, most of the world would be dying of the thirst. Mass production is the way to go to slake the thirst of the masses. And it tastes better too – a million times better.
So yis can have yeer middle-class soirées in your “independent” pubs sipping “micro-brewed” piss. I’m sticking with the union and with Guinness.
Thash a good pint. Point. Hic.
I prefer Murphy’s myself…
Not getting out to the pub much these days so my preferred 500ml at home would be a bottle of Svytury’s Ekstra or a cheapest of the cheap can of Karpackie.
But yes, a nice pint of Guinness in a good pub, hard to beat it.
I always start the day with a nicely chilled glass of Dom Perignon myself. Then I switch to the Karpackie.
Murphy’s and Beamish are good.
Sorry that last sentence should read:
So yis can have yisser middle-class soirées in yisser “independent” pubs sipping “micro-brewed” piss with yisser hippie green friends and yisser dreadlocks. I’m sticking with the working class and the union and with Guinness.
You are Jem Casey The Working Mans Poet and I claim my twenty crumpled, tobacco stained pounds.
None of which I would suggest you waste on Guinness.
(As Guiness advertising is famous, may I propose my own slogan? “Guinness – it’s all right if there’s no decent beer on.”)
Now I know yer takin’ the piss Joe. Thought you were serious for a minute there.
Up until very recently Irish pubs had a uniformly dreadful selection of beers unless you were a stout drinker. I like stout, but many people don’t. And that meant that they were stuck with Smithwicks, which is a reasonable but not particularly good ale, and the worst of the super-brand international pilsners.
As for “independent” pubs and microbreweries being unionised, well, firstly, most Irish pubs are “independent” regardless of the drinks they serve and their degree of unionisation varies drastically. Its very easy to get a pint of Guinness served by a non-union barman in this town. The real issue isn’t that there’s some inherent reason that workers who produce or retail craft beer can’t be unionised but that the Irish trade union movement has done a very poor of unionising newer work places in all fields.
“Its very easy to get a pint of Guinness served by a non-union barman in this town.”
It is indeed, if that’s what you are into.
I suppose times may have changed in this respect but I remember on the day of the Ireland-Italy 1990 world cup game there being a barmans strike in Dublin. The vast majority of pubs seemed to be closed that day and most customers when they were told this at the door of their locals by the barmen picketing there were content to buy something from an off-licence and go home.
I remember my father explaining to me that we couldn’t drink in a non-union pub either because that would merely punish the unionised pubs. I wonder if the same attitude would be present among today’s drinkers.
I don’t remember that strike. I watched that game in Dan Lowery’s or one of those pubs on McCurtain St. in Cork. Union pubs in Dublin didn’t used to open on Stephens’s Day either up to recently. Some do now.
I will accept a pint of Beamish now and again but Murphys is hogwash.
Murphys, like everything else in Cork, is the greatest thing in the world and, far more importantly, much better than what they have in Dublin.
Strong pints, strong opinions!
O’Hara’s Red is now on tap in some bars as I discovered this week. Not bad.
I never knew that about Stephens Day. It always confused me why some pubs were open and others weren’t.
Beamish is better than Guinness. Murphys is nice once in a while, but is too sweet to drink all the time. But what we’ve been lacking in this country is a decent range of widely available other beers. At least up until recently.
O’Hara’s Red is drinkable, but I prefer their Pale Ale.
on Saturday November 12th -
Dublin City Libraries and the Old Dublin Society will hold a Dublin Maritime Morning in the Dublin City Library and Archive, 138 – 144 Pearse Street, Dublin from 10am to 1 p.m There are 3 talks
Dublin Port – Past and Present by Niall Dardis
Dublin’s Dockers – Francis Devine
A Dublin Shipbuilder / Shipyard – Pat Sweeney.
Admission free – all welcome / Watch local press for details
@WBS Still SP, but not terribly active because union duties (UCU and trades council) eat up my time.
Good on you. I know what you mean re other work eating up time, I’ve been that soldier but I always rationalised it as all being political work so the form isn’t as important as the fact it’s done. Don’t know if everyone is convinced.
For me it’s more a question of trying to do one thing properly than ten things badly.
That makes sense Michael.
That’s the 1994 World Cup you mean Eamonn isn’t it? There was a strike then.
1994, my mistake. In 1990 I was in London.
IN a bush in London taking pics?
So I turn on the radio and some skanger from Tallaght has locked out Qantas. As a Tallaght skanger, I object to being connected to that class of a yoke. Could get entertaining though, if they try to force them back to work.