Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week March 3, 2013
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.trackback
Outrage at the Sindo over Phil Hogan calling its journalists “knackers”, and threatening to put manners on them. Shame there isn’t the same outrage when its writers indulge in vile language and still more vile politics. The disappointment evident in this report at the absence of compulsory redundancies in Croke Park II being one example. The appointment of Daniel McConnell as political correspondent doesn’t hold out much hope for a change in political line for the better either (see this week’s winner below).
Eoghan Harris has been reimagining himself again. This time as Cecil Day-Lewis.
But not me. I have had it with Hollywood. But I always wanted to lead the life of Daniel’s father, the poet, critic and crime novelist Cecil Day Lewis, who has long been one of my great heroes.
CDL was the son of a Protestant rector in Co Laois, so I would have grown up in a lovely rural rectory, in lovely countryside playing lawn tennis with lots of lovely Protestant Laois girls, the most loyal women in the world. What’s not to like?
Sometimes you do get the feeling he’s just taking the piss. But maybe not.
John Drennan continues the Sindo tradition of misrepresenting what the electorate actually voted for at the last election, instead interpreting replacing the actual result with what the Sindo wishes it had voted for.
That, however, is no longer the case and the current ailing condition of the Coalition is entirely its own creation. Its first error was to ignore the mood of the country that wanted reform to be imposed with the sort of elan displayed by the charge of the Light Brigade.
At one level, this is silly. At another level, this belief within the media not only infects public discussion, but shapes it.
This week’s winner is Daniel McConnell, showing the lack of memory essential to be a right-wing economic ideologue and prominent Sindo writer.
News of sweeteners, side deals and concessions now threaten to undermine a deal which, while far better for the taxpayer than its predecessor, is far from perfect.
Howlin has described this as his last big push of this Government and, if agreed, this deal will see public servants left untouched until 2016. That is a significant concession at a time when our finances remain so volatile.
And all of this in the context that those in the private sector are afforded no such guarantees, whether it be in terms of job security, pay or their pensions.
I could have sworn it was guarantees handed out to a tiny number of people in the private sector that got us into this mess in the first place. It’s called the class power of the bourgeoisie Daniel. You know it better as the common sense policies pursued by your mates in FG and FF.
It’s not clear to me that John Drennan actually realises that the Charge of the Light Brigade was actually a military disaster.
actually…actually….. sorry about that.
Stephen Collins had a similar gem in one of his ‘reports’ from Greece a while ago, referring dismissively to the ‘cassandras’ who had predicted that Ireland would have to default on its debt. You’d think in Athens of all places he would have remembered that Cassandra was right but nobody listened to her.
They’re still going with the ‘public sector untouched’ line I see.
Even while reporting on further paycuts, pension cuts and additional hours.
The Daily Telegraph, of all places, is capable of acknowledging the reality of the fact that the public sector has been hit very hard by our “adjustment”:
“The country has since deflated the froth. The gap in unit labour costs with the EMU-core has been closed again, at least on paper. “We have cut costs right through the economy with an internal devaluation of 15pc or 16pc,” said Mr Noonan.
One can quibble with the claims. Nearly all the gain in labour costs has been in the non-tradeable public sector – nurses, policemen, teachers – where wages have been slashed 14pc, with another 5.5pc to come. Productivity levels have been flattered by the annihilation of the building industry. “Private wages have declined only modestly,” says the IMF in its latest report.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9906230/Brave-Ireland-is-the-poster-child-of-EMU-cruelty-and-folly.html
You missed Michael McDowell worrying that a party ‘without any political substance’ might emerge to fill the ‘gap in the market’.
Between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, do we really lack parties that lack political substance and whose sole purpose appears to be rampant clientelism?
He now thinks the time is ripe for a centre or centre-right party so that ‘we’ are not forced to have a coalition that comprises of a left and right party. I wonder if there is anyone available to lead this party…who could step up? McDowell thinks that a person who ‘understands how the system works and can work’. But who could this person be?
It requires a person ‘with understanding, experience, and judgement necessary to carry out the vocation of representative politics in a manner that commands public confidence and trust.’ I guess we can rule out Michael McDowell for the job, then.
Honestly, the Sindo should charge him fees for advertising. Sad, sad man.
I noticed that and almost quoted the full description of his career at the end of the article as indicative of how far his star has fallen, but didn’t want to give him more free advertising
It’s a different newspaper, I know, but there’s a nice feature in today’s Observer about Ken Loach’s new film, “The spirit of ’45”, which celebrates the post-war Atlee government.
The following vignette, I thought, nicely captured the popular mood in 1945:
“The historian David Kynaston recalls the scale of the change in his book Austerity Britain, which covers the same period as Loach’s documentary. The book describes a ‘blazered, straw-hatted 14-year-old public schoolboy, John Rae’ (later headmaster of Westminster School), waiting on Bishop’s Stortford station in July 1945 with his trunk. ‘My man’, he called to the porter. ‘No’, came the porter’s firm reply. ‘That sort of thing is all over now.’”
Hope there’s a scene where the Labour MPs stand in unison in Westminster and sing ‘The Red Flag.’
Wasn’t that in the Seventies?
“Michael Heseltine famously seized the mace after a particularly heated debate in 1976.
The evening of 27 May proved to be a particularly eventful one for the House of Commons.
The government was attempting to steer its Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill through the Commons.
The Bill was hotly contested, with Michael Heseltine leading the Conservative opposition. The vote on an amendment had been tied, and was lost on the Speaker’s vote. The vote on the main government motion – which one would have expected also to be tied – was in fact carried by the Labour Government.
At this, some of the Welsh Labour MPs began to sing ‘The Red Flag’. Heseltine, infuriated by the traditional Labour Party anthem, grabbed the mace and held it over his head.
He was restrained by Jim Prior, replaced the mace and left the Chamber. The Speaker suspended the sitting until the following day.
The next morning Michael Heseltine apologised unreservedly for his behaviour.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/82544.stm
Kynaston’s book is really excellent. Highly recommended. Wasn’t aware of that film, but sounds interesting
Suppose with all the smokescreens there was probably no progress report on how the debt write down negotiations for the ‘corporate welfare’ appeal from INM to the banks …..did nt think so
btw I hear that Harris (ed) was full of praise for Geraldine Kennedy’s speech at UL where Ger put the knife into Denis O Brien while neatly side-stepping nay denying the IT and media’s role in the generation of a property bubble !
Eoghan Harris also displays his ignorance of Cecil Day-Lewis, whose mother died when he was three, after which his father moved to England. Cecil’s experience of Ireland thereafter was spending the holidays with his clergyman uncle in Co. Wexford.
Garibaldy, someone gunning for Marc Coleman’s job:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/colm-mccarthy-now-is-not-the-time-to-splash-out-on-building-29105460.html
A close competition!
Marian Finucane’s panel’s discussion of McDowell’s article is comedy gold. Talk of a ‘mob party’ and one panellist seriously arguing that after what will have been 8 years of centre right austerity, people will still be looking en masse for another centre right electoral outlet in 2016 once they abandon FG and FG. From about the 30th minute: http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A20164673%3A0%3A%3A
Can we be certain that mightn’t be right?
+1
Sadly, it probably is right. My point, such as it was, was the panel’s absolute certainty that there was nothing further to the Left than the Labour Party and SF and that ongoing crisis would lead to ANY gains further to the Left. Which I think is implausible.