Dun Laoghaire …. February 4, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Uncategorized.Tags: 2011 election, dun laoghaire
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Will do a few of these along with wbs during the course of the campaign….
Dun Laoghaire 4 seats (down from 5)
So Far the candidates are as follows
Fianna Fail -Barry Andrews*, Mary Hanafin*
Fine Gael -Sean Barrett, Mary Mitchell-O’Connor
Labour -Eamon Gilmore, Ivana Bacik
Green Party – Ciaran Cuffe
PBPA /United Left Alliance -Richard Boyd-Barrett
Direct Democracy Ireland -Raymond Whitehead
Independent- Victor Boyhan
One of the most fascinating constituencies of this election with five TDs going for four seats and 7 or 8 candidates in contention.
So what of the sitting TDs?
Fine Gaels Sean Barrett should sail home as should Labour Leader Eamon Gilmore.
In 2007 The Green Partys Ciaran Cuffe relied on transfers to overtake Richard Boyd-Barrett and win the final seat. Those transfers will no longer be there and undoubtedly his first preference vote will suffer too. So Cuffe is a goner.Where his transfers go will have quite a bearing on the final outcome.
From the outside the decisions of Mary Hanafin or Barry Andrews not to jump ship to Dublin South looks odd yet I think they both reckon that it will be a personal rather than a party vote that will potentially make the difference. For Andrews the move would have meant throwing away a dynasties worth of work (I know Niall Andrews was in Dublin South but hes gone a long time).
Tipperary native, Mary Hanafin having established herself in the constituency was unlikely to throw it away especially after previous electoral defeats in Dublin South East and Rathmines in Local Elections. What was considered part of her hinterland moved to Dublin South, but a lot of this area would consist of previously expensive new apartments and houses that have fallen steeply in value.
Its inconcieveable that Fianna Fail would hold on to the two seats and given that the campaigns will have to be of a personal nature the likelihood is that both may miss out. Hanafins actions in the leadership crisis hasn’t done her any favours either.
In the 2009 Local Elections between Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire and Ballybrack Fianna Fail polled less than The People Before Profit Alliance candidates (even though there was no PBP candidate in Blackrock). Things were so bad for Fianna Fail in the constituency back then, that I even have letters sent from the parents of a candidate to neighbours begging for a vote for their son. That was 2009, when compared to their current position Fianna Fail were riding high in the polls.
Labours decision to run Ivana Bacik as Eamon Gilmores running mate looks to be a good decision. She will get some of the liberal vote Fiona O’Malley got (and she did despite being a PD). She will appeal to some ex Green voters and may even tempt some of the more liberal Fine Gael vote.
Fine Gaels Mary Mitchell O’Connor isn’t the strongest of candidates and the Fine Gael vote may well be very unbalanced with Barrett flying home on the first count.
Back then to Boyd-Barrett, polled brilliantly in the locals, has been active on the ground from everything to bus routes and The Connolly Shoes dispute. I gather too that he is being recieved well when canvassing. Add in the lack of Sinn Fein candidate (to date Sinn Fein have no candidate here) and Boyd-Barrett has the Left vote to himself.
Of the others Boyhan will poll well but won’t be in the mix.
I reckon……
Gilmore, Barrett, Boyd-Barrett and a final seat showdown with Bacik or Mitchell-O’Connor benefitting from each others transfers and edging Fianna Fails Andrews out.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
I am amazed that Boyd-Barret might take the third seat. An incredible performance.
I think transfers within and to FF will be very low.The dispute between Hanafin and Andrews was funny. Hanafin suggesting that Andrews clear off to Dublin South and Andrews drawing attention to Hanafins Tipp roots and home in Rathgar.
This is a constituency which had 3 FG, 1 FF and Desmond for Labour. Some change
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Boyd Barret to be elected? Not a chance! Fine Gael will get two , Labour has Gilmore and I expect Andrews to topple Hanafin in a purge of Fianbna Fail ministers this time round.
Fine Gael now has every reason to go for the overall majority and they’ll get there , that is going to be the story of this election.
Boyd Barrett was rubbished easily by Vincent Browne on Tuesday night, described as a Loonie Stalinist spouting Baloney by Vincent , accused of not having ahalf a clue about economics.
Bacik too has failed to impress.
But this election is not going to be about local issues anywhere in the country, there is only one big issue , the current financial crisis.
Forecast FG 2, FF 1 , Labour 1 .
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Boyd Barrett was rubbished easily by Vincent Browne on Tuesday night, described as a Loonie Stalinist spouting Baloney by Vincent , accused of not having ahalf a clue about economics.
I can call you a four-headed reptile from Pluto and accuse you of instigating the Holocaust. That makes it true, you know. How will you ever be able to show your face outdoors again!
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I see Alf Garnett has started commenting here. He is right though, the main issue is the financial crisis which FG hope to solve by vicious austerity cuts on the working-class, which has just been working brilliantly so far. It’s fairly clear that Vradkar and the other Toryboy Thatcherites don’t a single thing about the economic reality, though a great deal about discredited neo-liberal economics which they will follow like a religion. Boyd Barret will almost certainly get in based on his record as a campaigner.
‘Loonie Stalinist spouting Baloney’
Really? I thought that RBB and the other ULA people came out of it quite well, though if you’re ignorant enough to call RBB a Stalinist, you’re ignorant enough to support FG,
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Is there any chance that VB’s turn as Hammer of the Trots could be put up on youtube, for those of outside the jurisdiction?
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It should be on tv3.ie, which I’ve been able to access in England.
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Vincent, Hammer of the Trots:
http://tv3.ie/shows.php?request=tonightwithvincentbrowne&tv3_preview=&video=31966
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By and large they did quite well against him, particularly Daly and Allen although Boyd Barrett held his own.
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I agree. I thought Daly was clear and calm and Kieran Allen stood up well to VB.
RBB was better than I expected but looked shifty when VB suggested that he was essentially proposign the same negotiated default as Somerville/McWilliams. If he isn’t then he should have repudiated that point more strongly. If he is then just agree with it. Similarly the Tom O’Connor 122 billion point sounded very unconvincing and attacks have been made on this fairly consistently since the 1% Network first started promoting that figure.
VB made some pretty trenchant criticisms though which weren’t fully answered. These are questions that have been around for a while though:
1. Capital flight
2. What’s the alternative
The answer to #2 seems to be something vague along the lines of “it’ll be alright on the night”. Pushing back with the strong message that in VB’s “Reality” there will be a situation which will be _worse_ than the inevitable problems which will happen with a default.
In none of the above criticism am I claiming that I would have done better. I thought the performed well in a very hostile situation. But that’s the problem with entering into capitalist representative democracy: you’ve automatically entered into a debate in which the terms of reference are constructed explicity to exclude you and you look bonkers.
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P.s. at about 40 minutes in VB appears to be suggesting to KA that Trots would be better off practicing entryism in the Labour party. Labour in turn would then practice entryism in a government coalition with FG. 😉
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“The answer to #2 seems to be something vague along the lines of “it’ll be alright on the night”. Pushing back with the strong message that in VB’s “Reality” there will be a situation which will be _worse_ than the inevitable problems which will happen with a default.”
The RBB distraction of “look how disastrous things are currently” when it’s suggested that the PBP economic platform is a bit short on measured solutions is understandable. The honest answer of “we don’t have a plan, because we don’t want to legislate” isn’t really a vote catcher in an election of potential legislators. Personally I thought he was pretty exposed by Vincent in that regard. He’ll do grand regardless.
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Can’t say I disagree with you Alastair.
It’s interesting, L.Aughable points this out from a further left position and you and I both from different positions, but it is an issue in terms of limiting how far the ULA can go, though I guess a riposte might be that this is the start, building support, etc.
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Thought VBs performance the last day was a tad weird myself, as a general rule I think ULA/trot types get the easiest ride of anyone who is on the show. Maybe he was trying to redress a balance? Most peculiar.
As for DL/R, I think Andrews will hold on, the name as much as anything. 1 ff 1 fg 1 Lab, and its Bacik, Mitchell o Connor and Barrett for the last 2 seats. Barretts in with a shout, but he is no racing certainty either.
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By Barrett there ,of course I mean RBB, not FGs Barrett
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There’s only 4 seats – so they’re in for the last one?
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Yes thats right actually, I had forgotten the redraw. Which probably makes my prediction entirely bunk, as I wouldnt be as sure of 1 ff in a 4 seater. I suppose Gilmore and Barrett FG can then be considered safe, and 2 from the other 4, though I would be inclined to think Andrews could still hold on, though it could be Bacik and RBB
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It’s important to note that, People Before Profit easily outpolled FF in the constituency in the locals, even though they didn’t stand in one ward at all. And that was before the IMF.
There is a relatively low profile FG 2nd candidate, while Bacik is a new arrival on the local scene who didn’t do very well in her previous location. Admittedly, DL has rather more of the moneyed liberal vote she would be a natural fit for than DC had.
Boyd Barrett isn’t a dead cert, but a lot of things would have break badly for him to lose. The FF vote staging a recovery from the locals for instance. Plus at the same time the kind of wave for FG or Lab that sweeps relatively weak second candidates in. Even if one of those things happens he should make it, it would take both to lock him out.
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“1. Capital flight
2. What’s the alternative
The capital flight has already happened. Even the spivs and specs have got what is left out because NAMA is so slow (I wonder if deliberately.)If I wanted to go to the USA, I would not get a visa.
On 2, I have doubts. I think the blackmail option could work. ” If we go down we will bring the German etc. banks who were so stupid to lend to Anglo-Irish etc. as well.
I think Capitalism has reverted big time to periodic recessions/depressions. The Bretton Woods agreement is long gone.he USA is no longer totally supreme. It is more inherently unstable now than for decades.
Solution, yes Socialism. But like Griffithite capitalism it cannot work in a small country or even a large one (USSR). So Internationalism is the only way.
Ok I know economics is far more complex and do not mean to be trite. But warmed up Keynesianism in a small country excluded from capital and markets could not last. Jack Lynch ran into trouble trying it.
A strong ULA and SF will ensure that socialism is on the agenda and that it will be politic to make the rich take up more of the pain.If there is no resistence (And Gilmore shows little signs of gumption) then the poor will be hit for most of it.Remember we have at least 4 more budgets of cuts and in my opinion we are just treading water and the debt will not come down even with these cuts.The last budget just about saved the interest on the debt if even that. The banks as vampires are making budget balancing all but impossible.
We need to have the next government looking over its shoulder at a strong ULA/SF. If all they have to look at is Martin and FF the more cuts all round.
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Can somebody tell me why the Left simply points out at every opportunity that we’ve been living with Right Wing economic Extremism for well over a decade. The proof is all around us.
The economic orthodoxy would be just plain looney if it wasn’t for the fact that people’s lives are being so badly affected now and into the seeable future.
The MSM has done a good job portraying the improverishment of working people as middle/centre of the road economic policy. It patently isn’t. Aren’t the Left pointing this out during these sound-bite shows (I watch very little or no telly)?
FFS, the stars of the FG menagerie are those who can articulately spout right wing extremist economic ideology without thinking. There’s not one right wing Irish politician with an original economic idea. Never has been.
The Left shouldn’t be defensive on economic policy. Given the paucity of national air space the Left get, they should be making hay and they have all the ammunition they need to attack the right wing extemists.
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But isn’t the problem there that that simply is yet another critique of the right? It doesn’t appear present an actual left policy that is credible with people not in the long term but in the short to medium term.
People know that right wing economics is a crock, or the variant that’s been inflicted upon us is, but they’re much less sure that the left presents alternatives or that where there are alternatives they are credible.
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I take your point. It’s completely valid.
But do people (average workers, more to the point) actually think that the economics practiced upon us is Extremist? I’d venture to say no – at least that’s not what I pick in daily conversations. Worker’s viewpoints and expectations have been so modified that extremist right wing economic ideology seems normal – indeed often irrefutable if one listens to MSM.
That’s why I’m suggesting that the Left be aggressive in pointing out the extremism preliminary to any political discussion that takes place – be it on TV or in a public meeting place. The Left needs to set the conditions of the narrative from the get go. Failing to do so sidelines the actual issues that affect workers all too often. It allows people like Brown to set the tone and put the Left on the defensive.
[If I was a politician, I’d lay out a fairly lukewarm eco/financial agenda for the next 5 years (based upon M Taft’s ideas mostly), but my viewpoint is based on my experience with workers in my semi-rural area who are not in the slightest radical in any sense of the word.]
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I agree completely. They don’t think its extremist. But… how to persuade people who’ve loans, mortgages, wage packets, rents, bills to pay for themselves and often offspring, food costs, etc, that an alternative is something that won’t impact negatively upon them, that it is indeed feasible in the first place.
The right is very very good at assuring people that things will get better, or if not that that they won’t get worse, or if not that that while things have got worse that they won’t get much worse.
It’s also profoundly skillful at providing slight alternatives within its parameters, so FG can pop up with essentially and fundamentally the same approach as FF but paint itself as ‘different’.
So far the Workers Party is probably the most effective left of Labour party in Irish political history. It got around 4 per cent of the vote and 7 TDs at its height. And that was on the back of a fairly well worked out economic approach – whether one likes that approach or not. And anyone who canvassed or campaigned for the party will tell you that that sense that the WP for all its flaws was grounded in a serious engagement with the economy as it actually was, not as the WP wanted it to be, was central (though not the only aspect) to their success. But look again at how limited that success was at least in representation. 7 TDs.
The contemporary left by contrast has to in some sense guarantee that all those will improve, that people won’t be less well off, and broadly speaking I don’t think most people believe them. They simply don’t believe that individual formations have the nous or ability to oversee an economy as it stands let alone as they [the left] want it to be.
So that means that when the left goes looking for votes it tends to make moral cases that appeal to some but not all. And that’s a fundamental reason I think for why we live in a state where we have a left vote including the Labour party that is traditionally around 20% or so.
And I guess that’s why I’d very slightly pull away from your point about the left setting the conditions for the narrative because I don’t believe it can. What it can do however is to critique the prevailing narrative, point up the contradictions and say… this is what we’d do instead as a preliminary measure. In other words move to more economically based arguments.
Like you I’d go for the Michael Taft approach as a means of bringing people over. It’s credible and achievable, perhaps even modest. But that’s you and me. There’s plenty here who would entirely sincerely entirely disagree.
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On the question of “the masses” becoming convinced by the arguments of the Left, and dismissive of the arguments of the Right, it’s unlikely to occur due to rhetoric and argument alone, there’s a necessity for material circumstances to provide the evidence that the old regime has failed and is beyond fixing, and that alternative approaches will provide a better long-term solution. I know we might like to think that we’re at that point now but clearly for most people we’re not, otherwise we wouldn’t be seeing the high poll results for the mainstream parties etc. With time, as things visibly deteriorate further, as capitalism turns its last tricks, the evidence will be more convincing.
The electoral game doesn’t lend itself to that message of course, which more than anything is why the Left parties across the board are unconvincing on the economic detail. When they don’t believe it themselves it’s hard to convince other people. Dangerous game really.
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Hmm, I’ll just have to think about this some more.
My short term outlook is very modest. I’d be happy if the Left, broadly speaking, begins the assault on the extremist right wing economic narrative. Even if we can’t get the votes, the Left can use the limited national air-time available to startle a few more workers into thought.
For the first time in 15 or 20 years I’m optimistic about the future, and I was born pessimistic. The right wing economic extremists are pushing their ideology to the limits. They’ve f@cked up big time and their only solution is more of the same – and they really expect different results. Plus, I’d posit that there are external/material conditions that are simply going to stop Capitalism in its tracks – or at least make it unworkable/irrelevant for many, many people.
As for those who can’t accept Taftian solutions for the near term: maybe they want to come and listen to what workers actually want in my area rather then what they think workers want.
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“Taftian”
Too soon!
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Eh?
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Don’t worry about it Budapestkick, we have a particularly persistent troll.
anon-anon, again I’d broadly agree. That’s why a good showing by the ULA is a positive. But, I think it’s essential Taft et als approach begins to filter out more broadly.
In that respect I’d actually share some of your optimism.
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Taftian I presume is a reference to Michael Taft, of the ever excellent Notes On The Front: The Recession Diaries
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“Don’t worry about it Budapestkick, we have a particularly persistent troll.”
Eh?
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The guy who keeps making the Polanski jibe cropped up again, had to delete the comment.
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Should explain more, Budapestkicks comment was an ‘eh?’ directed against the jibe that person made, not agains you Alastair.
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Eh?
😉
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The ‘economics’ debate and the perceived weakness of the socialist Left and SF is an enormous conceit.
This was clear from VB’s interrogation of RBB and Clare Daly the other night. He asked both how they would deal with the deficit as if either was going to be in government after the next election. He knows that won’t be the case, and every other journalist knows it too, but still the media will persist in hammering the Left and SF about their so-called ignorance. The reason: the Left offer a very useful whipping boy to distract attention from the failed, failing and doomed to fail economic policies of the centre-right (FF, FG, Lab.).
Adams’ ropey grasp of economics is another useful distraction. What’s worth remembering is that no individual politician will ever take economic decisions alone and political parties always have access to expert advice, when in government, as well as, ahem, the ‘expertise’ of civil servants. What Adams has, even though I loath SF, is steel, mettle and tenacity. Regardless of his poor grasp of economics I’m sure Adams would have seen though Seanie and the boys on 28 September 2008 and would have been tougher proposition for AJ Chopra than Cowen and Lenihan. A great grasp of economics can’t compensate for political nous. And Adams has the latter.
A final point, one touched upon by RBB on VB recently and above as well. The key fear, in western political thinking, associated with socialist electoral success is ‘capital flight’. By focusing upon the hypothetical consequences of how the Left might deal with the deficit, while ignoring the actuality of actual current capital flight (35bn according to Elaine Byrne in the IT today) under the right wing response to crisis, is a clear example of the media shifting the goalposts which ends up indirectly insisting the right. That’s what the left should be pointing out insistently.
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“The reason: the Left offer a very useful whipping boy to distract attention from the failed, failing and doomed to fail economic policies of the centre-right”
Nothing to do with highlighting shortcomings in their own economic platform then?
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A little, but greatly exaggerated. But the centrist and right wing argument that ‘if the Left get in there’ll be enormous capital flight and economic ruin’ has huge traction in the media and the electorate at a time when right wing policies are being pursued and locked in for five more years and this is, still, causing huge capital flight. Byrne’s article mentioned 35bn in capital flight in December of last year.
The media are far more interested in battering the Left, who can do fuck all in retaliation, than unsettling the right wing parties by focusing on the huge contradictions and inconsistencies of their economic policies.
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My memory of the VB/RBB capital flight exchange related to ‘burning the bondholders’ and the consequences for deposits in the Irish banks – RBB claimed that this is already happening on the back of the IMF bailout, while VB pointed out that it primarily happened before the bank guarantee was applied. Neither reading really touched on any dynamic of ‘left policies = capital flight’ as such.
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To a degree CMK, but there also the issue that if parties of the left/further left don’t present programmes that at least attempt to deal with the here and now then it seems to me that there’s a logical and actual gap in those programmes because again most voters want to know what if in power the parties would do. Alastair far from wrong in that regard, and it’s to SFs credit that it presents an actual programme of what it would do in govt even though we know short of a catastrophic meteor strike on the next FG Ard Fheis it isn’t going to happen for the next few years.
Voters, citizens don’t want people with a wooly understanding o actually existing capital, they want people who can forensically dissect it and lead a way forward, and we shouldn’t blame the media for finding it easy to undermine the left in these circumstances, because it is easy.
I’ll go further, Alastair has got a lot o stick here, over the last two years, sometimes rightly, but more often not (and absurdly he’s pick up his own personal troll in the process), largely in part due to actuall asking some fairly fundamental questions about how the left answers in policy terms th current crisis. Lamentably on certain issues it’s been a hard slog to come up with answers. I don’t like that a lot more than I don’t like the questions asked. It suggests a significant deficit in terms of how the left is equipped to deal with this crisis in ways in which we can articulate a messag that people understand it and are convinced. The fact that those seriously
looking at the issue seem to include Taft, Spain, McCabe some of TASC is very worrying although to their credit they’ve fashioned a good coherent alternative analysis.
But look at the Labour Party who should b leading th charge and you see effectively a capitulation to the orthodoxy which in it’s own way is a weird
echo of the almost wilful distrust of presenting near to mid term policy by parts of the further left(btw, I believe the LP had no internal economic policy unit a least until the last couple of years and perhaps not even now.
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Pesky non keyboard device… “…only to include Taft.,,.etc” ie how small a group that is…
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WbS, I concur with the broad point that the socialist Left should have a credible plan to lead the country out from the current mess. And I take your point, made above, that people with families, mortgages, jobs, bills to pay and kids to educate all need a great deal of certainty before they decide whether to vote for X, Y or Z economic policy.
The problem is that within the current paradigm the Left are being asked to come up with precise economic policies costed almost to the single euro and cent. The centre-right are under the same obligation too, of course, but when circumstances change they then get away with back-of-an-envelope policies, like FG yesterday adjusting policy on mortgage interest relief in response to opinion polls. It would be an interesting exercise, for instance, to compare FF and GP economic policy documents from the 2007 election, against the actual economic policies they followed from 2007-2011. When policy document crash into unimagined economic events, it’s often broad principles which dictate the policies followed in response to changed circumstances. FF insisted 2007-2011 that the wealthy and the banks must be protected above all else; the Left should point out that its guiding principle will be to protect the living standards and services of workers and those on social welfare above all else.
I think, in line with ‘anon-anon’ above, the Left should ruthlessly expose the consequences of the centre-right’s economic policies when combined with the actions of independent economic actors, such as the banks.
For instance, Permanent-TSB’s decision to raise variable rates by a whole 1% while withdrawing all fixed rate mortgage provision. FG and Labour should be asked to explain how someone on the a decreasing median wage will be able to survive with rising interest rates, cuts and tax increases as well as proposed property taxes, water taxes, third level fees. While FG and Lab have very impressive economic policy documents which impress economic analysts and provide soundbites to throw at journalists, what neither party will ever produce are documents outlining the social consequences of their policies. Why? Because they don’t know what those consequences might be, and they don’t care, in many cases.
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Literally on way out of door, but I actually agree with everything you say here. What I do think though is that our critique has to be grounded, so indeed we do point out everything you say above, but beneath that we have two further layers, at bedrock the nature of the social and economic transformations we want in the medium to long term and between that the means we see of shifting from where we are to that mid point.
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Joe Higgins in DL
From paula Geraghty
If you political junkies needed another excuse to stay on the net watch this
video of Joe at Dun Leary launch of Richard Boyd Barrett’s election Campaign.
The reception was tremendeous for Joe and it had all the atmosphere of a family
member returning home. Sweet really.
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Great talk by Joe Higgins.
He noted that when the finance spokesperson for the Labour party was asked to justify the morality of Irish workers paying the gambling debts of speculators, through the IMF/EU deal, she did not answer and instead resorted to ‘extremely bizarre behaviour’.
On this the Labour party is to the right of the Financial Times.
Lets hope Joe is right that a good showing by the U.L.A. will be a basis to build a real movement of the working class.
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