Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week

It might be funny to see the Fianna Fáil cheerleaders like Daniel McConnell effectively call for people to vote against them were it not for the situation it took to get them to see the light. Plenty of stupidity this week, including a racist, clichéd and crypto-fascist bold, groundbreaking, telling-it-like-it-is rant from Eamon Delaney. However, it seems he has problems understanding how elections in the UK work.

This disparity is why the broad Left, hijacked by these sorts, went into the political wilderness in the UK and elsewhere: it lost touch with the real concerns of working people. In the UK, the electorate flocked to the law-and-order instincts of the Conservative Party, and the same appears to be happening here, with Fine Gael resurgent.

Eilis O’Hanlon has an attack on the Irish-language. However, it isn’t actually an attack on the language. Can you guess what she is actually complaining about?

It’s only delaying the inevitable. The country’s problems are so severe that any incoming government is going to have to make radical changes in education sooner rather than later, or watch impotently as Ireland drops further behind the rest of the world. We’ve smugly lied to ourselves for years about having a widely envied education system, but the recession has brutally exposed all our institutions as unfit for purpose — the bloated public sector, of which our schools form a major part, not least. If we don’t change fast, we’re sunk. Simple as that.

Meanwhile, here’s looking forward to a survey asking parents what they think of those endless holidays and Mickey Mouse staff training days off enjoyed by teachers. Bet Irish teachers won’t be so keen to publicise the results of that survey.

Colm McCarthy has had a very bright idea indeed, which in no way would lead to any further problems. I sleep better at night knowing that the government uses him to make major economic decisions for the country and the public sector.

The risk of another European banking crisis down the road can be minimised only through the redesign of the ECB and the Eurosystem. The redesign should involve the centralisation of bank supervision, which in an integrated banking market cannot safely be delegated to small countries with limited administrative resources. This logically raises the question of abolishing the national central banks altogether. In seeking a better deal for Ireland in the resolution of the European banking crisis, Irish politicians should not be shy about urging a better deal for Europe; a deal which at least addresses the unresolved current crisis and the prevention of the next one.

I’m fairly sure there are some stupid statements in a conversation between Aengus Fanning and the leader of the Labour Party, but I couldn’t face reading it.

I enjoyed this though from Marc Coleman.

As it was in East Germany, so it is in Ireland: The vested interests — many of them led by former admirers of the East German regime — have captured the three main parties completely.

Mental.

Had this been in a column written for the Sindo, instead of being part of a speech reported in it, it would have won. However, it reminds us just how in touch with the concerns of ordinary people the luminaries of the cultural and political elite are. Step forward Colm Tóibín.

Since it is not fashionable, or even wise, nowadays to raise a glass to Charles Haughey, I will follow Anthony Cronin in suggesting that those of us who have cause to be grateful to him, and to his policies, should wait until we are at home alone, and then we should turn off all the lights and raise a glass to him in the dark alone. Tell no one.