Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week

Haven’t had time to do this properly this week, which is a shame as I was really looking forward to reading in detail what the petit bourgeois nationalists had to say for themselves this week. (Un)Fortunately Jody Corcoran wrote the first story I read, and provided this gem

But in the private sector, in the same period, average weekly pay has dropped by six per cent, mainly because workers in the real economy have had working hours cut.

Almost a quarter of workers in the exposed economy now only have a part-time job — up more than six per cent since the onset of the recession, according to the report.

Apparently the public sector isn’t the real economy. Sure it’s not.

More rubbish from Daniel McConnell, channelling, I think, Eoghan Harris.

Middle-class homeowners and income earners are to be crucified in December’s Budget because of a host of tax increases and service reductions demanded by the EU and the IMF.

The Government has committed to raising an additional €1.5bn next year in increased taxes, meaning considerable additional pain for the “coping classes”

So all homeowners now appear to be middle class, while lawyers, doctors, accountants etc are coping. One wonders what the unemployed and low paid are doing then. Unless, of course, he means coping as in getting on ok. I doubt it but.

Colm McCarthy seems to have ignored the lesson of the fact that UK growth is massively behind that of France and Germany, whose governments reacted to the crisis very differently to the Tories.

When David Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne took over in the UK last year, they too faced a daunting budgetary challenge. They chose to put through a pre-cooked emergency budget inside six weeks, blaming the previous administration and gaining valuable credibility in the markets. It is a pity Enda Kenny and his colleagues did not use their political honeymoon to do the same.

I’m beginning to wonder if he has a string in his back that you pull and he repeats a set of stock phrases.

Jody.

It is, then, that as Enda Kenny has found himself, Ireland, as though by chance, may find itself too. To be a great leader, however, he must allow others to also find their place in this new Republic, by which I mean, for example, the Catholic Church — a hard ask, I know.

And to that huge ask: he must also find occasion to step back from politics, to help create a space, as it were, to allow for the rebirth of Fianna Fail.

Because whether we like it or not, this new Ireland to which we aspire will still need a church, renewed in spirit, and a new Fianna Fail, or a version thereof, to also take their place in the times in which we live.

Must be nice to live in a world where everything is so simple, and one person can do so much. And where revitalising two of the most poisonous entities on this island seems like a good idea.