The Cedar Lounge Revolution

A New Party? …. probably not …. October 31, 2012

I’m currently reading ‘Radical or Redundant? Minor Parties in Irish Politics’ which is so far anyway an excellent read. One of the things covered is why the much vaunted new party failed to emerge prior to the 2011 General Election. (New Vision, Fís Nua, CPPC, DDI and of course the ULA and some others did emerge and since then others such as Sli Nios Fearr and Tús Nua emerged).
The book notes that…

An opinion poll in the Sunday Independent in June 2010 detected a desire for a new mould-breaker, with the majority of voters feeling a new political party was needed.
A new political movement ‘Democracy Now’,was resultantly established to tap into this sentiment. Its intention was to run a list of high profile non-political candidates, including…Eamon Dunphy…Fintan O’Toole and economist David McWilliams. With as much as €400,000 pledged to the group in one day and a significant number of voluntary staff and even free campaign offices provided, it seemed as if the new group’s aim of twenty seats in the new Dail might not be unrealistic. In the end , however, the aspirations of this movement came to naught, as it decided not to contest the election in the absence of one resource it could not acquire: time.

So even with all that, they didn’t fight the election. Now some may say it wasn’t time but that some of the high profile individuals got cold feet about running. Time though was needed to launch the party, public meetings countrywide, establish a HQ, establish countrywide, get (and vet) potential candidates, get an electoral strategy together and all the other things that go along with running for election.

Despite Fianna Fail and The Greens electoral hammering… Twenty months on from that election there is a significant portion of the electorate disillusioned with the government (mainly Labour) and politics in general. The undecideds in the recent Irish Times MRBI Poll was 33% and in the latest RedC poll for the Sunday Business Post it was 22%. That Business Post poll also told us the ‘softness’ of the Labour and to a far lesser degree the Fine Gael support.
Despite the failure of a ‘mould-breaking’ party to start we still get the odd piece about Michael McDowell, Declan Ganley or the like being ready to spearhead a new party. If the papers get what they want it would be a PDs mark 2.

There probably is room on the right for a niche scrap Croke Park, cut welfare , cut allowances etc or to borrow a phrase ‘Corrective Action’. I presume too that there would be an appetite for burning bondholders here also. However I’d imagine the appeal would be limited unless it had an O’Malley type as leader or at least someone who was well respected.

There is a gap to the Left of Labour also, indeed probably a bigger gap than that of the right.  Or as EamonnCork recently put it

What there is a lack of is a new social democratic/socialist party to represent the public servants who are going to get the lash from Croke Park 2, the opponents of the household and water taxes and the victims of austerity. The ULA was never going to be that kind of party because of the parties involved, they have no interest in being mass parties and I say that without prejudice because I have time for both the SP and SWP. But with Labour committed to implementing austerity and SF showing worrying FF type tendencies in the Quinn affair, it strikes me that the space is to the left of centre rather than to the right of centre. If you want something even more right wing than the current dispensation all you have to do is wait for Labour to disappear and FG to govern on its own.

The funny thing is that a part of this group is one that the Greens may have appealed to had they not gone into government and subsequent meltdown.

So Where would this new party come from?  disaffected Labour TDs ?   a number of the ‘Left’ Independents joining up? or a party emerging from the CAHWT and other campaigns?

Of the four Labour TDs that have jumped ship , whilst they no longer sit on the Labour benches in the Dail and have voted with the opposition against various cuts,  none of them have left the party. Groups like The Campaign for Labour Policies and other initiatives indicate that there is an effort to change the direction of the party from within rather than a new formation being founded. Its possible that we may see a leadership challenge within the party if the poll numbers continue to decline. …… were it to succeed then what?
A radical change of direction or a stand on a few issues like cuts to home helps or whatever the cause célèbre of the day is?
If a leadership challenge is unsuccessful then we may have a few more losing the party whip but resignations from the party…. and enough to spearhead a new Left party?

So to a new party with some Left Independents in it. One of the many points from the book was the huge disadvantage a new party would have would be the State funding of the political system.
This manifests itself in various ways.
– Why would (for instance) Left Independents Catherine Murphy or John Halligan jettison their €41,000 leaders allowance to join a new party? Especially when it would probably lead to the loss of some of their constituency staff.
– The changes in the rules regarding political donations makes it very difficult for a new party (especially a Left of centre one) to assemble a war chest to organise and fight elections.
– The current model of Political funding is based on previous election performance, so a new party is at an immediate disadvantage to existing parties. The bigger the number of seats won the bigger slice of the political funding pie the existing parties get, whilst the new party gets nothing.

Now could ‘opponents of the household and water taxes and the victims of austerity’ found a new party? possibly but it would more likely be An Anti Austerity Alliance rather than an actual party. Even then what policies would be in common, what agreement would candidates sign (Like The Statement agreed at the foundation of the United Left Alliance) to stand for the new Alliance? The problem too is that its highly unusual for a party without a high profile leader or without electorally experienced candidates to make any kind of breakthrough.
The Local Elections are due in May 2014, so we’ll find out if there’s going to be a new party soon enough.

The case for a wealth tax – Patrick Nulty October 31, 2012

Received this today and its interesting reading and despite peoples “misgivings” over Labour in government, I thought it worth posting
Its available to read here

An extract from the documents Conclusion
Cuts to public services that will hurt people in need of healthcare or that will stifle the potential of our young by withdrawing educational supports, are not an inevitable outcome of our need to reduce and eliminate our budget deficit.
There is an alternative to this cuts agenda, an alternative which will see revenue raising measures that target wealth and high income groups take centre stage. Such an approach would not only be more economically just than cuts that disproportionately hit low and middle income families, it would also lead to faster deficit reduction and economic recovery, by releasing unproductive wealth and supporting the domestic economy.
The introduction of a wealth tax should be a key part of this revenue raising strategy.
Other measures which should be considered include:
• The introduction of a 3rd rate of income tax of 48% for those earning more than 100,000 a year which would raise €365 million a year. (Parliamentary response, 26 September 2012) (ix)
Independent think-thank TASC has laid out a menu of revenue raising options in its pre-budget
submission 2012. (x)

• Extension of the Universal Social Charge to all gifts and inheritances and also to all capital gains, whether liable to Capital Gains Tax or not, to raise €200 million a year.

• The ‘number of days’ test for determining the tax residence of an Irish citizen should be reduced from 183/280 days to 90/183 days, yield unknown.

In addition, a Financial Transactions Tax should be introduced. This could yield to the Irish exchequer €500 million by 2020. (xi)

There is always a choice about whether or not to implement cuts that attack the living conditions of the marginalised, the sick, the poor and the elderly. It is time to make the
right choices and pursue viable alternatives such as the introduction of a wealth tax.

On a related note The Campaign For Labour Policies have issued a document with similar sentiments Growth through Solidarity

Some more thoughts on that latest SBP/RedC poll… October 30, 2012

First thing, a ray of sunshine for all the parties concerned. All the results remain within the bands that are now long established of party support. Not one party has stepped outside those bands. Even the slight spike upwards for Fianna Fáil to 19 per cent echoes a result from May. Granted when contextualised in relation to the recent Irish Times Ipsos/MRBI poll it looks… well, a bit more feasible as a genuine increase for that party. But still. March this year saw Fine Gael on 34 per cent and here they are back there again.

But… then again. SF appears to be dipping. Not hugely, but given that last May they hit 21 per cent their current position of 17 per cent is a disappointment, and no mistake. Although they dropped four points between May and June from 21 to 16 before rising to 18 per cent so a one per cent drop may be nothing at all. And their average since the last election (granted they received just under 10 per cent then) has been 16 per cent. Not yet time to panic, but perhaps a long hard look at why they’ve done so well in recent times and why they’re not doing quite so well now is in order. It could be, and this may be reflected in the slightly declining fortunes of the Independents and Others, that there’s simply much less activism at the moment. Think back to last May and the household tax campaign and others were on a role. It’s not going to be long until there’s more opportunities for them and the Indo’s/Others to ply their wares, so to speak.

Fine Gael by contrast may be very happy indeed. 34 per cent is a solid poll rating and while far from the heady heights they hit in April and May of last year where they were tipping and exceeding 40 per cent it’s substantial enough. Curiously all this is on foot of the Reilly debacle. Could it be that standing by his man has reaped benefits for Kenny, as well as putting the boot into the Labour Party? The LP might want to think about that too.

Labour have to think about that too. Woman overboard hasn’t played well for them. One wonders if in the tug of war (well not so much, but they could have if they tried) with Fine Gael a less supine response might have been better for Gilmore et al. Granted so far they’ve not dipped below 13 per cent in a RedC poll since the election (they hit 13 per cent last May as well – interesting month that actually). But who would bet on them staying higher than 13 per cent in the wake of the next Budget. Though noises off in Europe might bring them some comfort.

Or perhaps not. Pat Leahy in the SBP argues that:

This problem is serious not just because Labour is unpopular – few in the party will be surprised about that, given the economic landscape faced by the government. It is serious because, even when the government achieves a success, as it did last weekend in persuading German chancellor Angela Merkel to issue her joint statement backing Ireland as a special case in Europe, it seems to be Fine Gael which gets the credit.
It’s also serious because it could get worse: the data suggests that support for Labour could fall much more sharply, much more quickly.

And he points out the central contradiction of the LP’s position in government:

In this case, there’s a constituency among the public which believes that Labour shouldn’t be doing austerity in government. This suggests that the attacks on Labour’s left flank is where the party is more vulnerable.
It underlines the trap for Labour inherent in being part of this government: getting blamed for austerity, but getting no credit if anything is achieved.

Fianna Fáil will be happy enough. But two per cent on their election total is not the comeback that one M. Martin desires, or needs. Richard Colwell of RedC puts it like this:

Likewise, Fianna Fáil could also be seeing some small green shoots of growth in support. This month the party secured a 19 per cent first preference vote again, a high point since the election, which it last achieved four months ago.
More interesting though is that if we were to apply the Red C ‘spiral of silence’ analysis (which allocates 50 per cent of voters saying they don’t know, or refuse to tell us how they will vote, back to the party they voted for previously), based on 2007 voting behaviour rather than 2011, Fianna Fáil could be as high as 21 per cent.

As high as 21 per cent? What a difference two years make.

And the Independents/Others shed a point. Now down to their election rating. No cause for wailing and gnashing of teeth there. At that level they’d still return near enough historic numbers for the contemporary era. Still, the lack of coherence there can’t be helping, though it also can’t be helped.

But, for all of that the polls seem to suggest just an hint that the political landscape we’ve seen for the best part of two years may be fracturing slightly, that the inexorable rise of SF may be slowing, that the Independents may be sliding somewhat, that FF may be slowly – painfully slowly – consolidating its support, while the LP sheds yet more of it.

And here’s a thought. Look at the LP. Fourth in terms of the political parties, fifth if we throw the Independents and Others into the mix. That’s not a comfortable place for it to be. Worse still look at the graph. Where SF and FF have been broadly speaking increasing their support across the last two years the LP has been shedding its support. For every small respite it loses more subsequently. Only the Independents appear to be following a similar path, and in their case a more protracted one.

Colwell makes an interesting point:

Underlying this headline-grabbing finding for Labour is the fact that over half of all coalition supporters are either becoming disillusioned or losing faith in the party they currently state they are supporting.
This appears to underpin the feeling that Ireland is coming to the end of its tether with regard to austerity, and suggests that the forthcoming budget could be a breaking point for many.

I think he may be right. All the too and fro over a deal in Europe seems from a position of five years of austerity, or near enough, to be almost beside the point. Enough is enough? Not quite yet. But perhaps soon.