Being too clever… May 15, 2019
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
Thought this was telling, how Fine Gael was able to throw back criticisms from Labour about broadband in the Dáil this week. It’s not that the Labour criticisms were incorrect, it is rather that Labour in government had signed off on the approach. Did no one think to ask what the processes were or how it might blunt or destroy an LP critique of the government?
But this, surely, exemplifies the problems of supposed ‘grown-up’ politics whereby the Labour Party could join FG in coalition and effectively support the larger party’s ideological approach on many matters? Ultimately the distinction between the two parties, such as it was, disintegrated in functional terms. And so the Taoiseach can catch the leader of the LP out. They can’t own the coalition period, but nor can they forget it or ignore it. And nor, I imagine, will they be let do so.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Parties should not serve in governments that are fundamentally contrary to what they claim to stand for.
Labour have form here though, they probably saved FG from extinction at their own expense by repeatedly going into coalition with them instead of telling them to go join up with FF.
You sometimes get the impression that Labour were just FG’s socially liberal and pro senior civil servant wing in practice.
I think the growth of SF has made it clearer to everyone that FF/FG/Labour are all wings of the same party in practice no matter what they say in opposition.
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Varadkar is wrong though – there were two options left on the table in 2016 – the gap funding model where the operator owns the network, or the concession model where the private operator builds it but ownership stays with the State. FG made the decision in June/July 2016, after Labour had left government to go with the current model. However that fell apart when Eir cherrypicked 300,000 homes from it undermining the tender process leading to the ESB venture to pull out, and then Eir itself pulled out afterwards. That left one bidder
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Fair point – tho he did say Alex White helped whittle them down to the two options ( in fairness he may have expected the concession lifeline to win out ), but isn’t it telling how Howlin had no come back at least according to the oireachtas transcript… his immediate response was ‘That was seven years ago’.
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