An Inauspicious Union

Kenny and Gilmore

Coalition agreed on by FG and Labour

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0306/breaking1.html

The Incoming Governments Big Job

New York Times piece mentioning Enda Kenny's Friday meeting with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/opinion/02wed2.html?ref=opinion

Kenny's pledge in victory:

As The Dust Settles

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0228/breaking2.html

It seems implausible with so few seats needed to from a majority that FG would look to a party who strongly oppose many of their main election promises to from a coalition. Equally it would be a mistake for the Labour party to give up on the chance to lead a strong socialist opposition and become a minority partner in a government that is destined for troubling times. Perhaps it's a case for Enda Kenny of having Labour in the tent pissing out rather than outside pissing in.

Election 2011: Dispelling the Myths



Martin: Still Fighting



      1. Fianna Fail are now destroyed as a party.

Rubbish. So they suffered the worst defeat in their history, so they were so utterly beaten out of Dublin, so their leadership reshuffle failed to have the presumed ‘bounce’ effect many thought it would, they are still the party to beat. Fine Gael have not been catapulted into power on the back of having a charismatic leader, they haven’t been ushered in with a popular mandate, or even a realistic manifesto. Their return to power is a negative vote for Fianna Fail; it is a concerted turn away from FF and a swing towards the ‘other’ big party, Fine Gael. FG will reap the benefits for the next few months, maybe even a year but when it turns out that their policies aren’t actually that popular, or perhaps, effective, there will be momentum towards finding a credible alternative. FF’s big loses have been to the Labour Party and to Sinn Fein, grassroots organisations that offer an ideology and candidates with a track record of results at a grassroots level, and this is where they may be permanently damaged. The votes which have swung to FG will trickle back and forth, but the votes lost to the socialist parties may stay lost, and this is the big result of this election.

2.       A Sinn Fein Victory is a Victory for Nationalism

The Sinn Fein Party in Northern Ireland and the Sinn Fein Party in the Republic are practically two different political organisations with two manifestos and two different candidate lists. The organisation in the Republic sticks mainly to socialist rhetoric and works a lot with community groups, football teams, schools, looking after people grievances on the ground, working on promoting the party as an organisation that still lives among the people and works for the people. In the north they have been able to get by on nationalistic policies but here they have to know a lot more about the basic economics of the country, as Gerry Adams learned, and have a clear vision for economic recovery. Sinn Fein’s main problem has been their ties to physical force republicanism, Gerry Adams leadership, which in the republic has angered many who view him as a murderer, and the fact that their manifesto is populist, not that well researched and ultimately, unrealistic. They are not a far right party, they are a community based party attached to some unsavoury characters but a vote for them is not the Irish alternative as a vote for the BNP or Front National.

3.        Enda Kenny will be an embarrassment as Taoiseach

This I can’t really call a myth yet but I’ll try dispelling it nonetheless. Granted Enda is not the most popular leader in the country, he is not the wittiest, nor the most handsome, nor even the smartest; however he has some redeeming features. He is currently the longest serving TD still in office having succeeded his father as TD for Mayo in 1975 and has a wealth of backbench experience working his way up the party ladder, serving as Chief Whip for a while and even serving as Minister for Tourism and Trade from 1994-1997, before his election as leader of Fine Gael in 2002. He is as articulate as Brian Cowan, and certainly more so that Bertie Ahern, and he is far more presentable and telegenic than Cowan. He will be surrounded by a good group of advisors, including former Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan, so his tendency to seek the ‘Hollywood’ speech should be dampened down and a concentration on the humdrum of governance should endear him to the population. Maybe.

The Election of 1918 and the First Dail

The TDs of the First Dail

As we await the final result of the elections to the 31^st Dail, it seems fitting to look back at the election, the make-up and workings of the first Dail, set up in defiance of the British Government, which claimed legitimate rule over the island of Ireland at the time. Following the much documented events of Easter 1916, the Irish Volunteers and sundry hangers-on, especially taken from among those interned for seditious activities at such prison camps as Frongoch in Wales, galvanised by both the realisation that Home Rule was now in the deep freeze and the rapidly growing fear that the British would introduce conscription among the crown subjects in Ireland, decided upon a course of action which would forever alter the course of British and Irish politics.

Pre-War Irish politics, and pre-1918 Irish politics, was dominated by the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Home Rule Party of Butt and Parnell, who, led by John Redmond, had enjoyed the support of most moderate Nationalists on the island and had, seemingly, brought the country to the brink of some degree of Home Rule before the onslaught of the great War. Faced with growing opposition to his nationalist agenda from the rising Unionist resistance, Redmond urged support for the British war effort in order to show the character of Irish citizens and gain favour from the British administration. As the war dragged on, this course of action proved to be Redmond’s undoing as the shelving of the Home Rule bill feed into the more extreme nationalist’s paranoia that once again they would be denied at the last and support began to grow for insurrection, which duly came and went in 1916. The story of the resistance to the Crown could have ended at this point had it not been for British heavy handedness in dealing with the rebel leaders and anyone with even vague nationalist tendencies (over 3,500 arrested, 90 sentenced to death and 15 finally executed), and the aforementioned Conscription Crisis. This crisis led to the formation of an Anti-Conscription Committee with members including Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith, among others, men who would rise to further prominence in the following year. Griffith had founded a party called nationalist republican party called Sinn Fein in 1905, which gained moderate electoral success before financial constraints curtailed its activities and, by 1915, almost caused the implosion of the party. That the 1916 Rising somehow came to be blamed on the Sinn Fein movement proved to be a blessing in disguise for Griffith for, with the Irish Parliamentary Party disgraced by its lack of action with regards to conscription, the only recognisable nationalist political movement firmly opposed to conscription was Sinn Fein. The party was thus used as a vehicle for nationalists of all stamps to unite during this period and devise a strategy for independence. It was decided that Sinn Fein would contest the 1918 elections but, rather than take their seats in Westminster, they would take their election as a popular mandate to form an independent parliament, in defiance of the British Government.

In an election uncontested by the Irish Labour Party, Sinn Fein won 73 of the 105 available seats, the Unionist Party won 29, and the IPP just 6. Due to the nature of the ‘first past the post’ system used in British elections, this victory was seen as a landslide and gave Sinn Fein the impetus to carry out their stated manifesto to establish an independent parliament. So it came to pass in the Mansion House in Dublin on the 21^st January 1919 that the representatives of the First Dail sat to conduct the mundane business of parliament, electing Cathal Brugha as Ceann Comhairle (Speaker), adopting a number of documents including a Declaration of Independence, a brief Constitution, a Democratic Programme and a message to the Free Nations of the World. Members of that first Dail included both Griffith and de Valera, along with the head of the IRB, Michael Collins, the future Taoiseach, W.T. Cosgrave and the first woman elected to Westminster, Constance Markiewicz.

Auspicious times they were and the legacy of the First Dail is found today in the workings of our modern Parliament and the principle of representative democracy we still hold as utterly essential, along with our understanding of our relationship between our Parliament and Westminster in the sense that we created the First Dail, it wasn’t given to us. The physical force republicanism that shadowed the Dail’s workings should not denigrate its memory, some of the most able politicians in the history of the state participated in this experiment and we should hope for their like again this time around.         

Emigration: The Choice of A New Generation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/ireland-recession-students-emigrate

It seems that regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, the tap has been opened once more, hundreds, if not thousands just sick of the cyclical disillusionment that is the Irish economy and the Irish Political system.

The Pretenders to the Cup of Hemlock

What choice then? We have before us, and partially behind us, the biggest single economic crisis this state has faced, threatening, as it does, the very fabric of our independence and indeed the financial viability of the state. The choice we are presented with is vast and narrow, all at the same time; we are being given the opportunity to put in power the party and the policies that will have to operate within such constraints as the current fiscal crisis allows it to. We are tasked with sifting through the electioneering, the humdrum and the tedious, the downright brassballed (in the case of former Fianna Fail ministers with very selective memories on their own ‘war’ records) and deciding upon a government doomed to be stillborn, fated to oversee at least four years of ‘living within our means’, four years of austerity, emigration, unemployment, debt repayment, mortgage default, problems arising from inevitable public service cuts, and downright anger as daily emerges the incompetency’s of our ruling class. Why would anyone want these jobs, who are the people who once more leap the trench wall and traverse no man’s land for this bounty, and what are their objectives? This final question is quite telling indeed because, aside from the obvious answer of nationalist pride and civic duty, the question bears deeper analysis. The role of the elected official in Ireland seems quite undesirable yet the fight for seats is fierce once more, just as it was in the boom times, we must ask, in this case then, what do these people hope to achieve, do they have a vision for realistic and sustainable change or they seek power for its own sake, blindly herding themselves into the abyss.

The major power players in the coming election are a list of three, with cameos and walk on players impacting to a considerable degree. The current governmental incumbents, Fianna Fail have presided over the past thirteen years of economic hand gliding, through currency change, a peep show policy of financial regulation and a pair of leaden boots provided, rather eagerly, by the IMF and the EU. The main contenders to their throne, locked in a constant finger pointing bonanza upon the plain of higher moral ground are Fine Gael, the perennial ‘other’ in this estranged marriage, which also produced another, more notorious than popular, political party, Sinn Fein. Added to the mix we have the third major player, the oldest political party in the state, one who never recovered from not contesting the election of 1919, one who never found itself able to rise above either the Civil War political divide or the bully boy tactics of the Catholic Church, the Labour party. Cameos will included the once and never in the future kings, the aforementioned Sinn Fein, two parties in fact, a hydra with claws in Northern Ireland and a forced smile in the Republic, the lighter shade of green Greens, still reeling from the sight of actual dealings on the shop floor, and various spattering’s of workers parties and ‘people against profit’ alliances. Honourable mention must go to Independents, king makers in waiting, their time will come before the battle is over.

But now to FF, the politburo of Irish politics, a party who since its formation in 1932, have been in power for sixty one of the previous seventy nine years, surely it can do no wrong? Their most recent stint in power came into being in 1997 with the election of Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach, and the formation of a cabinet which included Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin, as well as another party, the Progressive Democrats, lapsed Fianna Failers themselves, and continued through successful title fights in 2002 and 2007 where they added the Green Party to their coalition of the willing. It’s a far too well beaten drum to explain what happened in between that heady summer of 1997 and the current impasse we find ourselves at, however suffice to say, jobs were not done, stations were not manned, and financial regulation was not a priority for anybody, or so it seemed. So now we find ourselves with FF the only members of a minority government, headed by a former minister while the country is effectively being led by a member of that minister’s party who is his former boss and current underling. Ridiculous? Exactly. And Mr Martin, the current darling of the FF pack, a former minister for education and science, health and children, enterprise, trade and employment, and foreign affairs, is quite eager to distance himself from his former boss, portraying himself as a new voice, a new direction for the country, despite the key briefs he held during the years of recklessness. So why does he want the job? He has seen the damage it did to the credibility of both Ahern and Cowan; he must see it as an unwinnable war, considering he is party to the facts and figures of economic projection. One thinks it must be the career politician in him that sees service of the state as an ultimate goal, an achievement in itself, regardless of the practicalities of this service. Other ministers who served in the governments of the past decade have quietly slipped out the back door, albeit with reputations shattered, and one must grudgingly admire Martin for staying to fight for a party that maybe he believes in, if nobody else does.

Fine Gael can trace their lineage back to Michael Collins and the first Prime Minister of the Irish Free State, W.T. Cosgrave. But that’s where the romance ends, that’s where majesty stalls and after a resounding victory in the civil war, that is where civil war politics comes to consume FG and all of their efforts since. Like FF, FG is traditionally socially conservative and has a tendency to turn a blind eye cronyism and nepotism within the apparatus of the state. However, unlike FF, and crucially for this period in question, FG didn’t have a particularly cosy relationship with either the banking sector or the construction sector, the Chuckle Brothers of the Irish financial crisis. To what extent the economy would have been run better under a FG government is debatable, and ultimately pointless. Lead by Enda Kenny since 2002, FG have sat steaming on the opposition benches as FF strolled to 3 victories in a row without really have clear policies other than ‘a lot done, more to do’. Coasting on the popularity of Mr Ahern, FF swept all before them, in stark contrast with the public perception of Kenny as a bumbling school principle with a whine for a voice and a parliamentary demeanour of a perpetually wronged man, driven mad by the relentless waves of victories FF seemed to have, while he had to suffer lucklessly, challenged from within his party and without. Having consolidated his power within his own party he now looks to have a positive and far reaching manifesto on the table, limiting the options for voters who don’t want to vote for him just because, well, they don’t like him. Why does Kenny seek a seat of power which will surely cement his position as the man most people love to hate, a seat of governance so constrained by the baggage of bailout that the only manifesto plausible is one of cuts and public protest? Fine Gaels only reason for existence is the pursuit of their strain of policy, their thinking on the correct form of democracy we should have, and rightly so, for a party which contests election without a clear strategy for victory is merely timewasting, in most circumstances. Elected to Dail Eireann at the age of 24, the Son of a former incumbent TD in his Mayo constituency, Kenny, as the chosen leader, has risen up the ranks of the party serving as both Minister for Tourism and Trade and Minister of State for Youth Affairs, as well as being the parties Chief Whip. He floated between front and back benches for over two decades before, almost by default, he won a leadership contest which nobody seemed eager to win, such was the doldrums FG were in at the time. His grabbing of the nettle of power and subsequent fearlessness when facing a seemingly untouchable Ahern in parliament won him plaudits from the anti-FF brigade, eager to see a rival of some strength. Politics is all he has known, his father infected him with the FG bug, the mantra that government is the rightful domain of FG, regardless of how or when it is obtained, you go into politics to get into government, bend policy to your wants, the needs of your party. It is with this wasp buzzing in his ear that Kenny has plodded towards the places of power, having fallen into his father’s seat as a young man, taken the FG reins as an underdog, he could now lead the country at a time when it neither really wants him, nor really needs him.

The Labour Party is a mixed bag of unusual delights and occasional horror stories. They have found themselves in their recent history constant saddled with the role of FG’s partners in opposition, and government, a role that ideologically has never and will never suit them. They always display well with regards, to public perception to their manifestos, they always pick the populist side with regards major issues, they always seem on the cusp of breaking the two party monopoly, the Scottish League syndrome, of the Dail, and yet people still vote the way their family voted last time, and the time before that. So entrenched are traditions among the voting habits of even the most educated of people that one really must look back at 1919 and see it as an opportunity for an alternative lost. Lead this time by the old Trade Unionist Eamon Gilmore, they are expected to chip considerable away at the monopoly, but they’ve been tipped before and fallen short so it’s difficult to know. With regards to their radical election manifesto, this type of populist politicking is classic Labour Party and unfortunately their mettle has never been tested with regards a majority Labour government, but one must hope that if an alternative is sought, with policies such as Labour have, people don’t look too far beyond them. The chance to rip it up and start again must appeal to dyed in the wool reds, finally without the anti-communist, anti-socialist dread of the Catholic Church hanging over them, with the power of FF broken amongst the working class, a class utterly failed by successive governments, the ground is fertile for Labour. They are the party for this election, the policies they can implement are not out of sync with their ethos, the social cuts will be balanced without a pandering to the upper class and the absentee landlord class who so often puppeteered FF policy. Gilmore wants power because it’s finally time to cut through the swath of mealy mouthed promises and same old-ness of the big two and actually have a go at implementing real and lasting change. The likelihood of a majority Labour government is quite slim, as the iron grip of generations of habit is still quite tight but of all the major players in this election they are certainly the ones with the most to win.

Of the three major leaders, Martin talks like a Taoiseach, Kenny looks like one and Gilmore wishes he could be one. Of the three major parties, FF should hang their head a sit on the bold step for the foreseeable future, casting envious glances and snide remarks from opposition benches, FG deserve another chance to come in and try implement their own brand of progressive centrist politics and Labour should be hoping to show people that the sky will not fall if they deviate from the FF-FG fulcrum, the crutch of the ballot box. All in all a race of peculiarities for a prize of little tangible worth, with three unproven leaders and a raft of radical proposals, all set against the backdrop of a massive and ongoing fiscal crisis. Here’s hoping for the rise of the ‘Independent’. 

09/02/11