Saturday, May 24, 2014
A NEW political world dawns today.
It’s beginning to dawn that Sinn Féin are
a force.
Gerry Adams
Sinn Féin
has taken a great leap. At the time of writing, the results for the European
and local elections are not in; at the time of writing, the polling booths are
still open. But it’s a safe bet, based on a slew of opinion polls, that the
Shinners will have a very good election.
That is discommoding for the main parties. In
mainstream southern Irish politics, there is still something of the night about
the Shinners. The main parties don’t trust them.
One Fine Gaeler told me, during the election
campaign, that the Shinners’ approach to politics was on a different plane.
“The rest of us have our differences, and sometimes serious differences, but
we’re all in it for the same reasons. With them, you just don’t know what the
endgame is.”
Sentiments like that can be attributed to fear
that the Shinners’ electoral support is growing, and will pose a threat to the
status quo of Irish politics. However, it’s a sentiment that is shared by many
others in the two Civil War parties and also in Labour.
Some people point to the front-of-house members
of the Republican party, such as the impressive Mary Lou McDonald, and a few of
her fellow, younger, TDs, suggesting that they are not really the ones in
control.
This school of thought has it that the real
power resides with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and a cabal around them
that dates from the days when the focus was change through the barrel of a gun.
Some people within the main parties have
pointed to the Shinners’ capacity to splash out on a campaign. “Where is the
money coming from?” they ask. It’s a bit rich for anybody in Fianna Fáil or
Fine Gael to harp on about greater accountability in the funding of politics.
Both those entities have resisted any attempt
to do the obvious and legislate for the accounting of every single penny that
is gathered and spent. Instead, we have a system in which the rules are made to
be bent in order to facilitate donations being made without a name attached.
How, then, are they in a position to raise
questions about the providence of Sinn Féin’s funding?
Of course, the Shinners also garner funding
from their public representatives who, they say, donate everything above the
average industrial wage to the party. This policy is admirable, particularly at
a time of savage austerity. It’s also a sore point in the mainstream parties,
where there is scepticism as to how the stated policy is operated.
Again, the scepticism may be rooted in
self-interest, as the mainstream people would baulk at showing such solidarity
with those whom they govern.
Then, there is the big lie. The arrest of Gerry
Adams during the campaign doesn’t appear to have impacted on voting, but a
bigger issue arises. In last week’s Ipsos MRBI Irish Times opinion poll, only
9% of the public said they believed that Adams was never in the IRA. Yet, all
the party’s public representatives frequently trot out the line that they
believe Gerry when he says he was never a member. If they are conspiring in
that fallacy, what else is believed within the ranks to be merely a white lie
in pursuit of the common purpose?
The party’s economic policy is another major
bone of contention. Sinn Féin has produced budgets, which they claim are costed
by the Department of Finance, illustrating how the burden of cutbacks can be
lightened for the majority, principally, though not exclusively, by imposing a
‘wealth tax’. How such a tax could be properly costed at a time of mobile
capital is a feat of actuarial gymnastics.
For instance, a modest proposal by the
Government to introduce a ‘domicile levy’ of €200,000 for tax exiles has been a
bit of a disaster. In 2010, just 25 individuals coughed up, but this had
reduced to 14 in 2012, despite the removal of a restriction that it apply only
to Irish citizens. If the wealthy elite are not prepared to hand over a modest
sum like that, what hope is there that they would comply with a major tax based
on their wealth? The recent efforts in France to go down the same route
resulted in a flight from the country.
The big boys of politics have thus labelled
Sinn Féin’s policy as “fantasy economics”.
They may have a point, but the Shinners don’t
have a monopoly in promising rose gardens while in opposition. The current
partners in government were no slouches in that department, either.
So much for the view of the Shinners within the
Leinster House bubble. Out on the hustings, there is quite obviously an
appetite for whatever it is that the party is selling.
This election has been about the Sinn Féin
brand. For instance, the expected victories of their candidates in the three
European constituencies in the Republic are largely down to the party’s brand,
rather than the attributes of the candidates. All three, if elected, may well
turn out to be fine MEPs, but that’s not central to their voter appeal. It’s
all about the brand.
At local level, pundits are predicting that
Sinn Féin will double their seats, with last week’s MRBI poll putting party
support at 19%, up 12% from five years ago.
If those figures are to follow through in the
polling booth, then the party can expect to take control of a number of councils.
It will be interesting to observe how the Shinners make the move, at local
level, from opposing to holding the reins of power.
Increasing numbers of voters quite obviously
like what they see. One element of that appeal is that the Shinners are the
last party standing. All others have had to get their hands dirty at a time of
savage austerity. Evaluating the extent of such a protest vote is difficult.
Another key to their success has been the
performance of their younger TDs in the Dáil. This is a high time to be an
opposition TD, positioned to feel the pain of everybody who falls into the
amorphous range of “lower to middle income earners”, which ultimately excludes
less than 10% of the population.
But apart from all that, and taking account of
the less-than-vital aspects of a mid-term election, the voters are conveying a
very direct message.
Politics as usual is no longer acceptable. The
reaction to the crisis, largely dictated by the EU, but managed at national
level, has sent huge swathes of the electorate scurrying from the main parties.
There is more to this flight than simple anger. The disillusion felt at how
things have been handled is real. Above all, there remains a sense that
reaction to the crisis has not been undertaken with a proper degree of
fairness. And unless the main parties really get to grips with that, their
share of the vote is destined to decline even further in the coming years.
By Michael Clifford
Friday, May 23, 2014
Barry Clifford: Carrying The Card Does Not Make You A Journalist
David Quinn, writing in the Irish Independent today and more used to trying to prove the existence of
God there, is now trying to prove that Gerry Adams had something to do with murdering
a woman during the recent war of attrition between Ireland and England.
Thankfully both sides of that war have embraced the peace with the ‘most’ of us,
which does not stop either in the blame game trying to use political capital in
the form of smearing, jeering and the lies when it comes to election
time. David is no different.
As usual David speaks for ‘us’, and trying to marginalize
those outside that imaginary ring is his idea of proof. It is always evident of
how he writes, and that narrow focus and knowledge painfully shows when he tries
to write about anything else beyond the fiction of his religious beliefs. His
article today is not a leap of faith to believe that it is more than a
coincidence that his piece about Gerry Adams joins the chorus of the media mob
on the morning of Election day.
Ethical, truthful, and impartial judgment is sadly missing
by David that is the cornerstone of journalism, but then again carrying the
card does not make you a journalist no more than a man carrying a bent spanner
makes him a plumber.
One time David heralded a piece titled a few years ago: The
Village Atheist. Of course the inference was the man was the village idiot and
all because he did not want religious fiction drummed in his child’s head in a
Catholic school where there was no other school almost in the entire county
that was not owned or managed by Catholics. Now, using the same style of
writing David tells us that ‘most’ of us believe that Gerry Adams was in the
IRA which is as sure a bet that David is also a Catholic.
But like all media scribes sometimes David unknowingly
stumbles across the truth and that is the media is part of the establishment, though
he opines that differently, and he is also right that media attacks can easily
backfire.
Then there is the transference of guilt of past political
crimes has David telling is that Sinn Fein is now offering voters a suspension
of the laws of economics. A vote on taxing if not removing the obscene pensions
that the obese Brian Cowen, the yet un-broken Bert Ahern enjoys, and that of his
cronies, might just address that issue and balance more than a few budgets, for
it was this insidious and most corrupt party that not only suspended the laws
of economics but threw the book out the window all together. This was not just
economics at play but the greatest betrayal against the Irish people since the
foundation of this Republic.
Down the road indeed may give rise to more misery but it is
the equal sharing of that misery that counts as much as enduring it.
By Barry Clifford
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
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