European Elections 2019

[Lang Spoon]

I'd also argue scrutiny of legislation in committee is the most important function of MEPs.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

So Dub voters are preening poshoes but the Plain People outside the Pale can't be criticized? It is half the country by population.

I'm saying dublin people are as fickle as fuck. The sinn fein vote has halved since the last european election. and it should probably be remembered that Eamon Ryan came within about a thousand votes of getting the third seat the last time out.

The areas of dublin where the Green party traditionally got most of their votes were in Dublin 4, Dublin 6, "Socodu", and then malahide and portmarnock. These are the parts of dublin where kids grow up knowing how how to ski. Do not ever underestimate the role of hypocrisy and denial in irish life. There's no cost to these people to vote for the greens. Thing is that this isn't what the people who are actually in the green party in ireland are like. They're generally speaking very practical, and are in this because they've thought about things, and this is the conclusion that they have come to. There's a surprisingly large number of academic scientists in the Greens. There's obviously a reasonably large fringe of weirdoes, but it wouldn't be Ireland otherwise, and a lot of the time is spent beating the woo people with shovels and keeping them away.

Parish pump depresses the shit out of me, sorry. There'd be less need in countries less centralized and dependent on TD/Minister patronage for equatable funding to then go scrabbling for EU funding.

You just don't understand this country do you? You have to remember that the fundamental unit of most of irish society is still the parish. I don't mean that in the religious sense, I mean in the civil sense. Our Parliamentarians are called messengers to the parliament. They don't have agency, they are our agents. Their job performance is measured in how the get us things. Other things are important too, but this is really important. If this isn't really important, then you wind up with a situation like the UK, where entire regions are left to sink.

The ulitmate problem that we have is that we're effectively a european region, masquerading as a country, and our political set up would be perfect for a regional parliament. (I.e. England should be split into five areas of about 10 million with parliaments elected like the Dail, under a national parliament that did things on a national level elected by some other means. Our problem is that ideally there would be a national parliament debating matters of policy above what we have. TBH it's knowing that we don't have that aspect of parliamentary party politics that pushes me more towards that side of things being largely shaped by common european rules.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I'd also argue scrutiny of legislation in committee is the most important function of MEPs.

yes, undoubtedly. But most people don't really think about that.

[Amor de Cosmos]

You have to remember that the fundamental unit of most of irish society is still the parish. I don't mean that in the religious sense, I mean in the civil sense. Our Parliamentarians are called messengers to the parliament. They don't have agency, they are our agents. Their job performance is measured in how the get us things. Other things are important too, but this is really important. If this isn't really important, then you wind up with a situation like the UK, where entire regions are left to sink.

Very much the same as Canada, particularly the maritime provinces.

[Lang Spoon]

Smaller countries than Ireland decentralize power more effectively. Youse have copied the worst of Racist Island. Clientelism and family dynasty bollocks is alive and well in Scotland culchiedom also, that's why someone as barely sentient as Kristine Hair is MP for Angus and the Lib Dems are the natural party of Orkney and Shetland (Jo Grimmond saw to it that his constituents got oil benefits that should have trickled down to the whole polity in a normal un Tony Benn as Energy sec Norway like country and the Libs remain the party of Up There (as they have since the Crofter Act of 1885)). But this pork barrel bollocks is a result of being in countries absurdly centralised compared to the European norm. Scotland is the most centralised state(let) in the Old 15 of the EU. Ireland not far behind. In terms of numbers of people per councillor. And the powers local govt can actually exercise. This is not normal. Proper local Govt as most small Northern European countries have would destroy the parish pump as exists in Ireland and culchie/provincial Scotland.

[Lang Spoon]

I work in Dublin 2, I'm very conscious of the accents of the kids on the climate protests every Friday, fo' sho they have at least two foreign holidays a year.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

You talk about these things like we haven't tried this. Of course we've tried this. We've tried everything. It didn't work out very well. Also we don't like paying local govt taxes. We are very clear on that point. Ireland isn't centralized because it is like england. Ireland is like this because it's full of Irish people. Look at what we did when we found ourselves set loose on the local governments of the east coast cities of america? Those people never saw it coming.

[Lang Spoon]

But the emasculation of Local govt was v much a deliberate policy of FF cunts in 1932, it wasn't like the People have Spoken so much as the People with surnames like Andrews and Tubridy have spoken. You might as well say let's not look at prison reform in Norway and keep slopping out in the Joy cos that's what the Herald readers want.

[Lang Spoon]

Lest we forget municipal socialism had echoes in Dublin as much as Birmingham or Glasgow.

[elguapo4]

Amazing just a couple of years ago more than half of Ireland were marching against the water charges which,now seems to be forgotten, was one of the few parts of the greens programme for government that Fianna Fail were happy to go with.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

In today's least surprising news Change UK are making noises about joining up with the Lib Dems. Could have thought about doing that a week* ago, morons.

*or whenever the deadline was for declaring candidates

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

But the emasculation of Local govt was v much a deliberate policy of FF cunts in 1932, it wasn't like the People have Spoken so much as the People with surnames like Andrews and Tubridy have spoken. You might as well say let's not look at prison reform in Norway and keep slopping out in the Joy cos that's what the Herald readers want.

Stop. Just stop. Go away and read about the Health boards, the VEC's etc. Go back and read about the congested district boards. The health boards were on the go until this century.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Amazing just a couple of years ago more than half of Ireland were marching against the water charges which,now seems to be forgotten, was one of the few parts of the greens programme for government that Fianna Fail were happy to go with.

I look forward to seeing how the Green Party do at the general election on their platform of water charges, carbon taxes, environmental levies, and increased property taxes to fund local govt. (All crucial and beneficial policies) They'll be lucky to hang onto their deposits.

[Lang Spoon]

Stop. Just stop. Go away and read about the Health boards, the VEC's etc. Go back and read about the congested district boards. The health boards were on the go until this century.

Ffs those aren't elected local govt bodies. Quangos packed with councilors is not anyone's idea of decentralizing power.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Up until 1970, it was the county council that provided healthcare. Are you seriously suggesting that we have a directly elected health management system? or Education management system? How would that even work? what platform would someone standing for one of these education management bodies even stand on? How many people would vote?

Ultimately it comes back to the ending of domestic rates, and the refusal of irish people to pay local govt taxes. Nearly every councillor in Dublin voted to set the property tax at the bottom of the allowable band, reducing their own income. Then a brief examination of how Irish county councils used their discretion on planning matters in the lead up to the celtic tiger, and you start to see the problems inherent in such a system.

[Lang Spoon]

Nope that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm saying local govt should have more revenue raising powers rather than be a begging bowl to central govt. That they should be able to raise revenue from more than just property tax. Eg DCC should be able to raise a tourist tax, congestion charge on commuters from outwith the Dublin area who use Dublin services without contributing to the council coffers.

[Lang Spoon]

Anyways, Enuf with the thread hijack.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

No man. This is important. If you're going to live here, you have to understand what is going on. This is like you banging on about trains until I eventually figured out that 50 out of the 60 biggest towns in ireland have a train station.

We tried the whole devolution to quite a low level thing. It was a fucking clientelist disaster. And then we did away with domestic rates and that lead to a substantial curtailment of what local govt did. And they became almost completely reliant on central funding. Around this time we stopped spending money on a consistent basis on our water system. Then we spent a decade hearing about planning corruption in Dublin county council, and the celtic tiger gave us a really good insight into what our councillors would get up to given half the chance.

Ultimately you can't deal with the clientelism inherent in the irish system, by simply providing greater opportunity for clientelism. Also there is the other clear problem of allowing local govt raise their own funding and that is that every council will set their tax rates as low as possible screaming that it's unfair to their constituency, while simultaneously screaming for the central govt to give more money to their local region. It will also make it explicit what money is being transferred from Dublin to the regions, which will Drive dublin people absolutely insane. Particularly if it involves redistributing local govt taxes.

This is not an easy problem to deal with. It's difficult to explain just how nakedly competitive irish local politics are. Everyone, everywhere is basically like the second child who sees their slightly older siblimg get something, and is prepared to set the world on fire to get that. It's really different to Scotland, and it's an entirely different planet to the UK. I'm not saying that it's better, it's undoubtedly better in many ways however the short-termism is a real fucking problem in so many other ways.

Anyway, it's great to see that Sinn Fein are dying on their arse for a second election in a row.

[Guy Profumo]

Apropos of the topic, when are the UK results released?


Have they all been counted, or can that not start until the polls close across Yurp?

[Nocturnal Submission]

I think that counting of them only begins when voting has finished in the rest of the EU, though there might be an exit poll from Thursday to be released at 10pm or whenever.

[Guy Profumo]

Thanks.

[Antepli Ejderha]

21 states vote today then, iirc, the count begins and the Brexit chaos starts again.

[Diable Rouge]

I think that counting of them only begins when voting has finished in the rest of the EU, though there might be an exit poll from Thursday to be released at 10pm or whenever.

No, they can count all day today, they just can't release the results until 10.

[Nocturnal Submission]

No, they can count all day today, they just can't release the results until 10.

I think that you're right, DR. I'm a bit surprised that pre-continenal poll close counting is allowed but I found this on The Herald's website:

Results can be officially declared on Sunday May 26 from 10pm onwards.

In most areas of the UK, votes will have been counted earlier in the day and the results passed to one of the regional declaration centres.

However, they go on to say that the English and Welsh votes won't all be announced until as late as 2pm, with Scotland not expected until late tomorrow morning and Northern Ireland's results to be announced quite late on Tuesday.

[ursus arctos]

Some French estimates now as high as 54 percent

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