Irish Times

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

garcia wrote:

The labour party campaigned as a left wing party and governed as one third of a coalition with fine gael, in the middle of an economic crisis what do people expect?

not just to accept everything they were told by fine gael and the ECB. not just to cave on everything. to fight to keep their election promises, and if they couldn't, to withdraw from the government and force another election. i think they would have done a lot better in that one than they did in the one we ended up having.

you cling on to this idea of the irish labour party as somehow representing the voice of the dispossessed. it's a bit like a good-hearted old lady who thinks the parish priest has something to do with jesus. i'm afraid labour are really just corporate careerists like the people in the other two parties. they always do what they're told by their coalition partners because they agree with all the basic premises of the established order. the boardroom-acceptable face of the left.

Firstly there was nothing we could do about the ecb. When you're reliant on someone to fund 20% of your day to day expenditure, they tend to hold all the cards. They should have realised that before the election. Eamon Gilmore completely lost the run of himself.

And as for fine gael, they struck a deal with fine gael at the beginning about taxes and cuts, and they stuck to it. The thing is that if you are in a situation like we were in 2011 every decision is a search for the least worst option.

Labour have usually wound up in power in the teeth of a recession, except between 92 and 97 when they did a pretty good job of running the country and ensuring a relatively equitable sharing of economic growth.

We really took a wrong turning in 97 when we elected bertie. We were offered a choice between prioritising services over tax cuts and we chose poorly. But that's the way we are.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Duncan Gardner wrote: Systematic discrimination against Nationalists in the 1960s largely led to NICRA and then the Provo Campaign. Even hardline Unionists accept that. By the time of the 1974 bombings with which you started this tangent, the Provos and Loyalist equivs were murdering hundreds, often indiscriminately. For the third time, what should your govt have done about it?

Cease tacitly and not so tacitly approving British policy in the North at every turn. Make a much more serious, protracted effort to get to the bottom of collusion between their security forces and loyalist gangs than the pitiful attempts which were actually made. Publicly let the British know that their conduct in the North was vicious and inhuman. Threaten to embarrass them internationally by expelling their ambassador if necessary. Start severing trade links, slowly, one by one, to let them know we were serious about it. Lean heavily on the Irish American political lobby for extra leverage in fighting the nationalists' corner.

None of this happened, and that was almost exclusively for economic reasons. We couldn't be pissing off a trade partner, could we, even if that trade partner's security apparatus was killing and helping to kill Irish people a few miles up the road. And it worked so well that by the 1980s we were dealing with a British leader who was so sure of herself on NI that she actually floated the idea of pushing all the Catholics into the South and making the border a straight line.

[Diable Rouge]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Mallon didn't call the GFA "Sunningdale for slow learners" without sound historical grounding - after all, Adams and McGuinness met the British in Downing Street in '72, with the Assembly established the following year. Given the current constitutional solution, the ultimate tragedy is that it took both sides 25 years to accept power-sharing.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

So has the state not been able to sell any of its bank shares yet?

In that respect, the election timing was pretty unfortunate.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote:

The labour party campaigned as a left wing party and governed as one third of a coalition with fine gael, in the middle of an economic crisis what do people expect?

not just to accept everything they were told by fine gael and the ECB. not just to cave on everything. to fight to keep their election promises, and if they couldn't, to withdraw from the government and force another election. i think they would have done a lot better in that one than they did in the one we ended up having.

you cling on to this idea of the irish labour party as somehow representing the voice of the dispossessed. it's a bit like a good-hearted old lady who thinks the parish priest has something to do with jesus. i'm afraid labour are really just corporate careerists like the people in the other two parties. they always do what they're told by their coalition partners because they basically agree with all the basic premises of the established order. the boardroom-acceptable face of the left.

Would it have gone down well if they'd walked out of the government while it was still in bailout?

Absolutely, yes. People here were - still are - crying out for someone to make a stand against the seemingly implacable economic forces weighed against them. Labour storming out and bringing down a government would have been an act of immense political significance and a defiant display of courage.

And how did that work for Greece? Did it materially improve their situation one jot?

The problem with being in a bailout is that you have no control over a lot of decisions. You can either accept that and try and shape what happens next, or you can throw a tantrum, storm out and leave fine gael to try and close the budget gap in a year by firing half the public service.

And if fine gael's intention was to dismantle the welfare state, social welfare spending over the last five years would suggest they did a poor job. They didn't make much headway in reducing public service numbers because of the Croke park agreements.

The point still remains though that regardless of who was in power, the amount of money that we were spending in 2009 was in no way connected to the amount of revenue we collected. We simply had to close that gap as quickly as possible without damaging the economy too much.

Compared to where we were in 2009 this is the fucking land of milk and honey. Except much like the Israelites staring out over the promised land, it's actually a desolate shithole. But the point is that we're no longer fucking around in the desert.

Now that we've sorted out the budgetary gap perhaps the next irish government can do something about the personal debt problem because part of the reason that the govt is loathe to push up the top rate is because the country is full of massively over extended people of all ages and classes, and it could tip an awful lot of marginal mortgages into default.

And that would be at least two very big problems.

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: We really took a wrong turning in 97 when we elected bertie. We were offered a choice between prioritising services over tax cuts and we chose poorly. But that's the way we are.

This is the problem with Ireland in a nutshell. Ireland is quite similar to African nations with a colonial hangover. If Kenya was a member of the EU, it would be Ireland. People in Ireland have been conditioned through generations not to trust governments, and when the good times roll in, it's all about celebrating independence by everybody taking as big a piece of the pie they can get their hands on, rather than trying to grow the pie so that everybody's slice gets bigger.

That 1997 election was probably the biggest disaster in Ireland post-indepdendence. You had a watershed moment where Ireland was, after decades of failing to launch, finally going into economic orbit thanks to some half-decent planning and once in a generation economic conditions. Ireland was actually in a fairly similar situation to Finland, who had stumbled upon success with Nokia. Finland went on to become one of the most advanced nations in the developed world. Ireland elected a Prime Minister who had no bank account when he was Minister for Finance. Why? Because he promised massive tax cuts.

The media narrative post-election in Ireland is that the Irish people have grown up and have failed to fall for the tax cuts promised by Fine Gael. People on the doorsteps were more interested in preserving social services. I call bullshit on that. The people voted for Fianna Fail.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Comparing with Iceland, one of the things that stands out is that they got $2.5bn of loans from Scandinavia.

What did Britain come up with in Ireland's case? About $10bn? Ireland's economy was about 18 times the size of Iceland's in 2010. So that isn't very good. Not that it was disinterested anyway, though you'd have thought so from the bollocks Osborne's backbenchers spouted.

[garcia]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

You're going on as if all this took place in a vacuum. The PIRA came into being because Catholics were being shot dead, beaten to death and burned out of their homes in the mid-to-late 1960s, while the British forces either looked on or actively helped the individuals doing it. It's piss-easy for us to sit in Dublin and write off these people as animals, scum, worse than Hitler, thus conveniently dehumanising them. We've never had to face anything a tenth as bad as what was inflicted on Catholics up there.

if only the 1960s provided us with any other examples of a minority being systematically discriminated against - shot, beaten, and persecuted with the collusion of the security forces - so we could know whether a terrorist campaign of assassination was really the only possible response in such circumstances.

oh wait a minute...



now, i don't think anybody would argue that every element of martin luther king's dream has come true. but things have definitely improved. the most visible symbolic manifestation of that progress is the black president who is currently serving out his second term.

now tell me, do you think we would have reached this point any faster if MLKJ, rather than advocating peaceful protest, had helped to organise a national campaign of assassinating policemen? do you think barack obama could have been elected in 2008 if self-appointed defenders of the black community had been lobbing mortar shells into the white house rose garden as recently as 1991?

the IRA didn't have the imagination to understand the power of non-violent resistance and everyone in ireland had to pay the price. adams was part of it all along. i agree with you that he deserves credit for helping to steer them away from violence, but i also can't argue with most of the accusations berbaslug levels at him.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Borracho wrote:

Yes but what does that mean in practice? Remember that labour were running on a platform of closing a 16 billion budgetary deficit gap by cutting at least eight billion in expenditure.

It's impossible to repair a budgetary hole that fucking huge without causing a whole load of misery. Any reduction in government spending is going to disproportionately affect the people most reliant on government spending. I am very loathe to quote Colm Mccarthy, but back in 2009 I remember him saying "the government hasn't run out of compassion, it's run out of money."

Colm McCarthy was running An Bord Snip Nua at the time, what else was he going to say? "The money is actually there, but to be honest we have other priorities"?

They found €65 billion to pay the bondholders easily enough. Four times the deficit gap.

But we didn't have the money. We were spending five euro for every three we took in. We weren't doing this by choice. We had to borrow that money from somewhere and that came with conditions, that would lead to us being able to eventually pay it back, or as is more usual pay the interest and keep rolling over the debt.

And we didn't find any fucking money for the bond holders. The ecb basically told us there was a €65 billion marker with our name on it and we had to cough up €2billion a year in vig.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

garcia wrote:

You're going on as if all this took place in a vacuum. The PIRA came into being because Catholics were being shot dead, beaten to death and burned out of their homes in the mid-to-late 1960s, while the British forces either looked on or actively helped the individuals doing it. It's piss-easy for us to sit in Dublin and write off these people as animals, scum, worse than Hitler, thus conveniently dehumanising them. We've never had to face anything a tenth as bad as what was inflicted on Catholics up there.

if only the 1960s provided us with any other examples of a minority being systematically discriminated against - shot, beaten, and persecuted with the collusion of the security forces - so we could know whether a terrorist campaign of assassination was really the only possible response in such circumstances.

oh wait a minute...



now, i don't think anybody would argue that every element of martin luther king's dream has come true. but things have definitely improved. the most visible symbolic manifestation of that progress is the black president who is currently serving out his second term.

now tell me, do you think we would have reached this point any faster if MLKJ, rather than advocating peaceful protest, had helped to organise a national campaign of assassinating policemen? do you think barack obama could have been elected in 2008 if self-appointed defenders of the black community had been lobbing mortar shells into the white house rose garden as recently as 1991?

the IRA didn't have the imagination to understand the power of non-violent resistance and everyone in ireland had to pay the price. adams was part of it all along. i agree with you that he deserves credit for helping to steer them away from violence, but i also can't argue with most of the accusations berbaslug levels at him.

It's possible to understand the environment faced by people in 1969 and put yourself in their shoes. Undoubtedly many of them are prisoners of circumstances.

But they still did a lot of really unthinkably terrible shit, and that should disqualify them from holding power in any rational mind. Congrats to gerry Adams for stopping the Ira's war, but it is important to remember that he did found the provisionals and he did kind of start them going.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Didn't work out too well for Martin Luther King, did it.

I'm also not sure if the election of Barack Obama has done much to improve the lot of the common five-eighths of black America. If anything it seems to be getting worse.

and everyone in ireland had to pay the price

The point is that everyone in Ireland didn't have to pay the price. The impact on us down here was minimal apart from one huge and horrific incident 42 years ago. The poor bastards in the North paid the price.

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

I think the main difference between the USA and Northern Ireland in the 1960s was that many of the northern liberals in the USA considered the inequality in the south as very much an American problem, and something to be ashamed of. So much so, that the Democratic party was willing to tear up the New Deal alliance and permanently kiss goodbye to the southern states.

The Tory party is not an all-UK party, it is essentially an English party and it considers Northern Ireland a foreign issue. Peace in Ireland wasn't even worth the minor political cost of losing a few unionist votes in Westminster.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

In 1979, the Tories had 22 Scottish seats (on 31.7% vote share, easily in second place) and 11 Welsh seats.

They've now got 11 seats in Wales again (up 3 on 2010). They might lose those 3 next time, but they've plenty of solid areas, especially now the Lib Dems have died.

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

They've had an ever decreasing share of Scottish seats as they have become more and more of an English party. In Wales they have had success in the border regions.

My main point is that Northern Ireland was always an external problem for the Tories.

[Diable Rouge]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

antoine polus wrote: They've had an ever decreasing share of Scottish seats as they have become more and more of an English party. In Wales they have had success in the border regions.

My main point is that Northern Ireland was always an external problem for the Tories.

Sometimes the Unionists just become self-parodies.

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Rather than take away the Irish, surely it would be easier to just add "Wadda", or whatever it is in Ulster-Klingon.

[Diable Rouge]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Shane Ross really is laughable - he calls Kenny a "political corpse", yet the "Independent" Alliance agrees to a third meeting with the Taoiseach.

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Firstly there was nothing we could do about the ecb. When you're reliant on someone to fund 20% of your day to day expenditure, they tend to hold all the cards. They should have realised that before the election.

There's some truth in that, but what really pissed me off about the FG/Lab government was their total lack of solidarity with Greece last summer. Ridiculously, Noonan was on the side of the Eurogroup that was looking to hammer Greece. Ireland had nothing to lose by speaking up for Greece, but instead the Irish government chose to kick Syriza so that they could feel like they were rolling with the big boys.

So the FG/Lab position vis-a-vis the Eurogroup would appear to have been not a reluctant acceptance of terms, but enthusiastic cheerleading of banking bailouts.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

antoine polus wrote: Ireland had nothing to lose by speaking up for Greece, but instead the Irish government chose to kick Syriza so that they could feel like they were rolling with the big boys.

It was more a case of Kenny and Noonan fearing that what was good for Syriza would be bad for FG's prospects at the next election.

Ah well.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

antoine polus wrote: They've had an ever decreasing share of Scottish seats as they have become more and more of an English party. In Wales they have had success in the border regions.

My main point is that Northern Ireland was always an external problem for the Tories.

I mentioned 1979 because we were talking about that period.

They did well in W Wales then. Had Pembrokeshire seats and Anglesey. They were strong in rural seats everywhere.

The Tories as an English party is later. Luckily N Ireland had moved on.

[Diable Rouge]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Ever so slight media bias in election coverage!

[Duncan Gardner]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Thanks Senor for that long reply, will comment later today.

That isn't as poncy as it sounds- I'm just busy and more importantly, off to lunch shortly.

[seand]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Diable Rouge wrote: Ever so slight media bias in election coverage!

This is pretty interesting, if basic analysis. I think there's a clue or two as to why so much of poor Sinn Fein's press was negative in the Sinn Fein word cloud.

[Diable Rouge]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Interesting that both the Times and the Examiner have run articles indicating a 50/50 Cabinet split and that Spring-era favourite of a rotating Taoiseach, with Martin going first. Of course there have been plenty of grand coalitions, but only Israel has seen any PM voluntarily cede power to coalition rivals.

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

In every western European grand coalition the slughtly larger party gets the PM and e slightly smaller one gets Ministry of Finance.

Fianna Fail don't seem to understand that they did not win the election.

Of course they don't want the finance ministry because that would involve taking responsibility for things.