Political World
Election wobbles aplenty but no dramatic falls on the cards for political year ahead
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
How eventful a political year will 2014 be? Well there’s no general election but a local election. The troika has gone and the stabilisers have been taken off the bike. So we certainly expect to see a few wobbles but no dramatic falls.
So on the face of it, it could be a slightly more prosaic mid-term year. But as we have seen so often in politics, the dramatic and momentous often happen when they are least expected.
The biggest events on the political calendar will undoubtedly be the local and European elections which will take place in June. They will be keenly watched as political weather vanes. But the truth is while they will a little about the state of the parties, they will not tell you a lot.
There has been a trend in Ireland and elsewhere for governing parties to be given – to use Enda Kenny’s technical phrase – a wallop in mid-term elections, only to recover fully and consolidate in general elections.
The textbook example is Britain under Tony Blair, where Labour did very poorly in local elections yet romped home in three successive general elections. We saw the same pattern here in Ireland under Bertie Ahern, though not quite as marked.
The problem with analysing this summer’s elections is with what do you compare it? If you compare it with the 2007 general election it showed a number of interesting trends. But then what happened in the general election in 2011 was so dramatic, so extraordinary that all comparisons seem redundant.
Fianna Fáil was the dominant party in 2007 with Fine Gael recovering somewhat from the 2002 debacle, and Labour treading water. Sinn Féin – which had been mooted as the up and coming party for a decade – actually suffered a reverse, losing one of its five seats.
The local elections of 2009 signalled a change in the political winds. The recession was beginning to bite and it was clear that steely grip of Fianna Fáil was being prised away.
It lost 84 seats on city and county councils, seeing its support levels fall back to a record low of 25.4 per cent. With 218 seats it was a distant second to Fine Gael which upped its percentage to 32 per cent and won 340 seats.
Labour was also on an upward trajectory under new leader Eamon Gilmore, taking 132 seats (a gain of 31) and becoming the largest party on four councils: Dublin City; Fingal, South Dublin; and Galway City.
The bad news for Sinn Fein was that its reverse in 2007 looked like it had turned into stagnation. The party won 54 seats and 7.4 per cent of the national vote – exactly the same as it had been in the previous local elections of 2004.
The funny thing now is that Fianna Fáil would be very happy indeed to get the lousy 25 per cent it got in 2009, given that it won just 16 per cent of the vote and few transfers in 2011.
It’s likely too that Fine Gael might get close enough to the 32 per cent it got in 2009, though I’d say it’s more likely to score in the high twenties but could still retain most of the gains it made five years ago.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
