Political World
Government’s self-praise for big successes masks plethora of failures and half-truths
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Like the Pravda headlines during the Soviet era that always intoned that tractor production in Minsk and Volgograd had reached record outputs for the 15th year running, the Coalition is adept at churning out reports in which it gives itself gold stars, without even the slightest blush of modesty.
This week marks the third anniversary of this Coalition and it marked it with a scorecard of its performance on the over 200 items in the Programme for Government.
I am writing this before Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore launch the report but I as sure as night follows day it will be all gold stars, and self-congratulating and aren’t we the best little Government to do politics in by 2016.
The strange thing is that when you start to parse the Programme, you are struck by the fact that the failures run into scores. So many promises have bitten the dust but they have all been conveniently airbrushed from the ‘narrative’, as political types like to describe how they tell well-intentioned porkies to the world.
As against that, it must be said there have been some big wins. The promissory note deal last year was one. It might not add up to the sum of its parts in the long run but it was a very effective political manoeuvre, and the Government got a double whammy in by killing off Anglo Irish Bank with one fell swoop.
The other, of course, was the Troika exiting Ireland, with the Government bravely (some say foolhardily) resisting any kind of a second bailout, or a provisional back-stop. They would have involved new conditions and the EU continuing to “correct our homework”, to employ Pat Rabbitte’s nice phrase.
I must say I liked the transparency and openness of the Troika programmes. They were there for all to see. Everybody knew what goals the Government had to achieve every three months. And everyone knew if they succeeded in meeting the targets or not.
With the departure of the Troika it’s back to business as usual. There are a lot of overall targets set for 2015 and 2016 but the responsibility for meeting them will rest with the individual departments.
There won’t be a memo (or even departmental memo) so keeping track of them will become a bit like driving through a muddy field with broken windscreen wipers. But that’s the way Governments like it. The less Joe Public knows the better it is.
Anyway, in the week that is in it – and to counter the torrents of public propaganda and self-congratulation – it might be worth reminding you of some of the less than auspicious moments of this government over the past three years.
Of course a Programme of Government agreed between a party of the right and a party of the left will involve compromises and some deliberate fudges (to be a Sir Humphrey about it an issue is parked and the programme contains some generalities that might or might not translate into policy at some future indeterminate point – get the drift?).
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.
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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.
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