Political World
Independents will fly – but not as high as they’d hoped
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Trying to analyse politics is trying to shoot a moving target, with a blindfold on, while standing on one leg….and possibly being in a different country to the target.
I sometimes trawl through political analysis pieces I wrote 20 years ago and say – by the hokey, you were a bright young fellow then. But far more often I end up saying stuff like – how wrong you were when you said Brian Cowen had the making of a fine Taoiseach, or that Fine Gael would put it up to Fianna Fáil in the 2002 election.
Politicians and those who commentate on the action for a living tend to make one grievous error: they take the facts of the moment as permanent when, of course, they are not.
Take for example when Fine Gael was on its uppers in 2002 and it was widely predicted the party was a goner. Ditto Fianna Fáil in 2011. Although like the advertisement for the homeware store, it was slightly different for the Progressive Democrats – when they are gone they are gone.
But now you kind of think…are they? There have been a few big trends in politics over the past year or so. We have seen the evidence in opinion polls. And we have also seen some turns-up for the book in second tier elections such as local elections, European elections and bye-elections.
These trends are inchoate. In other words don’t take them for Gospel even though many people do. It is true that Sinn Féin is on the rise and will do better in 2016 than it did in 2011 and in previous elections. Significantly better I have no doubt.
But I can sense a bit of hubris creeping into the party – the kind of talk that says…Adams for Taoiseach. For Sinn Féin in 2015 think Labour in 2009, when the party was riding high in the polls and we began to see the Gilmore for Taoiseach posters.
I think that Sinn Féin’s support has peaked and it will find it difficult to garner the same kind of support in next year’s election that it was getting in opinion polls all last year. Look, there’s no doubt the party will make substantial gains.
But it won’t put them anywhere near where they clearly want to be – and that’s the dominant party in a Syriza or Podeomos (of Spain) type anti-austerity government.
What I’m saying is that it’s not static, that things will change in the next year.
And of course, brand independent is also very strong at the moment. But again I would argue that the picture there is not as clear-cut or as permanent as it seems.
I was chatting with a Fine Gael Minister not too long ago who said that that kind of volatility was the new normal. I believe that he is half right.
If you look at the support levels for the two main parties, they have fallen precipitously in the past 40 years to such an extent that neither can hope to be as dominant as once was the case.
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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