Political World
Trump tops Brexit in year of unprecedented shocks
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
How do you explain Donald Trump’s victory? How do you explain Brexit? How do you explain what’s happened to Libya after Muammar Gaddafi was taken out? How do you explain the rise of far-right parties in Europe and elsewhere?
Not in a sentence, or in a paragraph, or in 1,000 words for sure – and perhaps some of the forces that impelled those changes are beyond explanation at all.
Just as the universe continues to expand so does Trump’s enormous ego. His favourite method of communication is Twitter and all you get from him is a constant stream of self-congratulation and self-massage of his ginormous ego.
Trump’s election in 2016 was the biggest shocker of the year. Only the Brexit vote last June came even close in terms of people’s jaws dragging along the floor.
People are innately conservative (by nature, not by politics) especially as they get older. They tend to resist any major change, preferring it to happen incrementally and, sometimes, not at all – but this generation has experienced some massive changes.
Some have caused upheaval and have usurped the old order. Mass digitisation and mechanisation has made millions of jobs redundant.
If you look at Britain, many of its huge industries (shipping, coal, gas, steel, pottery) have dwindled. On top of that, there have been multiple ongoing conflicts, not least the terrible civil war in Syria.
Mass migration has seen large movements of populations into European countries, leading to resentment and xenophobia from the natives. All of the above, plus the uncertainties of economies caused by globalisation, have conspired to increase the trend in people opting for firebrand populist and anti-establishment politics. It has also led to an increase in support for right-wing politics in Europe and America.
I remember reporting on then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s visit to New York in 2004. Hillary Clinton was then a senator for New York and the front-runner for the Democratic presidential ticket – all that came undone when a relatively unknown senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, electrified the Democratic National Convention with one of his amazing oratorial power-plays.
Anyway during that five-day visit, I got an opportunity to see Clinton at close quarters several times.
I was really impressed. She was in command. She was disciplined. She was able to retain high levels of concentration for hours and hours on end. She had thought-through views and was a really good communicator. She looked like she was – to use the fashionable phrase of the time – the real deal.
But then Obama came along and he was a realer deal. And then in 2016 Trumper came along and he was a wheeler dealer. On each occasion Clinton had done everything perfectly but it just wasn’t enough.
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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