Tag: Election

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Politics

Meanwhile, Back In The East…

Dammit, Galway West is being recounted! Before we even had a first count!!! Because of that FF table collapse perhaps? Shouldn’t have laughed…

Exciting things happening all around the country though. The socialists are back – Joe Higgins was elected, and this time he won’t be alone in the Dáil. The United Left Alliance will take at least four and possibly six seats. Combine that with Labour’s best-ever showing, easily outstripping the ‘Spring Tide’ of 1992, and there will be something like 45 seats on the left. It’s not a revolution, but it is a new ball game.

Bad news: it seems certain that Lucinda Creighton will be elected. She’s rapidly becoming a figure of hate among the young and liberal as she’s against Gay marriage. That would not be so surprising in Irish politics, except for the fact that she’s Fine Gael’s spokesperson on equality…

That’s the sort of government we’re getting folks. Even their equality spokesperson is against, you know, actual equality. The dragon may have been slain, but we will continue to be probably the most unequal society in Western Europe for some time to come.

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Politics

Meanwhile, Still In The West

Fianna Fáil here have collapsed. Literally. The folding table they were using just fell down. It’s widely being seem as pretty bloody symbolic. Frank Fahey, former minister, has conceded defeat. No surprise – he almost came to be seen as emblematic of the party’s endemic corruption.

Our leading Green candidate, Niall O’Brolcháin, has seen his vote taken out and shot. It is a shame. I like him. I like what he stood for. But at least Fianna Fáil party TDs had an excuse for supporting a FF government. The Greens will never be able to explain why it seemed like a good idea.

Count any second now. It’s looking very much as if FF will be reduced to a single seat.

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Politics

Meanwhile, Back West

Galway West is a sprawling constituency, so frustratingly we always seem to be one of the last in with a first count. Still another tense fifteen minutes. But counts are carried on in public, so impressions emerge. Interesting impressions.

Eamon Ó Cuív – De Valera’s grandson and Fianna Fáil’s leading candidate here – appears to be topping the poll. I ask you to contemplate that solemnly. On the brighter side, he looks to be falling short of being elected on the first count as might normally be expected. Such is the tribal FF grip, Fianna Fáil not winning too well is about the best we can hope for in Galway West.

Surprisingly, but excitingly, Labour’s Derek Nolan is coming second. He actually seems to have increased on the first-preference vote of his popular predecessor, Michael D. Higgins.

His surplus should largely go to former-Labour independent Catherine Connolly, so the dream of two left-wing seats here looks like it may come true. The next big question then is whether Noel Grealish, former leader of the defunct right-wing PD party, will survive. And if he does, will it be at the expense of FF?

For once, I think I’d actually like to see a PD elected…

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Politics

Fianna Fáil Voters Tell Lies

It seems unlikely now that Fianna Fáil will really finish behind independents as the exit polls predicted. This is because people voted for them while saying that they didn’t. But should we be surprised, considering the example set by their party?

Now I could go on about this, but I don’t want to seem too bitter about the future of the country being destroyed for a generation. I’ll just say that if you’re voting for a party you’re ashamed of, you need to re-examine your priorities. The last time I remember this happening it was for Margaret Thatcher.

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Politics

First Concrete Impressions

Exit polls are the snacks you shouldn’t eat between meals, but if you place any credence in them then Fianna Fáil are about to have the worst day in their party’s history.

The big winners will be… Independents. Independents would have overtaken the Fianna Fáil party to become the third-largest political grouping.

As the counts begin to come in, one very hopeful trend emerging: The fall of dynasties. Names like Haughey, like Flynn, will no longer be appearing in the Dáil. High time.

Major trends: In Dublin, Fianna Fáil voters switching to Labour, outside Dublin they’re switching to Fine Gael.

Left/right, urban/rural axis seems to be slowly taking place of old ‘civil war’ one?

Interesting-but-weird: Transfers from Sinn Féin going to Fine Gael. Again quite contrary to historical loyalty patterns.

Fun: A Christian Solidarity Party candidate (read: far right) very upset that his party logo didn’t appear on the ballot paper, and was replaced with what he describes as a ‘picture of nuts’.

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Politics

Interactive Television

Interactive TV CartoonI wish we had Al Jazeera here. I mean we get it of course – I’ve been watching it for hours every day recently – but I wish we had an Al Jazeera of our own. In the West, TV stations can be accused of having a liberal bias if they don’t actively advocate shooting Mexicans. Al Jazeera – now that’s a liberal bias. While they try to keep up the traditional detached tone with neutral headlines like “Overnight Disturbances in Tripoli”, occasionally a “March of Freedom” slips through.

They’re perfectly aware, and proud, of the active role they are playing in bringing down dictatorship in the Middle East. “There we are!” said a news reporter, as footage from celebrations in Benghazi showed that they were projecting Al Jazeera onto a wall of the square. This is the most important TV news channel in the world today, the only international broadcaster that could effectively advocate democracy in the Middle East.

Of course Friday was a good day for democracy here too. Saturday may be better, may be worse, as we discover how people actually voted. Join me here through the day as I watch them prise open the boxes.

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Politics

Voted Yet?

Mubarak PosterCourtesy of  Broadsheet.ie, a lovely piece of what, back before political correctness ruined a perfectly good word, we used to call Art Terrorism. The logo in the top left of the poster is – naturally – that of the Fianna Fáil party.

Well I’ve just been out with my ballot hammer, adding my own small nail to the lid of Fianna Fáil’s coffin. An interesting thing: Everyone in the station and in local shops seemed to be in a good mood, chatting about the election and how it was a lovely day for one. OK, the weather was pretty nice, but I really think there was more to it. People were glad it was an election day. After all, a change of government is the first grounds for hope they’ve had in years.

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Politics

Get Up and Vote

P45 CartoonWe should be having a revolution here. Instead, if polls are to be believed, we may be electing a government even further to the right, even more willing to elevate rich over poor, than the one we are throwing away.

Don’t believe the polls, it’s too easy for such prophecies to become self-fulfilling. There is everything to play for right to the end. Which is why I’m up at 3:00 writing this so you can read it before you leave in the morning. It isn’t too late to send a message to all the political parties, to their wealthy friends, to the other countries of the EU. We are in a hole that was not made by the ordinary people of Ireland, and certainly not by those who are going to suffer the most because of it. The message is that we will not put up with this shit.

Don’t vote for Fine Gael to punish Fianna Fáil. There are much better punishments. Vote for people who don’t mince words about repudiating the awful “bailout” arrangement. That’s there to save the Euro, not us. Remember we have a hostage.

This means voting for out-there parties like the United Left Alliance – or even Sinn Féin. Few things would give the establishment more pause than a substantial rise in the SF vote. It also means voting for Labour, even if I am disappointed on the stand they’ve taken. Or lack thereof. Essentially we need Labour in government if there is to be any hope of the next few years not turning into an orgy of punishment for the poor.

Please, get out there now and warn those who act like they own us. Remind them where power really comes from.

Meanwhile, back in Galway West

My own constituency is going to go to the wire. While there are some laudable independents running, I don’t personally think any of them have a chance – except the ones who are independent more in name than in outlook. These are Noel Grealish, the ‘last PD’, and Labour’s lost candidate Catherine Connolly. It seems very likely that the final seat will be between these two, and I hardly need to tell you which is the vastly preferable outcome.

Indeed I like Catherine Connolly better than Labour’s official candidate, Derek Nolan. I’ll be putting her ahead in my order, and I hope a lot of others do too. I believe Galway West can elect them both.

And there may be an extra trick that more daring voters can play, if Kernan Andrews in the Galway Advertiser is correct:

Senator Healy Eames needs to outpoll Deputy Grealish and stay ahead of him to ensure she takes the seat. If she does, she will knock Grealish out and this will free up the last two seats for the Galway Left – which means victories for Labour’s Derek Nolan and Independent Catherine Connolly.

So that’s my only FG vote – Senator Fidelma Healy-Eames. Remember that name. She may help us simultaneously finish off the last PD and elect, for the first time in the history of Galway West, a second TD on the left.

Which… would be nice.

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Humour Politics

Introducing Approval Cat

King CartoonAnother weird thing about broadcasters in Ireland is the ‘moratorium’. Under this rule, they’re not allowed to discuss tomorrow’s election today. They still broadcast the political shows though, so right now we’re witnessing the unedifying spectacle of hot leftish forum Tonight with Vincent Browne studiously ignoring the most important ballot in living memory.

But what is there that doesn’t relate to the economic and political train wreck we’re living through? The only even vaguely topical issue they found is the mooted visit of the reigning British monarch, an idea so disconnected from current reality that you wonder if the media started it just so they’d have something to talk about tonight.

I couldn’t bear to watch. For the sake of TV, the argument had to be over whether we should actively despise or be really quite fond of royalty. Both unreasonable positions to my mind; I would prefer to simply not give a flying fuck about the British or indeed any monarch. I am a republican.

Not in the usual Irish – and certainly not in the American – sense, but in that I am opposed to inherited respect. So I would prefer if persons holding office simply by privilege of birth were not fawned upon by our leaders. On the other hand, she’s the symbolic head of a country with which we are trying to heal and mature our relations. If we do this right (as in polite and dignified, NOT flattered and awestruck, monarchophiles) it could – could – help improve life for people in Northern Ireland.

So I’m in a bind. In these situations, I’m forced to defer to Approval Cat.

Approval Cat, where do you stand on an official visit by the UK’s Head of State?

Approval Cat

Guess that’s settled then.

Categories
Politics Technology

Fine Gael to Tax Freedom


Barring a miracle of the ballot boxes, it looks like Fine Gael are going to be our masters for the next few years. So I guess some people will have to actually drag their eyes through the bloody manifesto and see what may be in store. Friend and fellow cartoonist Allan Cavanagh alerted me to this gem:

TV Licence: We will change the TV Licence into a household-based Public Broadcasting Charge applied to all households and applicable businesses regardless of the device they use to access content.

Do they really mean to charge all households for RTɹ, whether they watch TV or not? That would be a new general tax, just one that’s collected through its own separate – and therefore ridiculously wasteful – system. Further, it forces me to pay for something I don’t want. I do not own a TV, and one of the reasons for this is that I don’t think what RTÉ broadcasts is worth paying for. If you saw it, you wouldn’t too.

RTE ThumbnailBut perhaps they mean you will be charged if you have any device in your home capable of viewing RTÉ ‘content’. (Do you get nervous whenever anyone uses that word?) They’re hardly going to come round and check what sort of phone you have, so unless they go the unthinkable² route of tracking all internet activity to make sure no one secretly watches television, the logical and simple way to do this will be to charge a tax on every broadband connection or data tariff.

So in the guise of a TV licence, they introduce a tax on freedom of information and of expression. No way, Fine Gael.

  1. RTÉ is the publicly owned broadcasting service, funded in part by a television license fee in a similar fashion to the BBC. In a highly dissimilar fashion, it also has commercials.
  2. Please God they do realise this is unthinkable, don’t they?