The Cedar Lounge Revolution

A few more thoughts on the polls… December 31, 2010

It’s now so close to the end of the year, and the unlikelihood of any further developments on the polling front (though recent political developments such as the ‘retirement’ of one B. Ahern have interesting implications for local contests) mean that the latest crop will presumably stand until the end of January. A lifetime in politics, and instructive to see if that break is something of a breather for a Fianna Fáil now hardly able to believe the straits to which it has come.

By the way, hitherto I’d always written off the idea that the Croke Park agreement was some sort of sop to the unions by FF – not least because the terms were vastly less generous than I’d have thought they’d be if that were the case, though interesting that the IMF, for all the huffing and puffing in the usual quarters, saw no problem with those terms. But anyhow, now I’m beginning to wonder. Sure, it looks like FF used Croke Park as a means of buying time with the unions, and more importantly a union membership who – one suspects – had there been a more, shall we say, energetic response earlier in the day might have provided a genuine bulwark against what was taking place and not merely in the more constrained context of PS employees but much more widely for workers across the economy. But the suspicion must remain that as with pensions they also sought to minimise future damage to them, and could turn around in 2016 and say, ‘well, we didn’t go back to the well’. Of course all the preceding paragraph is positioned not within a left critique but within the orthodox analysis.

If so it clearly didn’t work, at least not so far. Nothing has staunched the flow of support away from FF, perhaps, in fact more likely than not, due to the excessive rhetoric about these matters that they used early on and which their cheerleaders in the media were all too keen to add to the swelling chorus. FF may yet rue the day Harris was brought into the Seanad, though it doesn’t do to overstate his influence.

Anyhow, if that was indeed the situation then FF has learned a useful lesson, though too late. Don’t screw over your support base. Ever. And if you’re going to do bad things to said base [and not in the True Blood sense of the term, although, now I think about it…] you really have to sugar the pill, something this administration simply couldn’t get their heads around for reasons that one could only ascribe to being in power far far too long. I’m no fan of one B. Ahern, or indeed a certain C. Haughey before him, but at previous points in our economic history where cuts were made the pointless and self-defeating (from an FF perspective) anti-Public Sector rhetoric we’ve had displayed in more recent times was much much less in evidence.

Still all those figures from the polls are remarkable. Okay, not all, but enough.

People who formerly voted FF (and perhaps some long time LP supporters) want an alternative, not necessarily a lot of people, 3 or 4 per cent filtering from Labour to SF. But small parties have lived on that sort of vote for quite some time. Another thought, they’re not going to the parties further to the left in huge numbers, at least not in numbers given that the Independents/Other figure isn’t rising dramatically. So the message is that they don’t entirely buy the LP propositions, have haltingly gone leftwards to SF as it has articulated at least some defiance to the orthodoxy, and only some are going much further.

A lot to consider there.

Is it that this society has always had a space for a left of Labour party? That’s obviously true in some respects, from Clann na Poblachta onwards there has been clear room for a radical party. The same is true of the WP during the 1980s and in a lesser way both the DL vote in the 1990s and the GP vote in the latter part of the 1990s and on into the 2000s. The Sinn Féin vote during that last period also seems to align with that model, and perhaps indicates that there was room for a number of left of Labour parties (granted the GP hasn’t exactly lived up to expectations on that front). For those who point to the SP, and others, well, the numbers returned remain on the low side for that model. Now, if the SP sees a breakthrough in 2011 above one TD returned it too may be added to the mix.

Of course the polling numbers going to both the LP and to SF are much greater than those that sustained those parties. That’s a step change – at least if it continues, and no wonder we keep hearing the calls about a ‘new party’ in the media. This must disturb at least some on the right of centre that the movement has been essentially leftward across the last three years, even if it has been to the rather mild centrism with a dash of liberal leftism of the LP. In fact in polling terms it’s all been leftwards with FG simply not soaking up the ex FF vote.

I’d love to see that as evidence of a left support bloc, but I’m not so sure. Yes, there appears to be a core group of 20 – 25 per cent who vote for centre left and left parties and crucially this includes the Labour Party, Sinn Féin (at least drawing support from this grouping), smaller parties and left Independents. But there’s a broader pool of people, probably in or around 20 to 25 per cent who will vote leftish in the right circumstances. That ‘ish’ contains within it a fairly variegated crew, those who’d vote Labour but never Sinn Féin – and vice versa. All will get a nod. There are a lot of ‘liberals’ in there who it’s far from socialism were reared. And there are those who are passing through, seeking ‘alternatives’, however nebulously these might be defined. They might vote PD in one decade, LP the next, GP the next. There’s not that many of them, but they’re there alright.

How to pull that together is such a huge issue that I don’t know a way it could be done in the short to medium term. And how to pull it together so that it dominates FF/FG is another question entirely (indeed many would shy away from my not including the LP on the centre right of the spectrum). And with the LP in proto-apostate mode as regards government formation with FG there’s not exactly a lot of optimism on that score.

But I guess the positive aspect of this is that now the formations of the centre and left seem to be cohering to some degree and that support is coalescing around various centre left and left poles. In that context the transfer patterns will be useful indicators as to how this all plays out, but, that said the simple fact is that hitherto if has generally been Fine Gael that has benefited most from Labour Party transfers. To change that culture will take quite some time.

But, that’s not to say that it’s impossible. What happens next, across the next three to six months, in terms of the left – in the broadest sense of that definition, is crucial.

Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin speaks… December 30, 2010

Dr. John Neill, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin is interviewed in the Mail by Jason O’Toole. It’s the sort of interview you’d expect really, but his tone is perhaps a little tougher than usual. Certainly he has some harsh words for all manner of people.

As President of Tallaght Hospital it is perhaps no surprise to discover Mary Harney causes him angst…

[he] says simply that Miss Harney’s tenure as Health Minister will be remembered as ‘disastrous’. Now 65 and retiring on January 25, he refuses to go quietly, lending his support to the growing opposition to plans for a National Children’s Hospital slam in the middle of inner-city Dublin, and insisting that ‘people are longing for a general election’ so they can get rid of Minister Harney and the Greens.

He blames her for the HSE ‘monster’ that has grown up under her watch. ‘The situation over health has deteriorated rapidly. The waiting lists are appalling in accident and emergency. People are on trolleys. I’m very interested that the number of jobs being cut in the HSE is exactly what we were all crying out for but it’s too little too late. ‘Yes, it has to happen. I know it can’t happen overnight, but it should have begun long ago.’

But what of these words on the…er…Green Party;

‘We have had an extraordinary few years because we had a very strange general election in 2007, which gave no definite result. It wasn’t the result I think people voted for because the Greens were all the time going to go the other way.’

In an extraordinary attack on John Gormley’s party, the archbishop says he agrees with the view that they sold out by reneging on many of their preelection promises. He remembers being ‘very upset’ at the Greens dramatic volte face over Shannon being used by the U.S. military.

‘Somehow the Greens managed to do a complete turnaround and stabilise the Fianna Fáil government, and they have stayed there through thick and thin. It’s a very sad thing. It’s not just true of the Green Party, but it is very true of them, power tends to corrupt.’

Dr Neill is also ‘very sad’ at how our sovereignty was ‘diminished in the economic field’ by the IMF/ECB bailout. ‘We are in a mess. There’s a great deal of anger and frustration in society. I know that people are very fearful that things could get worse. ‘I think this coming year is going to be very difficult. And I don’t think it has dawned on people fully what the implications of the Finance Bill are going to be. All we hope is that there is light at the end of the tunnel.’

He says that the finger of blame for the ‘mess we’re in’ can only be pointed at the Government as ‘our own domestic policies were to blame’.

Hmmm… You know, you can read the polls and see that they’re in free fall, but it’s easy to forget that the resentment at the GP exists far beyond the left.

Interesting though too to read his take on matters theological.

[are] Catholics now turning to the Anglican churches because of the abuse cases? ‘I do know that a large number of parishes would have a great number of people who were not cradle Anglicans. There are some definitely, including clergy. There has certainly been a drift that way. There are several clergy in this diocese who were ordained Catholic priests.

Also, there was a time that inter-church marriages all went one way, but almost as a reaction they are all going the other way now. There has been quite a growth in people joining who are not cradle Anglicans.’

But he sees the issues affecting all Churches…

‘As you walk around Dublin now you see very few priests, but we know there are lots of them. So, they are not wearing clerical collars. With the Church of Ireland it’s a lot less, but it has definitely affected us.

I think the institutional churches will take probably quite a knocking – the Church of Ireland as much as the Catholic Church. ‘I think the expression of religious belief and practice will change. We have to find new ways of relating to people. ’

What else?

He also believes that Catholic priests should be allowed to marry and confesses that he would have hesitated about his own vocation if family life wasn’t permitted.
‘The fact of the matter is that celibacy has not – throughout Christian history – been compulsory. It’s certainly very much a Roman Catholic rule. We’re also living in a much more sexualised society and celibacy in thatsetting is a much more difficult rule for people to live by.

I see celibacy as having a value but only when voluntarily embraced. Marriage to me is natural. I’m extremely happy family man. I feel that it is enriching of my ministry rather than diminishing of it.’

Does he believe that compulsory celibacy has somehow contributed to sexual abuse among the Catholic clergy?

‘I wouldn’t link it totally with abuse by any means, but I think we all have to realise that sexuality is a very powerful force and when sexualityis repressed it can break out in all sort of strange ways. So, that is something to be reckoned with.

And while his views on abortion will hardly be a surprise either…

‘There are very exceptional cases where I feel abortion is justified. Apart from the medical, I am totally convinced that the rape cases are totally justified. And incest, yes, which is a form of rape, anyway. If it involves a minor it is rape. I’m convinced there are tragic circumstances in which abortion may be the lesser of two evils. But I’m certainly not in favour of abortion as a means of contraception.’

…nor perhaps will his views on same sex marriage. He’s agin.

arguing instead that civil partnership is ‘the way forward’. ‘I do feel that marriage is marriage,’ he says, adding: ‘I’ve always been fairly conservative on this.’ He does not like calling civil partnership marriage ‘because I feel it’s different from marriage. For me marriage is defined as between a man and a woman. But I don’t feel it is undermined by giving similar rights to those in civil partnerships. The official Anglican line is no blessing of civil unions. I think it will change. It will come about eventually, but I don’t think the Church is ready for it yet.’

Though for those of us who remember some contributions to the CofI Gazette over the years it will probably be as well to remind a broader audience that in some parts of Anglicanism this would be a fairly progressive line.

Anyhow, there’s more, but that gives a sense of the article.