The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Why not tell us the cost? April 1, 2019

I find this inexplicable…

The Irish Freedom Party (IFP) last week week launched a nationwide billboard campaign with 30 posters in Dublin alone.

A spokesman for the party would not disclose how many advertisements would be placed on billboards around the country, or how much the campaign will cost.

It’s not hugely difficult to work out the likely cost – as the IT notes talking to people in the print industry a ball park figure would be 40k. But then again IFP isn’t registered with SIPO.

In any event they intend to run candidates at the European elections so they’ll have to register pronto, won’t they? And as to their platform for all the chest-beating about sovereignty and patriotism, shorn of the hard EU scepticism it seems remarkably similar to a raft of other parties abroad…

“For the first time in recent history, voters have a real choice. It is time to reject the politically correct Europhile establishment. Embrace the patriotic alternative with the Irish Freedom Party.

“We have unique appeal. We are the only party who believe in Irish freedom and national sovereignty. The Irish people deserve a proper choice and vision for our country. The days of subservience to foreign authority should be over. “We are a patriotic party of national sovereignty in favour of a smaller state, lower taxation, free speech, and control of our shared national resources for the benefit of the Irish people.”

Diary of a Corbyn Foot Soldier (April 2019) April 1, 2019

Thanks as always to Michael Murray for allowing us to reprint his column.

Dictionary definition of a foot soldier: “…a dedicated low level follower…” 

Michael Murray: murraymicha@gmail.com; FaceBook: Michael Murray London 

Contents:

(1) Right, I’ve said it!

(2) Indicative Voting in the Parliamentary Brexit debate 

(1) Right, I’ve said it!

As this April Diary entry goes to the Labour Affairs printer, could life be more fraught for the Corbyn foot soldier? 

Support the gathering demand for a “People’s Vote,” and risk the alienation of Labour Leave members and supporters, or stay with the party line as agreed at Annual Conference and trust in the Corbyn leadership to make the right calls at the appropriate stages in the Brexit process? 

Avoid thoughts, words and actions that might exacerbate the anti-Semitism stand-off, even to the point of abandoning Chris Williamson, a stalwart Corbyn supporter?  Whatever happened to old Labour’s “An injury to one is the concern of all,” I ask myself in guiltier moments, or, indeed, where is the natural justice precept,“the presumption of innocence” in all this? Meanwhile, Williamson’s critics weigh in, as they did with those suspended before him, not only with prejudicial statements, but, macho style, calling for his expulsion before any investigation has begun. And this coming from Labour Party colleagues of his, some high-placed and thus required to keep their counsel and, at the least, not to pre-empt due process. Fraught is an understatement. 

*                                                                            

(2) Indicative Voting in the Parliamentary Brexit debate 

Indicative voting, not commonly so -called, is common practice in consensual decision-making in team-working and other collaborative endeavours. Also, it is used by good chairpersons to “test the water” and ascertain where people’s heads are at in the process of guiding a meeting to a quick, efficient and optimally agreed decision.

For an explication of indicative voting in the Parliamentary context go to “theinstituteforgovernment.org.uk” for a short guide to a decision-making process we may be seeing more of in the British parliament, as parties fragment and minority government parties are required to work with other parties. The perception of a “broken” British political system, primarily due to the Brexit crisis, is giving rise to increasing discussion of  “Proportional Representation”as an alternative, and, thus, more democratic and efficient ways of doing the business in a changed political system.

The “indicative voting” process being attempted in the House of Commons does not lie easily with a de facto two party system based on “First Past the Post” elections rooted in anglo-Saxon adversarialism. The first round of voting resulted in eight Brexit options, selected, from a total of 16, by the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, all being voted against, creating a frenzy in the media.

Even the Guardian got sucked in: “And parliament was still left wondering quite what it had taken back control of as it had contrived to vote against everything. Bollocks to everything,” screamed John Crace. Of course, it is to miss the point of the purpose of indicative voting in consensual decision-making. As Labour’s Margaret Beckett pointed out, “this is not to identify a single proposition at this stage, but to get a sense of where compromise may lie.”

Time will tell: there is the possibility of the House returning to this exercise next week. However, if that happens, I can’t see much good coming from it. A fundamental pre-requisite of consensual decision-making is keeping faith with the process. I wouldn’t put money on that given the low-trust atmosphere prevailing in Westminster – within political parties even more than between them.

Rafael Behr cites evidence that “Remain and Leave are now more compelling drivers of political identity than party allegiances.” Moreover, he quotes no less an authority than Britain’s leading psephologist, Professor John Curtice, that Brexit had not only reshaped the electorate, but had stirred up “passion of which voters had long since seemed incapable.” Reading that, I’m reminded of the number of people who told me,while on the canvass in Stoke on Trent, they’d never, ever voted except in the Brexit referendum.    

Behr continues: “It is possible that raw anger with the government’s incompetence and Tory callousness are sufficient to drive a Labour surge in an election. The party’s strategists seem to be relying on that dynamic and Corbyn has a way of rediscovering form on the campaign trail.” 

Then he brings that line of speculation to a shuddering halt by opining that the 2017 General Election result might have been a one-off. More precisely: “(that it was) .. the last hurrah for English pendulum politics. That a backlash against one of two parties no longer translates into an upswing for its rival.” (Guardian, 26/03/2019)

I don’t believe we’ve reached the “last hurrah” for pendulum politics just yet. But an election programme as radical as the 2017’s widely acknowledged game-changing Manifesto will need a comfortable majority to stand any chance of being implemented.  We have our work cut out.

April fools? How can we compete with this reality? April 1, 2019

The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones blamed various claims he has made, including that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was a hoax, on “psychosis”, according to a deposition given by the Infowars host as part of a Texas lawsuit.

Or how about this…

Tom, a distinguished man in his 70s, said Grieve was an “extraordinary MP” and it was very sad that “a man like that should potentially be lost to the government or parliament because of blind prejudice by obsessive Brexiteers”.

A distinguished man – eh?

And then there’s this:

Some unlikely protesters have been gracing the confirmation hearings of nominees for top government posts during Donald Trump’s time in office.

This week, the Senate energy and natural resources committee held a confirmation hearing for David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist who has been serving as the acting interior secretary since the resignation of Ryan Zinke in January. And as the committee pressed him on his lobbying record Thursday, a protester in the gallery highlighted the contradiction inherent in his nomination by dawning a swamp creature mask.

Meanwhile this is likely a joke, and this seems fairly implausible but then again… none of these are: the comedian who has won the first round of the Presidential elections in Ukraine, and of course this.

Kick over the statues? March 31, 2019

Jason O’Toole, not unknown to this parish, has a piece supporting the idea of a statue to Dolores O’Riordain here in the Mirror. He argues that:

Dolores was one of the most brilliantly gifted singers to emerge from this little island and fully deserves to be honoured with a statue.

 

And it is true that this would have some attraction for those from further afield. Recently there were not one but two Luke Kelly statues sited in Dublin – I’m quite fond of the one on the Northside, though someone who knew him personally who I have a passing acquaintance with told me that it didn’t look like him at all. That I cannot judge, but all this does raise the question what are the criteria for selecting those who are commemorated in statues? I’ve genuinely not a clue, it seems hit and miss, a mix of opportunity, chance, funding and so on. Any suggestions as to how that might be regularised, or whether it should be?

Closed borders, less music. March 31, 2019

…a digital, culture, media and sport committee report to MPs…also found that employment opportunities within the UK live sector may be under threat after Britain leaves the European Union. More than half of the musicians who responded to surveys by the Incorporated Society of Musicians stated that they receive at least half of their income from working in the EU.

Nothing better to do? March 31, 2019

I’ve long thought that boredom is an under considered aspect in the dynamics of human behaviour. The sheer need to fill time, to give it purpose and meaning, at least in those contexts where there is free time available, seems to drive so many behaviours. But note that point – where free time is available.

For example, what of the rather pathetic story about a TCD group that calls itself the Knights of the Campanile which is now caught up in an alleged hazing ritual controversy. Of course said Knights provide a neat little network, of their 1200 members only 50 are current students – this apparently being a limit set by themselves to determine… some standard or another (interesting, on the IT in comments there’s the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth about freedom of speech issues). All this ritualistic stuff is remarkably primitive really.

And that reminds me of my father who in the 80s was invited to become a Freemason. My father saw that as the absurdity that it was, but he also had problems with the way such organisations lock into business and other networks (and as a republican, small ‘r’, he was well aware of the links into the UK police etc).

Because while some of this is innocuous, or stupid, some clearly isn’t. Privilege defines itself by defining others as others. That’s part of the trick. Always has been.

Sunday and the Week’s Media Stupid Statements March 31, 2019

I’m slightly out of contact for the Sunday papers this weekend – travelling as it were – so all comments on them gratefully accepted. But from earlier in the week…

Someone confuses indifference with loyalty and doesn’t appear to understand the GFA/BA, or the political dispensation in the UK…

The most obvious way out of all these traps [in regard to Brexit] is for Britain to usher Northern Ireland towards the door. A groundswell of public exasperation could have been expected, and should have had no difficulty finding a voice. From the Labour left to the Tory right, via the socially liberal centre, just about everyone has been given cause to reject the union. But there is absolutely no sign of a popular shift against it. Occasional comment pieces decrying Northern Ireland as more trouble than it is worth, while seized on by nationalists, have gained no perceptible traction. To take the least charitable view, perhaps the union’s low worth has always been priced into British public opinion.

Meanwhile in the IT there’s this:

However, the notion that Ireland is now home to a progressive consensus is a sheer fantasy, as the 33 per cent of voters who opposed the liberalisation of abortion laws, and the 38 per cent of voters who opposed the legalisation of same-sex marriage, would surely attest. Ireland is in fact a profoundly divided society, and is likely to remain so for a very long time, no matter how many avant-garde referendums we manage to push through.

…

Whether or not these differences are aired publicly, pretending that “we” all agree, that the new Ireland is a haven of progressivism and the old Ireland is just a a relic of the past, “water under the bridge,” is a piece of historical revisionism that only serves to paper over the deep moral fault lines that now define our social landscape.

No one pretends ‘we’ all agree. Both referenda were won. Most on the losing side have had the good grace to accept the results. There is no serious effort to reverse marriage equality and those who are anti-abortion are scattered and the one party established in their name is not even registering at the polls. These ‘deep’ moral fault lines? He wishes. 

Latest Sunday Business Post/RedC poll March 30, 2019

From this evening:

FG 31% NC

FF 25% +1

IND 15% NC

SF 13% -5

LP 5% NC

IND ALL 3% +1

SD 3% +1

GP 3% +1

SOL/PBP 2% +1

RENUA LESS THAN 1%

AONTÚ LESS THAN 1%