Midway Point - General Election 2011
When the election was called I thought I might post a lot, but really, there's been precious little to post about. The parties are trotting out their talking points, and I won't lie that I like Labour's more than anyone else's. But what will the reality of those policies be if they get into power?
And then we had the debate. Five middle aged men, an audience full of questions. Oh god. No, sorry, I can't go into it in detail, it was awful. To many people, bad moderating, lying, incompetence, pointless optimism, pandering and shite. Should I have expected anything else? Probably not, but I hope, I desperately hope. And, of course, my hope was dashed.
So people will decide that Enda didn't screw up, so he and his party are still the best option for a conservative Ireland who think that civil war politics still matter. They'll vote for a party who thinks that political reform involves abolishing the Seanad and reducing the number of TDs by twenty, who will say that equality doesn't include civil marriage or a constitution free of religion, who will pander to the narrow, parochial minds of people all over the country. And it won't be change.
But that's ok, 'cos FG are different to FF, aren't they?
So here we are, at the halfway point, nothing really significant has been said, there've been no real surprises, nothing really to write about here. So I reckon this is a good time to put together a brief wishlist for each of the parties. I would love to see the following:
- Labour to become properly socialist, to tell the self-interested unions where to go, to promote actual equality and to build a proper secular republic.
- FG to acknowledge their narrow-mindedness, the pointlessness of their leader and to put in place iron clad guarantees that they won't descend right back into the trough with their business friends the moment the election is over. Oh, yeah, and to promote acutal equality and to build a proper secular republic.
- SF to go back to school, to realise that their economic policies are nonsense and while they've quite a few interesting theories, they don't work in the real world.
- The Greens to drop out of parliamentary politics, go back to their grassroots, rebuild and come back with a proper left wing Green agenda.
- FF to disappear.
Well, it's that or voting Cthulhu suddenly seems like a really good idea. Why pick the lesser of five evils?
And then we had the debate. Five middle aged men, an audience full of questions. Oh god. No, sorry, I can't go into it in detail, it was awful. To many people, bad moderating, lying, incompetence, pointless optimism, pandering and shite. Should I have expected anything else? Probably not, but I hope, I desperately hope. And, of course, my hope was dashed.
So people will decide that Enda didn't screw up, so he and his party are still the best option for a conservative Ireland who think that civil war politics still matter. They'll vote for a party who thinks that political reform involves abolishing the Seanad and reducing the number of TDs by twenty, who will say that equality doesn't include civil marriage or a constitution free of religion, who will pander to the narrow, parochial minds of people all over the country. And it won't be change.
But that's ok, 'cos FG are different to FF, aren't they?
So here we are, at the halfway point, nothing really significant has been said, there've been no real surprises, nothing really to write about here. So I reckon this is a good time to put together a brief wishlist for each of the parties. I would love to see the following:
- Labour to become properly socialist, to tell the self-interested unions where to go, to promote actual equality and to build a proper secular republic.
- FG to acknowledge their narrow-mindedness, the pointlessness of their leader and to put in place iron clad guarantees that they won't descend right back into the trough with their business friends the moment the election is over. Oh, yeah, and to promote acutal equality and to build a proper secular republic.
- SF to go back to school, to realise that their economic policies are nonsense and while they've quite a few interesting theories, they don't work in the real world.
- The Greens to drop out of parliamentary politics, go back to their grassroots, rebuild and come back with a proper left wing Green agenda.
- FF to disappear.
Well, it's that or voting Cthulhu suddenly seems like a really good idea. Why pick the lesser of five evils?