No I'm not referring to the media but Stanley Baldwin's much quoted remark about the "prerogative of the harlot" is quite apposite when it comes to describing the posturing of independent members of Dáil Éireann. Yesterday's Sunday Times carried a report about independent deputies planning to endorse up to 15 new candidates in the general election, with the intention of creating a power bloc to negotiate with potential coalition partners afterwards.
The move is likely to mean 10 outgoing TDs and 15 local councillors will run for election to the Dail next year under an independent alliance banner. High-profile deputies including Finian McGrath, Jerry Cowley and Catherine Murphy are also drafting a “mini- programme for government” based around policies on health, education, disability and crime. They plan to use this in talks with other parties after the election if independents hold the balance of power.
Personally I'm not in favour of anything that will lead to more of their breed. For all its shortcomings, a parliamentary democracy based on competing political parties that are prepared to represent a range of interests and articulate distinct policies will serve us better than an each way bet on a "shop local" candidate. This kind of intense localism only reinforces the worst aspects of the Irish clientelist system. Just because an independent candidate is successful in constituency A does not justify resources being put into that constituency over another where the need might be greater but whose voters did not elect such a candidate. I suspect that parties will reassert themselves in 2007 as there are two distinct competing blocs of parties bidding for power, unlike the situation last time.
Meanwhile the Fianna Fáil backroom team are preparing themselves to achieve a "historic" third victory in a row. And they are more than capable of devising a strategy to minimise the party's losses and scrape back into power. It's going to be tight. It all depends on the caprice of the voters. Will they be thinking of the scenes on tonight's Prime Time that evoked the horror of the public squalor of the A&E wards of our major hospitals or will they be content with the private affluence generated by all that SSIA money sloshing about?
Well said.
Posted by: Simon | May 16, 2006 at 01:30 AM