ie-politics

The Indispensable Party

Bertie Ahern's interview with the Irish Independent is all about framing the election contest in terms of who will be Fianna Fáil's partner in government after the votes are counted.  His own personal preference is for a continuation of the present coalition but, being a good democrat, he is prepared to leave the composition of the next government in the hands of the people. Ahern said it would be "arrogant" for any party to dictate to the electorate which combination of parties should constitute the next Government.  We are assured that Bertie has "no ideological hangups" about a coalition with Labour, pointing to the generous social policy measures in the last budget.   "It is up to the Irish people to decide the election outcome and I will negotiate on the basis of the results". 

This appeal over the head of Pat Rabbitte to ordinary Labour voters that 'no' shouldn't really mean 'no', is more than likely based on polling numbers and focus group results that show that a Fianna Fáil/Labour combination could be popular.  But even in the absence of such figures it makes very good sense for Fianna Fáil to strategically position itself as the indispensable party of government and that the election be reduced to who will make up the numbers with them.  This is exactly what happened in 2002.

It will be much more difficult to pull it off this time.  Fine Gael is not the basket case it was last time out and Labour was also much more equivocal in its stance.  So it might be a tighter race but Fianna Fáil must be slightly favoured to retain office.  A putative FF/Labour alliance is now on the table and no commentator will be able to resist looking at it regardless of the official alignment of parties at the start of the actual campaign.  This is hardly surprising in that there is really nothing to divide the Rainbow and the current coalition in terms of policy fundamentals or have I missed something?  As usual attention will be on the horse race. 

Out of Hospital

I am lucky to be able to sit up and type this on my old trusty laptop.  I had a fall a week ago and suffered what turned out to be a minor spinal injury.  I could have been paralysed but, with the brace I'm now wearing, I will heal.  It's frightening to be totally immobilised on the flat of your back for a couple of days wondering if there's something seriously wrong.  The care I received at Loughlinstown Hospital and at the Mater cannot be faulted.  It seems that once you get admitted into the system, everything seems to work well.  But now is not the time for a digression on the politics of healthcare.  As I've just been brought home by my wonderful loving Tracey, I'm going to take it easy for the Christmas period.  Happy Christmas everybody.

Why Budgets tell us little about the Economy

For the most part commentary on the Budget has been politically focused.  Cowan has presented an election budget and the contents of his budget speech merely confirmed all the media speculation.  Never has a budget been so assiduously leaked in advance.  Cowan has been seen to deliver to vital Fianna Fáil interests and the only danger is that the party will be too complacent about its re-election.  Opposition politicians quibble here and there about the detail but in a system locked into a fundamental consensus about economic policy there is little they can say or do except curse their bad luck that they are not the ones in government.

The trouble with a consensus dominated political culture is that it is very difficult to have quality debate about the fundamentals of economic and social policy.  Such discussions that may have taken place in recent years have happened behind the closed doors of the national partnership institutions.  There is little public discussion about the sustainability of the Irish model.  The potential vulnerabilities of Ireland as a result of its position in relation to globalisation never gets an airing.  This is what produces the "brain dead politics" that Vincent Browne was highlighting in the current Village magazine. 

Fortunately there are other sources of analysis and critique away from the mainstream that offer something more interesting.  A good example is the latest book published by Tasc called Taming the Tiger: Social Exclusion in a Globalised Ireland ( a sample can be read here).  One of the salient points to emerge from the book is how our welfare state is even more minimalist than it ever was and that despite the rhetorical commitments to social inclusion, evidence actually points to declining levels of social provision and greater levels of inequality.  Part of this is explained by the shift from a welfare state, however residual, to the "competition state".  I will look at this in more detail in future posts. 

Anyone for Luntz?

Top US Republican pollster Frank Luntz was on RTE's Week in Politics programme on Sunday night.  Luntz is a lively and engaging figure and this focus group was prodded and cajoled to give its gut reactions to the video clips of Irish political leaders presented to them.  Terry Prone, a panelist in the studio watching and commenting on all of this, has a good piece in the Irish Examiner describing the dynamics of the encounter.  Luntz gave his audiences electronic gadgets whose dial could be turned to indicate approval or disapproval of what was being said.  This sort of thing has been practiced for years in the US although it has some novelty value here. 

Before I watched the show I thought I would probably get annoyed at RTE for hiring this American conservative GOP spin doctor, in the same way as this British blogger was ticked off by BBC's Newsnight for hiring someone considered to have given David Cameron's bid for the Tory leadership a decisive boost over a year ago.   But what's the harm in a little distraction on a stormy Sunday night?  The professional political pundits, especially in RTE, were probably getting worried that the forthcoming election would not be much of a contest given the recovery of Fianna Fáil in the polls and the apparently doomed position of the opposition.  But Frank Luntz has reassured us that "the election isn't over yet" and that the government "can still be taken out". 

RTE will be delighted that its programme has sexed up the pre-election campaign.  There was much interest among the panel - Noel Whelan and Ivan Yates were alongside Prone - in the fact that Pat Rabbitte came across very strongly and that the preferred choice for government of the group was a Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition.  Luntz was adamant that the group - a third of which had voted for the governing parties the last time, the rest had voted for other parties - "the people are clearly looking for a change".  Furthermore, "the people are clearly looking for change and looking for politicians that don't sound political. Bertie Ahern has not won the election yet. He has got a way to go to convince the electorate". 

The fact that Luntz appears to have a relationship with RTE probably means that no party will be hiring his services this side of an election.  Luntz is probably too controversial a figure for any Irish party to handle right now.  Curiously, he is out of favour with the Republicans at the moment which might explain why he is spending some time in these island as well as in Canada.  There are many more like Luntz that could be engaged by parties.  What such pollsters do is to use focus groups to test political marketing strategies.The point is that if parties want to sell something - whether out of conviction or opportunism or the pursuit of power for its own sake - they need to use the necessary means to persuade the voters.  That's where Luntz and his ilk come in to their own. 

Those who would embrace the techniques of political marketing do not suggest that pollsters should determine the policy.   Much of what political communications experts do is to pay attention to how the agenda is set and issues are framed for debate.  Indeed a central battle in politics is over the use of language or framing.  Luntz would be happy with the description of what he does as "political reality construction" even though he has been heavily criticised for the way he does it.  The right have figured this out a long time ago and the left have to realise that the facts do not simply speak for themselves. 

Idealism, Activism and Left Political Parties

The Cedar Lounge Revolution is a group blog written by "leftists too stubborn to quit".  There's a lot of good writing here - humourous, analytical, anecdotal - and there's a lot that strikes a chord with me personally.  There's a lot to disagree with too of course.  The latest post "The limits of activism: Sinn Féin, Independents, Socialism, Community Activism and Party" (cross posted on Irishelection.com) reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago.  The topic I had to write on was "Idealism and vision without organisation is sterile. Organisation without idealism and vision is corrupt" - one of those topics you can write about anything you like.  I took the opportunity to mix a bit of autobiography and political science and talk about my days in the Workers' Party and Democratic Left.  It was written about five years ago and, if I were to revise it, the conclusion might not be quite so upbeat.  Anyway, I decided to leave it alone.  Make of it what you will...

Perceptions and polls

Before we had opinion polls it was the job of the paid commentariat of political correspondents and columnists to sum up how the nation felt about politics.  Famously, before the 1977 general election, the consensus was that the Cosgrave led coalition of Fine Gael and Labour would be re-elected.  Instead Fianna Fáil won a landslide victory never likely to be repeated.  Now that we have polls we have some more reliable information to try to gauge the mood of the electorate and predict what will happen come the election.  But perception is everything as Stephen Collins rightly points out this morning in his analysis of the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi opinion poll.

The most significant finding of the poll shows that 57 per cent of voters believe that Fianna Fáil and the PDs will form the next government, while only 17 per cent believe that Fine Gael and Labour (along with the Greens) will prevail.  Collins believes that "if this view becomes unshakable in the minds of the voters, it could finish the election as a contest between competing coalitions long before it ever begins".  If FF maintains near enough current levels of support the perception will be that they will be impossible to dislodge from power.  In 2002 the perceived collapse of support for Fine Gael as a result of its lack of credibility and floundering ineptitude meant that the real question in the minds of voters was who was going to partner FF in government.