ie-politics

Tearing the arse out of a story: Indo hacks and Labour's "dilemma"

"Wouldn't it do your head in?", Vincent Browne rhetorically asked today in his Irish Times column.  He was talking about the positions adopted by Pat Rabbitte about possible post-election scenarios and putting Fianna Fáil back into government.  What does my head in is endless arse-tearing by commentators about hypothetical situations out of which a spurious news story is generated.  A wonderful example is today's lead in the Irish Independent: "Labour in disarray over deal with Ahern".  Answers to hypothetical questions given by Pat Rabbitte and Liz McManus have been pored over and

These series of contradictory statements by the Labour hierarchy, on what many political observers feel is an inevitable Fianna Fail/Labour coalition if the election results dictate it, is emerging as a key issue in the campaign.

What "political observers"?  Those writing the story presumably.  How is it "emerging as a key issue"?  Because they report that it is.  It's a circular process.  Journalists start talking or asking questions about hypothetical situations and they become true in the sense that they are being speculated about - by those same journalists!  "In particular it has left many floating voters confused about Labour's true intentions".  Is there any evidence of such confusion?  I imagine that most informed floating voters know perfectly well that the Labour leadership want to remove Fianna Fáil and the PDs from office and are attempting to structure the election campaign around a clear choice between two alignments of parties. 

"It will heap further pressure on Mr Rabbitte and his deputy to unequivocally clarify their position".   That "pressure" will be applied by political reporters at every opportunity because they have decided that that is the real story of the moment.  What really amused me was the following: "The studied silence of prominent Labour TD Brendan Howlin is also being viewed as significant by political observers".  Again, what "political observers" are we talking about?  Why none other than Messrs McKenna, Sheehan and Molony of course.  If Brendan Howlin had said anything - and he had no reason to - it would have been spun by the hacks as a leadership challenge.

Following Monday's coverage in the Indo that I have already discussed, Labour decided to put the questions submitted by the paper up on its website.  Question (2) was  "Would he not have an obligation to do so [enter coalition with FF], in the national interest, if the likely outcome otherwise was an early general election?"  Rabbitte's answer:

Of course I will take into account the national interest as Labour has always done. It is the very nature of politics that there can be disagreement on what constitutes the national interest at any particular juncture. It is my conviction that the national interest is best served at this time by replacing Fianna Fail and the PDs in government.

Bearing in mind that the phrase "national interest" is usually accompanied by the most self-serving load of guff, his answer is quite reasonable.  The national interest would also be best served by having a meaningful election battle between two alternative and competing blocs of parties and that there be clear and significant policy differences between them.  In 2002 Ruairí Quinn was, to say the least, equivocal about possible future coalition partners.  The fact that Quinn hedged his bets meant that the election was all about who would be going into government with FF.  Rabbitte is doing his best to make sure that this is not the case in 2007.

UPDATE
The Indo finally manage to print some Howlin quotes in this morning's edition, from an interview he gave a local Wexford paper from his holiday in Cape Town.  It's enough to generate the headline "Howlin breaks ranks over poll pact with FG".  So what did Howlin actually say? 

"But our Number One objective remains to advance the aspirations of the Labour party and the people who support it and we should pursue whatever strategy achieves that," he said. "We are going to present ourselves to the people, who are going to make their choice as to whether they want Fine Gael or Labour TDs. If not we will have to deal with the result the people give us."

He also said "I have always argued for flexibility" (as opposed to what? being rigid and unbending?).  The paper reports that Howlin "didn't want to comment specifically on Mr Rabbitte's recent remarks until he had a chance to study them in detail".  Nevertheless this reference to "flexibility" is enough for Fionnan Sheahan to conclude that Howlin's remarks were "the most graphic illustration yet of the unease within Labour over its pact with Fine Gael".  (By the way I'm not sure how those remarks could be a "graphic illustration" of anything).

Meanwhile, over at the Irish Times, Rabbitte tells Stephen Collins

"I think all I can say about it is that I have no intention of putting Fianna Fáil back in government, none at all, and I really don't think it is reasonable to ask me to say more than that; that is my settled position. I have no intention of putting Fianna Fáil back in government and I don't know how many different ways one can say that."

I feel his frustration...

Incentives and unemployment

I don't usually quote Milton Friedman but he was certainly right when he said "there is no such thing as a purely economic issue".  Most economists presume that there is always a trade off between equality and efficiency and there is a large literature on the size and extent of this trade off.  Michael McDowell believes that "a dynamic liberal economy like ours demands flexibility and inequality in some respects to function." It was such inequality "which provides incentives".  This is a core belief of the right and it is seen as blindingly obvious common sense in that if you pay too much dole, the unemployed won't have the incentive to look for work. 

There was never much in the way of empirical evidence for this claim and the ESRI have have just released a report further confounding it.  They find that even though there have been large increases in Unemployment Benefit and Unemployment Assistance payments in recent years, "unemployment has remained low, and employment has continued to grow".  The study finds that "a combination of policies giving unemployed persons access to effective supports for re-employment, and requiring from them active engagement in training and job seeking has counterbalanced this, and helped to keep unemployment low". 

The left and the trade unions have long argued that it is 'unemployment traps' that constitute the real disincentives to work and the loss of medical cards, rent supplements and lone parents allowances are always likely to effect what is called the 'replacement ratio', i.e. the ratio of unemployment payments to direct take home pay.  The ESRI recognises that policies over the last few years have attempted to deal with this and it cites "special transitional arrangements for those moving into employment, the introduction of the 'doctor only' medical card, and the Rental Accommodation Scheme which provides for a less sharp withdrawal of housing subsidies".

John Baker and his colleagues from the Equality Studies Centre at UCD argue in their book Equality: From Theory to Action that Friedman's assertion is quite pertinent here as economists take an excessively narrow view of what constitutes disincentives, limiting the focus to cash payments and ignoring important institutional and cultural contexts.  People want to work for a whole variety of reasons and economists are, by their refusal to take a more holistic approach, basing their assumptions on a very limited view of human nature. 

Rabbitte's wriggle room

Today's Irish Independent leads with "Rabbitte leaves door open for Ahern pact".  The Labour leader has given an interview with the paper and the spin is that the party "has left the door open for a possible coalition with Fianna Fail if its pre-election pact with Fine Gael fails to win the support of voters". 

Pressed repeatedly on the issue, Mr Rabbitte acknowledged he may have to rethink his strategy if the only likely alternative is to call a second election. "Of course I will take into account the national interest as Labour has always done," he said.

Fionnan Sheahan interprets this to mean that fears about Sinn Féin holding the balance of power could give Mr Rabbitte a get-out clause if he ultimately decides to go into government with Fianna Fail.  That option would be the last thing Rabbitte would want to take but as he accepts the fact that

...a question was being raised because Labour had gone into government with Fianna Fail in 1992. Journalists "who tend to look around corners would like to have a very clear quote from me that they would envisage using after the election", he said. "I think nobody ever put the question to Dick Spring in 1992 and I think that journalists developed a new conventional wisdom after that, which is that they would ask these questions interminably in the future."

Pat Rabbitte is banking on this scenario not arising after the next election and believes that there is "still a lot of work needed to convince the public that they would have a choice at the next election".  Rabbitte is a realist and knows that the question of entering government with FF will simply not go away.  I believe that it is sensible to deal with this question now and the only reasonable way is to invoke the national interest.  He is not saying never because you can't anticipate every possible outcome but the voters should accept the fact that Rabbitte is lead by his conviction that putting FF out of office would benefit the country.   It's up to Rabbitte and his party to mount a credible and convincing campaign to win enough votes so as to avoid having to propose entry into government with FF at a post election conference.  Unfortunately it also depends on Fine Gael achieving greater levels of credibility than heretofore. 

New Poll: Not much movement

That's a boring headline and an attempt to parody Claud Cockburn's famous "Small earthquake in Chile, not many dead".  There is very little to write about in the new Sunday Tribune/IMS Millward Brown survey that shows the current governing coalition at 44 per cent and the Rainbow alternative at 39 per cent.  FF are down 2 points to 39 per cent, FG and Labour are up two points each, the Greens and SF have dropped one each, the PDs have gained a point and the independents are unchanged at 10 per cent.  It's bad news for Fine Gael who are polling poorly in Dublin, coming in third at 19 per cent and being strongly challenged by the Greens at 14 per cent. 

There's an interesting comparison of the fortunes of the Greens and Sinn Féin, particularly in the capital. 

Of most concern to Sinn Féin will be the party's 6% level of support in Dublin, which compares to the 9% it won in the capital in 2002. While regional figures should be treated with some caution because of the smaller numbers involved, it does suggest that Sinn Féin will be up against it to add to its two existing seats in the capital. The party has particularly identified Dublin North East, Dublin North West and especially Dublin Central as three of its prime targets.

The Greens show a healthy 8 point increase in the Dublin area since 2002 and "it suggests that all five of the party's TDs in the capital are well placed to hold their seats and that the Greens have a real chance of making a gain in Dublin Central with Patricia McKenna".  But its 4 per cent showing in Leinster means that the Greens will have their work cut out to win seats in target constituencies Galway West, Carlow-Kilkenny and Wicklow. 

Shane Coleman's analysis shows that there is a significant drop in Fianna Fáil's support in Dublin where the party is on 31 per cent compared with the 43 per cent it registered after the last such poll in October that was carried out in the wake of the 'Bertiegate' controversy.  Dubliners are also seemingly less satisfied with Ahern's performance than in other regions. 

The poll also indicates "very strong loyalty of the Irish electorate, with a solid block of voters firmly committed to their party of choice". Of those currently backing Fianna Fáil, 85% voted for the party at the 2002 general election. For Fine Gael the figure is 87% while for Labour it is 82%. Some 92% of those who supported the Greens in the current poll voted for the party in 2002 - the highest loyalty level among the main parties. The PDs at 72% recorded the lowest level.  I'm a little surprised by these figures as I would have expected voter volatility and partisan de-alignment trends to show a little less loyalty.  Overall it still looks like FF being in government unless the opposition start to seize the agenda.  The polls shows that Fine Gael and its leader is not convincing the voters.  They will gain some seats as will Labour, but on these figures they may not win enough. 

Indo highlights Ahern's Shinner stance

Independent Newspapers have been relentless in their coverage of whether Bertie Ahern would or would not permit allow himself to be elected as Taoiseach with the support of Sinn Féin.  Yesterday, under the headline "I won't be dependent on SF to stay in power, says Ahern", it seemed to be the case that Ahern was not only ruling out forming a government that depended on Sinn Féin votes but was now ruling out even the possibility of even accepting Sinn Féin votes for election as Taoiseach.  Ahern presumably issued this clarification of his position after being taunted by opposition leaders, notably by Pat Rabbitte on RTE's Questions and Answers, that he wasn't really closing the door on Sinn Féin. 

Today's Sunday Independent was not prepared to leave matters be and there are at least four pieces in today's online edition that pick up the story.  The paper claims to have run a telephone poll that shows that "found 62 per cent did not believe Mr Ahern when he said he would not form a Government that was dependent on Sinn Fein support, with just 38 per cent believing him".  Joseph O'Malley, under the headline "Why big dealer Ahern still shuffles the deck", refers to Ahern's varying and conflicting stances on the issue, in particular contrasting his interview with Gerald Barry on This Week with his apparent u-turn a couple of days later. 

Local Government and the legitimacy of the planning process

The structure of local government must change fundamentally to achieve a greater participation rate in voting and the democratic process, Meath Labour Cllr Dominic Hannigan stated.  Unless people felt involved with the Government of the country, they “became alienated and withdrawn” from the political process.  As well as citing the decline in voter turnout Hannigan referred the recent decision by An Bord Pleanala to grant permission for 50 additional houses at Inse Bay, Laytown, despite the objections of over 200 residents. 

Decisions such as these are a clear example of where changes are needed to local planning laws. Why should any citizen participate in local government if the feelings of so many can be summarily dismissed by government agencies, who are removed from the local environment? If we really want to get a higher level of citizens involved then the way to do so is to consult more and to act on the feedback. Consultation is only worthwhile if the feedback is acted on, otherwise it is a waste of everyone’s time. Local government structure must reflect this and must take on board the wishes of the local community.

Hannigan has a fair point about the way remote agencies of central government impose their will on local communities.  Local citizens are bound to feel disaffected if their opinion seems to count for nothing.  But sometimes the intervention of bodies like An Bord Pleanála might actually do something that corrects certain deficiencies in the local government process.  Brendan Buck, whose An Irish Town Planner's Blog is a lively and informative source on planning-related matters, refers to The Bord's recent letter to Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council raising concerns with the effect of recent planning decisions relating to high density residential development at Sandyford Industrial Estate.  The upshot of this is that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council voted to accept the county manager's (Owen Keegan) proposal to develop an urban framework plan.

The modalities of the planning system and the fact that decisions are taken by professional planners rather than elected councillors arise from the need to keep the process free of corruption and local political expediency.  It's not always easy to marry this essentially technocratic approach with the need for local democracy and accountability and the legitimacy that derives from this.  Consultation is built into the process of adopting County Development Plans and Local Area Plans.  Councils could do more to further this process using the tools of e-democracy.  Hannigan is right to raise the concerns about the way local government functions but much could be done within the present structures if there was a willingness to seriously to look at developments in extending democracy and participation that are happening in locales elsewhere, notably in the US state of Minnesota. 

Why are the online versions of Irish newspapers so crap?

If you have a sub you'll have noticed that Ireland.com and The Irish Times got a face lift a couple of months ago.  The site looks better and is a little easier to navigate but little else has changed.  At the very least they might have allowed some scope for readers' comments in the op-ed pieces.  Instead we can find an email link for their regular columnists.  And that's about it.  The Unison site for the Independent newspapers is as chaotic as ever.  You never know where you'll find particular articles and often the journalist's by-line is missing.  The fact that you can't do a proper archive search across dates is infuriating.  The Examiner is adequate enough for news but its comment columns are quite thin.  As for the Sundays, the Business Post is about the best and at least the links are all gathered together in the Sunday Times.  The Sunday Tribune is quite unfathomable.  Village has recently relaunched its website but most of that is behind a subscription firewall.  There is a blog but there's very little on it so far.

Labour's critique of the economy

Back in November I linked to A Fair Deal: Fighting Poverty and Exclusion that had just been released by the Labour Party.  There were elements of the document that I found very positive but I pointed out that there were missed opportunities to develop a more rigorous critique of the Celtic Tiger economic model.  Yesterday's speech by Pat Rabbitte has now begun, albeit cautiously and tentatively, that much needed critique.  Rabbitte paints a picture of a government that provides no real leadership and fails to keep the economy on a sustainable path of development.  "If we still had the Irish pound, the financial markets would be selling the national currency and telling the government in no uncertain terms what they think of its economic management".

We are now, says Rabbitte, living in a country that is producing more than it is consuming and government failure is manifest in the lack of a strategy to maintain competitiveness,  to develop the country's innovation capacity and to provide the right infrastructure in the right places at a cost which will attract good investment. 

The battle over the campaign agenda

Pat Rabbitte wants a four-way party leaders' debate on live TV before the election, pitting himself and Enda Kenny against Bertie Ahern and Michael McDowell.  Of course he does and RTE would be happy with that as well I'm sure.  The last thing political journalists want is a repeat of the one-horse character of the 2002 election.  Fianna Fáil will not go for it and so it will not happen.  An election campaign and its run-up unleashes a political battle between politicians and the media over control of the agenda.  Journalists play a gate-keeping role in terms of access for political messages to reach their target audiences and politicians try to break through those gates using all manner of persuasion, leverage and 'spin'.  If politicians over-reach themselves in this regard, journalists will react by treating and highlighting such crafted messages as mere 'spin'. 

This is typical of the political communication process throughout liberal democracies and one school of thought refers to this as the "Americanisation" of political-media relations.  The media themselves become actors in the political process and do not simply stand outside of the political system and report what is going on.  There is a transactional relationship between journalists and politicians.  But the balance of power between the media and politicians is heavily circumscribed by specifically national elements in the political and broadcasting culture. 

In Ireland the media have less autonomy than in the US, mainly because we have a more regulated party system and a strong public broadcasting ethos which the broadsheet newspapers also contribute to.  We have a remarkably non-partisan press which is unusual in a highly competitive media market.  All of this means that Irish journalists belong to the so-called "sacerdotal" style of election reporting that views such reporting as providing a serious and important contribution to the democratic process.  This contrasts with the more "pragmatic" style dominant in the US.

Will 2007 be an election marked by continuity or change in terms of political communications?  I suspect there will be a few innovations here and there, especially by the smaller parties but whether it will alter the overall pattern of presentation and coverage I'm rather doubtful.  Hopefully more people will turn to the blogosphere to find alternative means of getting information and commenting on the election but this will only happen in significant numbers when the conventional media report on blogging as part of their election coverage!

On the question of labels: Does it matter what you call yourself?

This thought struck me during a caffeine-fuelled conversation (I'm off the beer) with an old friend the other afternoon in O'Neill's of Pearse Street.  Talk had at some point touched on the murder of Aldo Moro, the Red Brigades and the Italian Communist Party.  Peter and I had always been great admirers of the PCI and would have defended the "historic compromise" with the ruling Christian Democrats in the late 1970s in an effort to fend off a Chilean type of intervention from far-right forces.  The PCI had put the defence of democracy as a paramount political aim - a point that was never understood by the Americans who still viewed the party with hostility through the prism of the Cold War.  The PCI eventually became the Democrats of the Left (Democratici di Sinistra, DS).  They are now the largest element composing the Olive Tree electoral coalition who, under Romano Prodi, narrowly won the general election last year.  When DS eventually merges with another centrist party, the so-called "Daisy" party, it will simply be known as the Democratic Party.

No doubt there are good, practical reasons for the clarity of a name like the Democratic Party but I couldn't help but feel a little sad that what was once the party of Antonio Gramsci with a good and honourable history had simply ditched all of its heritage.  The following day, purely randomly, I stumbled on the homepage of Crooked Timber contributor Chris Bertram.  Chris explains that "these days I find the description 'egalitarian liberal' fits me better than 'socialist', but there's lots of complicated autobiographical, cultural  and theoretical stuff there which I won't go into here".  Fair enough, I thought, I rarely describe myself as a socialist anymore either. 

I am much more likely to use the term 'social democrat' as a political label which I certainly wouldn't have done twenty years ago.  I was very insistent back then on the distinction between democratic socialism and social democracy, the latter being merely reformist while the former would have implied some kind of systemic transformation.  Today the term 'socialism' carries so much negative connotations of historic defeat that a regrouping of progressive forces under the banner of social democracy seems like a more feasible political project.  Social democracy is a broad enough term to encompass a commitment to equality, a deepening of democracy as well as a more regulated and humane approach to the economy.

Some would call this a sellout or, at the very least, a failure of nerve or political will.  Then there are lefties who are "just too stubborn to quit". I have no interest in being involved in marginal political movements.  I'm more ready to compromise and that's because the left is much weaker now than it has been for a long time.  Systemic transformation is not on the agenda but incremental reform is always worth pursuing, especially if can be extended and deepened over time.  This is one of the reasons I'm paying close attention to the book Equality: From Theory to Action by John Baker et al (sample chapter available here).