There’s a meme that lately has been infesting several message and image boards across the interwebs. It’s called trollface, and for those unfamiliar it’s an image used to signify a commenter who deliberately posts something erroneous and off-message to provoke a reaction.

There is a reason why I bring this up. I was reading about the resignation of Boy George yesterday, and I happened upon a picture in the IT of George and Enda in happier times.

via The Irish Times

I can’t be the only one who sees a resemblance. There seems to be a general perception that Lee was impatient. He was new to a career in politics. Did he really expect a frontbench position immediately? While there is a certain amount of validity to this argument, I can’t help but feel some sympathy for Lee. He may have been a beginner, but that’s not how Fine Gael sold him. He was an expert in finances who was going to further cement the party’s ability to fix the economy that Fianna Fáil broke. Lee is obviously a very intelligent man, and must have been very disheartening to realise he was just hired as a pretty face.

However, while this might have been a fair reason to leave Fine Gael, it doesn’t excuse his resignation from the Dáil. For better or worse, he was elected to the seat, and it’s downright rude of him to turn his back on those who voted for him just because he wasn’t getting his way. Seriously, what did he except?

In other news, Halifax is closing their Irish retail operations with the lost of 750 jobs, and retail sales are still dropping. I suspect Fianna Fáil are grateful to Lee for his timing.

Brody Sweeney election flyer
From the 2007 General Election in Dublin North East, Fine Gael candidate Brody Sweeney. It was seen as a coup to get the O’Briens Sandwich man on board.
Although polling well, it was his party colleague Terence Flanaghan that won a seat for Fine Gael.

Okay, so Fine Gael were pushed to the precipice, Enda Kenny (who I saw walking by very recently just before all this broke and I must admit struck me as a man carrying the weight of the troubles of the world, or the peculiar math of the Fine Gael front bench. And to paraphrase the old Frank Cluskey gag – which option would be the tougher one?) a millimeter or two ahead of the rest of the pack. One look down though and I suspect they realised that if he went chances are they’d all be following close behind, because while the public may (and God knows I’ve never heard a telephone poll with 16,000 responses in ten minutes paraded as the truth dragged down from the mountain like it was on Joe Duffy and later Pat Kenny on Frontline – like, Pat, y’think that’s rigorous enough?) be ululating today and tomorrow over the departure of our greatest living economist/economic expert/economic correspondent on television news one is probably correct to assume that adding to the sense of panic that briefly engendered may not be the wisest course of action for our supposedly most sober and polite of political parties. And maybe, at root, they recognised one salient fact. It wasn’t just Kenny, or indeed Bruton, but them all who were given the lash.

So, Kenny lives to fight another day. And perhaps despite the current gloom some of that weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Particularly if the Lee love-in with the public turns sour. Now it may be pure coincidence, but the letters page of the IT was filled with rather more critical contributions. Which makes it strangely entertaining reading the articles on George Lee in the same edition of the paper and seeing how they pick gingerly between the various facts of the matter.

And let me also say that in the past twenty four hours having spoken to various people and pols from FF, FG, Labour and points of the political compass beyond those the amount of sympathy for “our greatest living…” is minimal to none.

And, there’s little doubt that the facts are problematic and will, perhaps grow increasingly so for the reputation of “our greatest living etc…” Let’s recount those facts.

Firstly Lee was a wet weekend in the job. Secondly that he had unreasonable expectations. Thirdly that yes, he had an excellent vote share, but that, given the constituency he ran in that was close to a no-brainer – and sure, he got more than the combined votes of the other candidates, but… so what? Is Dublin South somehow the lynchpin of our democracy, the votes there in some way energised to a greater extent than any other? Fourth that his economic expertise has been wildly overhyped.

But of course they can’t quite come out and say any of that because to do so would kill the story dead – man finds he doesn’t like politics and in no-lose situation returns to old employer – and remove a handy stick with which to chastise Fine Gael in the first instance and Irish political life in the second. In these depoliticised and populist times that would never do.

Still, credit where credit is due, the Irish Times editorial actually isn’t too much of an ‘on the one hand, on the other’ balancing act. Indeed Lee reading that today might well have cause to wonder at the wisdom of his actions… he is indeed described as ‘a major political acquisition’...but… ‘Mr Lee had unreasonable expectations’…’Mr Lee was naive if he believed that he could be offered the portfolio of Richard Bruton’ [and one suspects that RB has a symbolic cachet around the IT - wbs]…’The resignation of Mr Lee, a political prima donna’…’Mr Lee can be comforted in the knowledge that he made a financially risk-free decision’…’He can hardly write independently about economic matters for a while’... indeed, is this last the Irish Times calling for a period of exile? “But, Charlie Bird is returning from Washington and the time may be opportune for Mr Lee to serve abroad”.

There are balancing issues, most importantly one of which Fintan O’Toole amongst others picked up. For many many people Lee’s perfectly honed reputation as an honest and impartial purveyor of the economic truth above and beyond the shabby deceits of politics (all politics let’s be clear, both left and right) gave him a profile out of all proportion probably to any one else that they would know and hear of, or more particularly, see. His Cassandra like pronouncements were taken as the final word on the matter. And in this televisual age, for many they were.

That, in a sense, is Lee’s trump card. But how effective it is remains to be seen.

And that effectivity is in many ways impacted by the, at times, quite extraordinary nature of Lee as a personality. Even Elaine Byrne in the Irish Times in a broadly sympathetic piece which tries to stitch together a fairly unconvincing narrative about ‘conservative political way of doing things’ (can she offer us examples of rags to riches rises in other polities? Perhaps but she doesn’t bother to) notes that:

The failure of Kenny and his advisers to adequately accommodate Lee’s sense of self-importance will no doubt saturate newspaper pages obsessed with personality politics in the coming days.

A ’sense of self-importance’. Consider that. What came over to me on Frontline last night loud and strong was a sense that he believed that this was his opportunity to shine and that in two or three years that would be gone as the situation stabilised. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Except one has the feeling that in his head that particular configuration was reversed. Such a self-belief borders on the risible.

And worse, and this I’d be cautious about presenting, but it seems to me that it does have some utility, a sense of entitlement that is really very very middle class indeed. It wasn’t that he would be a shrinking violet, or hide beneath a facade of modesty. No indeed. He knew that he was the man, again as expressed on Frontline, who was absolutely vital to correcting the course of the ship of state (to which Ivan Yeats made a delayed, but still perfectly cogent, point that that being the case why not join Fianna Fáil?). There was nothing more to it. Fine Gael, already with a significant economic heavyweight in situ (one who had actually served in Cabinet as Minister of Enterprise and Employment) had to stand back and accept this.

This near messianic belief – as Brian Lenihan almost put it (and let’s be clear, it’s a grim day in Irish politics when Lenihan and Yeats are both right – but as we shall see it gets grimmer), is so odd in and of itself to those of us who have toiled with policy programmes and party platforms as to be near incomprehensible. And it truly is a naive view of politics that believes this is something that is amenable to rapid change. This is a society, economy and polity we are talking about. The equivalent of a supertanker, taking kilometers to stop, let alone change direction. And that’s assuming that there were any particularly striking alternatives to be posited by Lee.

Because truth is, whether as some mutterings I hear suggest that Bruton may have been the real problem, Lee was remarkably economic in actually presenting any of these much vaunted ideas. Or as Michael Taft points out, either FG had adopted his original ones, or the government had implemented them.

So we must take his word for it that he was the right man in the right place with the right ideas shoddily wronged by a party that just didn’t ‘get’ him… and that he was the man, just because… Now, I don’t often have a kind word for FG as an entity, albeit I have considerable respect for some within it, but in this instance more sinned against than sinning seems the most reasonable analysis (and let me add that Leo Varadkar was the only one to notice that Lee’s staff will now be… er… unemployed).

And a further irony is that Lee, for all the protestations of thwarted excellence, and cries of outrage from his fans, reminds one not so much of a white hot technocrat as a much more traditional stereotype from our political heritage. From that cue the outrage of the polite and the indifferent and the apolitical and the populist. Always seeking non-revolutionary revolutions, shortcuts and rapid solutions. And if nine months was too long for him, well, it’s too long for them, for those who genuinely thought ‘he was going to change our country’ as one constituent put it.

It’s not what he did really, so much as what he is meant to symbolise, for the truth is that in the nine months he was there he did very little indeed. And while that may in part be the fault of Enda Kenny and Fine Gael, there’s little doubt that he must take a major share of the blame as one of but 166 individuals in this state with the most privileged of platforms.

For a similar view on this with the finest possible title… and this isn’t bad either… particularly on the dynamic which led to FG misunderstanding who and what Lee represented.

Yesterdays debacle has highlighted a number of things to me about Irish Politics. Apart from don’t believe everything a smiling school teacher from Mayo tells ya, it has shown me that Irish politics needs to be more policy based and legislation orientated. Now this may sound fairly obvious to those on the inside; but unfortunately Irish politics is still dominated by a client list attitude i.e. do what ever you can to get the house for that family, repair the lane for that farmer and  get the grant for the couple. While all perfectly valid requests, they are not the requests a member of Ireland’s National Parliament should be dealing with. I choose a TD based on his party allegiance and that parties policy positions. I elect a TD on the basis of who he or she will support in the election for Taoiseach. Some people do the same as me – others do not!

Unfortunately, Irish people are very parochial about their TD’s. They by and large (40% in the RTÉ Exit Poll from GE 2007) vote the guy or girl who they feel will look after the interests of their local community the best. Again, not a bad reason for selecting your local County Councillor but surely we need loftier ambitions when it comes to selecting people to legislate for the Nation.

Do we need radical changes to way the Dáil is elected to change this? Probably not, while there is a lot of merit to say a partial list system to elect some of our TD’s and reforming how the Seanad is elected, there is an easier way to change the reasons why people vote for their TD’s.  Give real power and influence to the City and County Councillors. Make it so that people don’t feel the need to go to their TD to get a pot hole fixed or help with a housing application.  This will ultimately free up time for TD’s and Senators to do what they are supposed to do – initiate, scrutinise and enact legislation for the Nation.

From the 1989 European Elections in Connaught-Ulster a Paddy Harte election flyer with the Fine Gael team of Paddy Harte, Angela Lupton and Joe McCartin on the back. Despite the ballot paperish look on the back there isn’t a ‘1′ beside Hartes name.
Donegal based Paddy Harte and Galway based Angela Lupton both failed to get in. The Leitrim based Joe McCartin retained his seat which he held from 1979 to 2004.

A disillusioned George Lee yesterday announced his intention to quit Irish politics.

Former RTE economics editor Mr Lee sensationally quit his job last year to run in the South Dublin by-election and won the seat with 52% of the votes. However since then he claims to have been bitterly disappointed at having had absolutely no input into government policy.

A chastened Mr Lee explained what happened to a packed press conference of his peers yesterday afternoon. “It’s not like you think in there. For a start, there are all these different political parties and the one I happened to join were in opposition. No one told me but over the nine months I’ve realised that this means you don’t run the country. I had been sold a pup. I mean, I had a clear mandate to change the country and I really wanted to because I might have grandchildren some day and, as every one knows, the first question on their lips will be “what did you do during the great banking crisis?” But instead I’m told that there’s this guy Lenihan in charge of economics and he doesn’t give a damn what I think.’

Subsequent to realising that there was a parliamentary system with government and opposition Mr Lee appears to have been further disconcerted to learn of a hierarchy within the political parties themselves. ‘Everyone said that that the party I was in, Fianna Gael, were going to be the next government so I said could I be in charge of economics for them but it turns out they already have an economics team in place! I started making speeches saying that everything Lenihan did was rubbish — even when it was quite good — but that still didn’t please them. They wouldn’t talk to me and instead sent me off around the country doing a roadshow like Larry bloody Gogan.’

Someone suggested to me that I should prepare some policy documents and put them forward for consideration. But then  I realised I had nothing original to say, like Lenihan’s policies were actually pretty good and ours were rubbish. I mean, it’s one thing to criticise policies but coming up with them is sheer drudge and not the best use of my exceptional talents.’ Becoming visibly upset, Mr Lee continued, ‘Then there’s this horrible place called the Dail where you’re supposed to make speeches but hardly anyone turns up and, shockingly, the news often pays no attention to what you say. There were whole days where I talked to no one. I didn’t make one friend in my time in there.

Despite this, Mr Lee was offered a place on the Fine Gael front bench late last week but he refused : ‘I thought I could change Irish politics in nine months and when I discovered that I couldn’t because no one listened to me, I had no option but to resign. Like, where’s the instant gratification in years of hard work with no guarantee of success at the end of it?’

From the 2007 GEneral Election, Cork East Green Party candidate Sarah Iremonger.
Sarah Iremonger is a founder member of the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, She (along with many other Greens) is also ‘active on … the Anti Incinerator campaign…’
Sarah Iremonger polled over 1500 votes but failed to win a seat.

Given the interest in George Lee, thought I’d do a post on celebrity candidates. There have been quite a number of candidates with public profiles before they ran for election. Some with success, others with a total lack of success.

There are those who were Celebrities or well known to the public prior to going for election.
Amongst those from Television and stage came Orla Guerin , Frank McNamara, Pat Cox, Mairead McGuinness, Jeananne Crowley, Donagh MacCarthy-Morrough,  Dana and of course George Lee.   Of these Cox, McGuinness, Dana and Lee had success at the polls

From other walks of life came Christine Buckley, Barney Rock, John O’Leary , Tom Parlon , Shane Ross, Fergal Quinn, Colm McEochaidh, Geraldine Kennedy, Brody Sweeney,
Tony Dempsey, Graham Geraghty, Adi Roche, Nuala Fennell, Colm O’Gorman, Mannix Flynn, Olive Braiden and Ivana Bacik. Of these Parlon, Kennedy, Dempsey, Flynn,  Fennell, Ross and Quinn all had success

There are those that become Celebrities partly from Politics
The likes of Jackie Healy Rae , Richard Boyd-Barrett and David Norris

Those that became more well known in the media after  political careers or election attempts
Such as Noel Whelan and Ivan Yates

The Judiciary is another area with a lot of ex politicians or election candidates,
Judge Henry Abbot, Michael White, Adrian Hardiman, George Bermingham, Pat McCartan

There are candidates too that gain national prominence for a small time because of their posters.
Recent examples would include John Bracken and Clifford T Reid.

Point is George Lee  was by no means the first and will by no means be the last ‘Celebrity Candidate’.

I’ve surely missed a good few too.

With the departure of George Lee, I believe we are witnessing the complete demise of the now exposed Enda Kenny and the out of touch Fine Gael with the realities of the current economic situation!

Enda Kenny, having scored a resounding national coup by getting the country’s top economic commentator to come on side, has now with the departure of Grorge Lee completely destroyed any hope of becoming Taoiseach

There is no use in telling the public that one has to under-go training in period when one enters the Dail

Remember the first people that entered the Dail did not have to undergo an apprenticeship.

This is just hor****

All this now does, is tell the general public that Fine Gael is just as mush a hostage to its accumulated

Ancient  practices that at sometime in the long distant past might have been useful.

This episode exposes again my contention that the practices in the Dail that all political parties conform to is way outdated and has no place in modern Ireland

Again I state that I believe that the system is corrupt and dysfunctional

This lame attempt  to now clam that all new TD’s included George Lee  must first have a type of apprenticeship before they can contribute is just farcical

 I would not vote for somebody that I thought was just going to be an apprentice

This shows the public that true nature of Fine Gael, it confirms that even in opposition they seem to have a lot of Prema – Donnas

 They are trying to make the public conform to their way of doing business

We won’t have it, and in the next polls you will see how pissed off we really are!

I call on George Lee now to form his own political party and I can promise him at least 30 of my friends to join him immediately

If Fine Gail wants to help form the next government they will have to shift Enda Kenny

His judgement is now on the Floor!

A Margaret Ritchie flyer from the SDLP Leaderhip contest where she outpolled Alasdair McDonnell by 222 votes to 187 to take over from Mark Durkan.
Its quite a powerful use of colour and the slogan ‘Let’s Make History’ is a powerful one too.
Many thanks to the donor

Garret FitzGerald is convinced that things have changed. And he may well be right. Although not necessarily in the way he thinks, at least not after yesterday’s news. But… presuming he had no advance knowledge of that, what has changed and where? Why, in RoI politics. Consider his piece at the weekend.

A clear shift away from Fianna Fáil emerges from a careful reading of opinion polls, despite recent small gains,
TWO WEEKS ago, Noel Whelan in his column sought to clarify some aspects of political polling in the Irish context. I entirely agree with his comments in that article, but would like to develop some aspects of this matter further.
Political polling has become widely accepted in Ireland. This has been helped by the fact that Irish polling companies [interesting to know if the Sunday Independent polls are signed up to this - wbs] apply guidelines laid down by the Marketing Society of Ireland and Esomar, the world organisation that seeks to enable better research into markets, consumers and societies. Moreover the samples they employ for political polling have been quite large – normally about 1,000. (I have the impression that in neighbouring Britain smaller samples of about 600 are often used, which would naturally affect the reliability of their results.)
Different sampling methods have been used by different polling companies. Some have used random sampling of the population and others have employed quota sampling – adjusted to ensure that the sample they use reflects accurately a number of key demographic features of our population. Some polls are undertaken by calling to each sampled home, and others by telephone.

Which can skew results. As noted last week RedC and MRBI have had widely divergent results for both Fianna Fáil and Labour. The former poll by phone, the later in face to face.

In the case of MRBI, for many years past the crude data from sampling has been adjusted to allow for a historical pattern of overstatement of support for Fianna Fáil as against Fine Gael and Labour. The reasons for that overstatement have not been clear, but may reflect the past salience of that party due to its near monopoly of government leadership over more than two decades. Experience over many recent elections has until recently validated these MRBI adjustments, which have consistently yielded poll results very close to actual election outcomes. But, because of the recent radical change in attitudes towards Fianna Fáil, this long-established adjustment is probably no longer appropriate.

That makes some sense. We currently seem to be seeing an understatement of support as the ‘past salience of that party due to its near monopoly of government leadership’… transitions into a huge rhetorical (and somewhat less actual) political unpopularity. Suddenly a tranche of those who said they were FF supporting are keeping schtum.

There has been no IMS poll during the past year, but during the past year the data from each of the other two polling companies – Ipsos/MRBI (who poll for The Irish Times) and Red C (who poll for The Sunday Business Post) – in respect of the three main parties have, with one marginal exception, fallen consistently within a range where the margin of error is 2 per cent or less. In other words for a party accorded 25 per cent support in a poll, there is a 95 per cent probability that its actual support will lie between 23 and 27 per cent. For parties with about 10 per cent support this “confidence limit” would be just one percentage point either way.
Now, in the past six months MRBI (now IPSOS/MRBI) has carried out three polls while Red C has undertaken five. The two poll systems yield somewhat different sets of figures for the three main parties – a point that I shall address in a moment. But I want first to draw attention to the very significant fact that, with a single possible exception, all of the figures in each of the two sets of poll results recorded by these two companies in the past six months have fallen within the confidence limit appropriate to their share of the vote.
Indeed, going back to the start of last year each of these two poll systems suggest that by the end of 2008 voters had decided which party they would vote for in a general election – and throughout the past 12 months there is only very limited and uncertain evidence of any change of mind on the part of the electorate.

I am genuinely dubious about this. The idea that 2008 is the year zero and all after is terra nova seems hugely unlikely. Indeed I think such a proposal actually goes against the political grain. The events of the last twenty-four or so months have been terrifying for many many people. What they want now is stability. That’s obviously problematic for those with alternative political projects, but it is very true.

Now stability could translate into ‘let the bastards get on with the job of fixing up the mess they (FF) made and then we’ll turf them out in 2012′ or it could be one where longer term pre-existing voting patterns come back into play. We cannot know at this point which it will be.

But, I’d be more than usually optimistic if I was certain of any more than that during 2008 there was a rupture for Fianna Fáil with their vote and that that has seen it drop precipitously.

Small shifts of a couple of percentage points in party support have no statistical significance – a fact that most of the media clearly fail to grasp, as they celebrate in dramatic headlines what have – at any rate until the most recent Red C poll – been merely minor fluctuations in party support, falling well within the confidence limits of the polling system.
However, it is possible to interpret recent data as showing Fianna Fáil to have gained marginally since late last year. The last Red C poll showed a four-point increase in Fianna Fáil’s share of the vote to 27 per cent, and the last three MRBI polls (two in September before the Lisbon referendum) showed an apparent increase in Fianna Fáil support from a quite exceptional non-adjusted figure of 21 per cent up to 24 per cent during September 2009 and to 26 per cent last month.
…
While both the MRBI poll, when stripped of its probably no longer appropriate adjustment factor, and the Red C poll yield almost identical data for Fianna Fáil (24 + or – 2 per cent) using different polling techniques, they differ quite sharply – and I have to say puzzlingly – in respect of the shares of the Opposition vote that they accord to each of the two main Opposition parties.
Taking all these factors into account I would judge that the general pattern of party support today may be something like this: Fianna Fáil 25 per cent; Fine Gael/Labour 52 per cent; Sinn Féin 9 per cent; Green Party 4 per cent; Independents 10 per cent.

It sounds hugely plausible. But… I still can’t quite work out how MRBI can have such a huge variation as regards the Labour vote when contrasted with RedC (note how coy FitzGerald is at unbundling the FG/Labour vote). And… call this atavistic if you will, but I’m also dubious that Fianna Fáil remains quite as low as he argues. Maybe. Maybe. We’ll see.

I suspect Fianna Fáil now sits on about 27 – 30%. Fine Gael is a fair bit higher (although the collateral damage from Lee will be interesting to see – whether his legacy is as the honest populist he currently is presented as or a man who couldn’t cut it which is beginning to seep into the discourse remains to be seen) and Labour on a not discreditable 17% plus. And while that is only a little higher than FitzGerald suggests it seems reasonable to argue that it provides a more solid base for FF consolidation over the next year and a half or so prior to an election. As argued last week, I don’t think that that consolidation will bring them back to power, unless… well… we’ll look at that later in the week.

Two Irish republican groups which fought a bitter feud in the 1970s have united to disarm their illegal arsenals.

The Official Republican Movement (ORM), a faction of the Official IRA, revealed today that it had put its weapons beyond use. Its statement came just under an hour after the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) announced it had decommissioned its weapons.

The INLA was responsible for more than 120 deaths during the Troubles, including the assassination of Margaret Thatcher’s friend and ally Airey Neave MP in 1979. It was born out of a split within the Officials over the latters’ decision to call a ceasefire in 1972.

In 1975 the INLA and the Official IRA were engaged in a violent feud that claimed several lives. The Officials later murdered the INLA’s founder, Seamus Costello, who was leader of the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

The INLA and the ORM have worked with the same Irish trade union contacts in their moves towards disarming. Peter Bunting, Northern Ireland secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, confirmed today that he had been one of the conduits between the INLA and General John de Chastelain’s decommissioning body. Bunting told the Guardian that he had seen a large quantity of guns, bullets and explosives.

…

Sources in the Official Republican Movement, which was formed in 1996, confirmed that it had also engaged with the decommissioning body to put its arms beyond use. It said it had worked with the same trade unionists to move its weapons into the hands of De Chastelain.

As well helping the two republican organisations to decommission, the trade union link has been used to build contacts across the sectarian divide. Former INLA, ORM and IRA activists hold talks with their loyalist counterparts in the trade union movement’s offices in central Belfast about forming cross-community projects and lowering sectarian tensions.

Again from the 2009 Dublin South By Election.A larger version George Lee election flyer. Contains a now Brilliant message from Enda Kenny.
A Longer mesage from George Lee and lovely picture where Olivia Mitchell and Alan Shatter ‘endorse’ Goeorge Lee.
This time with a longer message from George Lee and also a longer message from Enda Kenny.
George Lee having resisgned as RTEs economics correspondent was a huge capture for Fine Gael. He topped the poll and got in on the first count.

(Amongst other ‘celebrity’ candidates posted to date are Frank Mc Namara, Jeananne Crowley , Geraldine Kennedy and Orla Guerin)

George Lees election flyer.

From the 2009 Dublin South by-election Fine Gael poll topper George Lee. Lee at the time RTEs economics correspondent was a huge capture for Fine Gael.

I wonder would Enda be as enthused now? I always felt that Alan Shatter and Olivia Mitchell were grimmacing in the photo with George.

(Amongst other ‘celebrity’ candidates posted to date are Frank Mc Namara, Jeananne Crowley , Geraldine Kennedy and Orla Guerin)

Not the News Ireland can confirm that George Lee and Enda Kenny’s 9 month relationship has come to an end, with Lee citing relationship difficulties as the reason. George Lee, one of the nations’ preeminent ‘I told you so’ merchants, has today resigned from the Fine Gael party and Dáil Eireann. Mr. Lee’s decision is seen by many political analysts as a major blow to Fine Gael and the party’s leader Enda Kenny. Reports that American soft rock group Chicago’s biggest hit ‘If You Leave Me Now’ could be heard blaring from the stereo in Mr. Kenny’s Upper Mount Street office were rubbished by a Fine Gael spokesman. “Mr. Kenny is simply unaware of any cultural incident or happening that has occurred after 1961 so to insinuate such a thing is an utter and outright lie”.

Mr. Kenny briefly addressed the throng of scandal hungry media personnel outside the Fine Gael HQ. Wearing his, now customary, ‘my father never told me he loved me’ face, Kenny played down the negative repercussions of Lee’s resignation. “Although we regret George’s decision this in no way means I had any feelings for him, it is my intention to carry on as leader of Fine Gael who continue to improve in the polls and show a real alternative to the careless wanton governing of Fianna Fáil and the Green party. It’s not like the George thing was serious or anything”.

Elsewhere speculation mounts as to George Lee’s next move. Rumours are abound that he was livid to discover RTÉ’s political correspondent David McCullagh had taken his swivel chair and begun parking in his former space at the RTÉ Montrose site. With a return to RTÉ on the cards it is believed by many that Lee would welcome a return to his position of Chief Economic Correspondent. However, after a brief 9 months in politics it is unclear if he has any staying power whatsoever.

Not the News Ireland also learned rumours that Lee was to jump ship to Tv3 as co-host of The Cosmetic Surgery Show were unfounded.

The Official IRA have confirmed that, in keeping with the long held position within the Official Republican tradition of promoting and pursuing the development of peaceful, democratic and inclusive politics on the Island of Ireland; a process of engagement was unilaterally entered into with the Decommissioning Body and has reached a successful conclusion.

The purpose of this engagement was to ensure that all weapons which were under the control of the Official IRA or to which the Official IRA had access were accounted for and transferred to the control of the Decommissioning Body.

We have emphasized our commitment to removing any doubts that may exist that there are any Official IRA weapons in circulation.

To this end an extensive nation wide inventory has been completed to confirm and verify that all such equipment has been located, identified and transferred to the Decommissioning Body. Any other such equipment, which has not been submitted to the Decommissioning Process, has no association with the Official IRA.

“We call on all groups to respect and respond to the undeniable mandate imposed on us all from the people of Ireland both in the 26 counties and the 6 counties with their democratic demand for a complete end to violent conflict.

To those groups still intent on a violent agenda and who would declare themselves the protectors of the community against the oppressor, we say listen to the voice of that community. They spoke loud and clear in their demand for peace, and by ignoring that voice, you yourselves have become the oppressor.

It is time for you to leave the past and catch up.

We thank those Official Republicans who were the first to demand an end to sectarian and sectional violence and who were themselve’s attacked and murdered for their anti-sectarian stand.

We congratulate all those who have realised the futility of violence and who now pursue political objectives through peaceful strategies.

We encourage the continued involvement of Official Republicans in the vital work taking place between all former combatants, Republican and Loyalist, in recognizing this work as an essential part of the building of a lasting peace that has already brought immediate mutual benefits for the entire community and brings hope for a better future for our children.

Official Republicans in the tradition of Tone believe that the unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter is the essential component of an agreed future for all the people of this island.

Just a short note, I am told that this is indeed the ORM and that the media are unaware or aren’t bothered to explain the difference.

So George. Eight months eh? That difficult third trimester just proved too much, did it? “…virtually no influence or input into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies” was it? What did you think would happen? That you’d swan in on the shoulders of Dublin South, profit and loss accounts in one hand and the other hand firmly grasping the loins of the nation’s respect as you planned to economically squeeze every cent wasted by Fianna Fail and then throw these cents to us peasants.

I suppose you thought that your good friend Enda Kenny would grab Richard Bruton (Current Deputy Leader of Fine Gael, spokesperson on Finance and a TD since 1982) by his finely tailored lapels and toss him out, maybe doing a few circumferences of the Dail first like something out of a Carry On Hammer Throwing film. It could of been done during the budget speeches; as ol’ Dicky spirals towards the press box, screams of malice in his mouth yet to even form, you’d spring out like a grouch in a can and start to soak the Dail in one cent coins with your heavily modified Super-Soaker. Enda could press the release for the multitude of fivers to gently rain down from above. And it could all be done to the tune of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits.

And yes, rightly so! That could have been organized in the 6 months or so between your election and the Budget. Actually, if you were given the resources of Fine Gael and the attitude of a real go-getter politician you might of got it done in less: say about 5 months, 27 days or so. Hell, it would take that long to organize some sort of golden handshake for Dicky Bruton.
The money wouldn’t even have been a problem. I’m sure a quick whip round the office could have provided you with 500 to 1000 fivers you’d need. If not, stick it on expenses. Not so sure on the music, you might have to pay for broadcast rights if you want it to make the news.

Honestly though, eight months, and no giant fanfare? No screaming babies to kiss, no Aras to call your own, no topless Cowan to wave palm fronds at you as your decrees are listened to with open awe and tears of joy from the population, as we whisper to each other, “Yes, this is the Golden Child. This is the One we have been waiting for. This is our Saviour.”

But at least you tried. You did indeed “get off the fence and try to make matters better”. Eight months off the fence is a long time, it’s a damn comfy fence after all; an almost inviting fence it must be said. Better then the cold brown leather of the Front Bench. And there is that old adage, that oft quoted proverb: “If something takes longer then eight months to do, then it’s time to get back on the fence old friend.” I think saw that on the back of a packet of Cara matches. Or maybe it was a Penguin Bar.

Sixteen percent (ish) into your term is definitely a good time to try a change of tact. And assuming you where not lying about your “great deal of reflection” over the matter (which I’m assuming must of eaten into that sixteen percent), then at least it can’t be said that you ever made an important decision in haste. It can never be said that you quit when quitting was easy, or that you didn’t give it your best shot over a sustained period of time.

And at least we know now that, surprise surprise, it may take longer then eight months for shit to not remain the same.

But where did the lighter fluid come from?

After all the bad news stories, George Lee’s resignation from Fine Gael will have the Fianna Fáil handlers rightly rubbing their hands with glee.

George Lee’s dramatic resignation will hang around the necks of senior Fine Gael parliamentary party members as an indictment of incompetence and a lack of creativity and imagination.

FG will now back peddle fiercely and spin that Lee has been impatient and unreasonable in his expectations.  And he probably has been.

However,  to attract such an economic heavyweight, a person who was so widely respected as an incisive economic commentator and then  fail to accomodate this talent, is pure folly and displays a clear lack of leadership and imagination.

At least the voters of Dublin South may now recognise the talent of Alex White, who surely must have felt hard done by  following the announcement of George Lee’s candidacy for the bye election last year.

Of course, I believe there are only losers here.   Fine Gael will be perceived as a party that has started to drop the ball all too frequently in front of goal while under no real pressure.

George Lee will be perceived by many as an unrealistic and impatient man who failed to understand the real inner workings of politics.  He may also be branded as having let down the people of Dublin South and to a degree,  the national electorate.

Fine Gael’s lack of imagination and George Lee’s impatient exit is not just Dublin South’s loss,  it also adds to the frustration of all of us  and only  fuels the widespread cynicism among voters at the paucity of creativity, imagination and leadership inherent within the Irish body politic.

A bad day for Fine Gael.  A bad day for Enda Kenny, A bad day for George Lee.  A bad day for the body politic.  A bad day for the electorate.

Of course,  this major story comes hot on  foot of Fianna Fáil Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micháel Martin’s defence of the massive €4.4 million refurbishment of the Irish ambassador to Canada’s residence;

Mary Coughlan, Fianna Fáil Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment’s defence of the granting of an €18,000 per month  PR contract to former FF spin doctors for a quango, the National Consumer Agency, even though the agency is to  be subsumed into the Competition Authority;

Accusations of croneyism aimed at the Green Party for appointing party members to State boards;

and the staggering revelation that former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern TD hopes to get to heaven.

A bizarre day for the little people of Ireland?

According to Henry McDonald on the RTÉ News at One the Official Republican Movement disarmed as well as the INLA. Just ahead of the British government deadline tomorrow…

However I note that later on the RTÉ site it says its the the Official IRA. Curious. I’d heard the ORM had been in talks with the decommissioning body. Which one is it? Or is it both?

Anyone able to clarify?

Addendum… it would indeed appear to be the Official IRA.

Well now, that’s two surprises in one day.

Addendum: It is indeed the Official Republican Movement (ORM), not the ‘original OIRA’, so to speak. This is confirmed by the Guardian as noted in the next post.

Area man turns back on constitutional politics… reapplies to RTÉ…

Statement from George Lee TD.

I wish to announce that I have resigned from the Fine Gael Party and from my seat in Dáil Eireann today Monday 8th February 2010.

It has been a very difficult decision, but it is one that I have taken after a great deal of reflection on my position and on the role that I have been playing in Fine Gael since I
joined that Party in May last year.

The nine months since then have been a period of enormous economic upheaval. Throughout that period I have done my best to play a positive role in contributing to the national debate and to efforts to find a solution for many of the country’s economic problems.

The reality, however, is that despite my best efforts I have had virtually no influence or input into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies at this most critical time.

The role I have been playing within the party has been very limited and I have found this to be personally unfulfilling.

When I entered politics last May I made it clear that I was doing so because I wanted to try to play a new role contributing to economic policy formulation. After nine months of trying within the political system it is now my considered view that the role available to me within Fine Gael is not a role I am happy to play.

I would like thank most sincerely all those who campaigned for me, for all of their efforts and support. I would also like to thank my Secretarial and Parliamentary Assistants for all of the help and work that they have provided to me.

I particularly want to thank the electorate of Dublin South who voted for me in such large numbers last May. It has been a great privilege and an honour to serve on their behalf. However, I do not believe I would be serving the electorate honestly if I were to continue allowing my efforts and mandate to be used to promote and market economic policies into which I have had no input.

Well well well… In a way the best political stories are those that come right out of the blue. No warning signs on the horizon, no hint of an upset, just sheer ballistic momentum.

And so it was that one hears that George Lee, former RTÉ economic wunderkinder, has decided that the Dáil and Fine Gael are not his… venue (as John Cooper Clarke once memorably wrote in a lyric). And thereby spoiling the INLA’s big day. At least in part.

Whoever wrote yesterday’s BackRoom column in the Sunday Business Post is to be half congratulated. Kudos for getting the outline right – the piece pleaded with Kenny to promote Lee over all others. None at all for getting the timing so spectacularly wrong.

Lee is different. The media know and listen to him. The public like him. He might garner Fine Gael some of the attention and credibility that it badly needs.

He might even articulate with clarity what the party stands for in contrast to the government, an issue the party will have to address with increasing urgency as the next election approaches.

He may not say it openly yet, but Lee is surely frustrated in his new job. According to the Fine Gael website, he issued just three statements last month, two of them on the less than -riveting subject of car clampers in his constituency. He also rather bizarrely waded into the media with a claim that the huge EMPG publishing company headed by Barry O’Callaghan was in trouble and Irish investors had lost their shirts. As a statement, it smacked of ‘‘look at me’’ desperation and of an intellect that is not getting the stimulation it needs.

He sure did say it openly. Not a day later… But a part of me wonders when that article was written. One wonders was it part of a broader campaign but was published too late?

I’d heard before Christmas that he was very unhappy, but nothing that would make one think this would be the result. I also hear Lucinda Creighton was first out of the gates with the ‘why didn’t he go Independent?’ line. It may be self-serving coming from her, but in truth it is a fair question. This all smacks a little of ‘Après moi, le déluge’… which in a way is where he came in. There was always a little too much heat and insufficient light. That byelection result, which frankly I considered the antithesis of the sort of political activity symbolised by Maureen O’Sullivan’s victory, was always supported by one part media glamour, one part hope over experience. This isn’t to blame him, as such, but to suggest that it was the very worst sort of quick fix politics being played out, mainly one could posit by the public that elected him…

Mr Lee was elected on the first count with 27,768 votes in the byelection, comfortably ahead of nearest rival, Labour Senator Alex White, who had 10,294 votes.

And then he pops up on Joe Duffy’s radio show at lunchtime, and in the course of a most remarkable discussion (he clearly has no end of gripes with Kenny – for a man who said he couldn’t take a political position because of this job in RTÉ… phew, but even putting the policy issues aside, he doesn’t seem to have established a presence in the Oireachtas according to himself) makes perhaps the states most public job application… or rather reapplication… I’ve ever heard. We’ll see how that works out.

This is bad bad news for Enda Kenny. And good good news for Brian Cowen, and potentially one E. Gilmore, but only potentially – Alex White, maybe… Fine Gael will, one way or another, be in disarray. But while the sharks are out for Kenny, and it sure seems like that reading the SBP yesterday, never underestimate the capacity of the party to circle the wagons.

It seems highly unlikely that the voters will award Fine Gael a second bite of the cherry (although good news too for the two FG incumbents and in a curious way for one E. Ryan. They used to like him around those parts once before. Maybe they can be persuaded to like him again).

Expect another couple of percentage points added to Fianna Fáil’s poll rating soon enough.

Just as they loved him previously, from now he will be hated by a fair few in Fine Gael. At least unless something changes. But given that he’s resigning from the Dáil there’s no way back for him. How very very odd.

And difficult not to contrast – and no, not everything comes back to Tomás Mac Giolla, but some things do – it with a lifetime of political effort chipping away for little or no reward against Capital.

Oh yeah, and one parting shot… government majority back up to six…

Firstly Thanks to the donor.  (This is the first of two Irish Socialist Party Leaflets I’ll be posting )
I dont know much about The Independent Socialist Party other than that they were shortlived (1976 to 1978) and came from a split with the IRSP. I assume this leaflet is from 1976.
Wikipedia states…
The Independent Socialist Party was a far left political party in Ireland. It was founded in 1976 as a split from the Irish Republican Socialist Party named the Irish Committee for a Socialist Programme, calling for more prominent socialist politics and less emphasis on paramilitary activity. The following year, it renamed itself the “Independent Socialist Party” and was joined by former UK Member of Parliament Bernadette McAliskey.
The party entered discussions with the Socialist Workers’ Movement (SWM), with the aim of forming a joint organisation, but the SWM chose instead to join the Socialist Labour Party in 1978. As a result, the Independent Socialist Party decided to disband.

You will also find some more information here.

An election flyer from The Labour Party in the 1992 General Election Campaign. With Dick Spring so popular the slogan is smaller and the picture of Dick dominates the page.
Looking back quite a few of the aims were done between 1992 and 1997.

From 1997. The Democratic Lefts Eamon Gilmore sends out a detailed leaflet about the 1997 Budget.
It’s interesting to look the tax allowances, tax rates, mortgage interest relief of the time. Also covered are the PRSI/Levies , various Social Welfare rates, Education and Health schemes.