Daniel Sullivan - he’s a little political

Of gender, jobs and quotas

// July 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // elections

Over on political reform one of the most commented pieces in recent times concerns the description of the new Fine Gael front bench as ‘Male, stale and pale’. This description is in itself ironic given the complete absence of any women in the self described progressive parties like the current SF line up or even the Green party in the last Dail. Labour do better it’s true as a portion of their Dáil representation but that has as much to do with their small size as anything one or two more TDs less than they have now and their portion drops in double digit percentages.

In the comments and cited in evidence of the experience of female candidates is a survey from the National Women’s Council of Ireland, which to be honest reads like a whine  list or litany of awful things from the campaign trail that anyone who has stood in an election could offer up, whether male or female. I had a canvasser of mine who was hunted from a doorstep in a urban Dublin area by someone brandishing what they thought was a shotgun!

I would contend that an alternative view to the notion of quotas might be that we should have an electoral system that did not serve to penalise political parties for taking chances on candidates, whether male or female, who the parties fear the electorate might potentially decide to be wrong for them. This would allow the parties to be run as many candidates as were interested in offering themselves for consideration and it would be up to the public to decide who they wanted.

The fact is that PR-STV can work as a form of instant primary but parties do not do so as the issues of the potential of low transfers between party candidates might ultimately cost them seats. If total national seat allocation was based on the portion of the national vote received with the constituency election being a means to choose which specific individuals got the seat we might see more people take a chance along with parties being more willing to take that chance with them. The national seat distribution could be topped with those party or even non-party candidates who had the highest vote without being elected at the constituency level.

The other issues being raised about the nature of politics that is supposedly off putting to women, clubbishness and so on strikes me as missing the point. Convincing people to vote for you and support a course of action you advocate requires things like building alliances,  being somewhat thick skinned about personal comments etc. All of this effort against what is human behaviour is a bit like suggesting that sport X should change its rules so that more people who are currently unsuited to it could play it. But it would cease to be the sport it was. If you think soccer players should be able to catch the ball go play rugby or football, if you think people shouldn’t be able to make such rough tackles in football then play soccer. If you think that people shouldn’t club together to achieve their collective aims then electoral politics isn’t for you.

I hate to be citing Big Brother as empirical evidence of much of anything but the fact that the female contestants picked one another off while the males tended to club together until such time as they absolutely had to fight amongst themselves says something even if it’s hard to be 100% sure what it is.

Those negative comments from the NWCI Survey could be as easy found by asking male candidates of their experiences too, as I was a candidate at one time below are a few responses to the comments I’d add. The ‘quoted’ remarks are from the NCWI post on the survey

‘Negative comments from women [like] ‘politics is no place for a woman’ and ‘isn’t your husband great to be allowing you to do this’, to ‘don’t forget to make time for your children and don’t neglect you family’ really annoyed me. At the first council meeting, I was referred to as the ‘new girl’.

DK - I was in my 30s and even then most members of the party thought of me as a lad barely out of short trousers. Older people in Ireland are incredibly patronising of younger people, it’s not about gender.

‘And one elderly man on the doorstep said he would vote for me because ‘you would be handy for cooking them dinner in the council’ - he didn’t intend to be rude, but that was his truth”

DK - If people are put off by every negative comment and experience on a door step then they’ve no place contesting an election. Ask anyone who has contested an election and they will regale you with horror stories of craziness and abuse they’ve experienced. It will be a minority of people that behaviour like this but out of 100,000 people even 0.1% is a 100 people. The fact that I’d worked in IT lead some voters to think I’d be great for fixing the PCs in the council.

‘As I was on the ticket with a male, I was mostly ignored at the doors, unless I happened to be on my own - even when male party members were canvassing with me, the public tended to speak to them, not me.’

DK - It is your job as the candidate to make an impression on the voters, it is not the voter’s job to single you out. Be pushy, assert yourself. Why would someone choose to vote for someone to speak up for them when they don’t even spoke up for themselves? Remember you’ve come to their home, you have to convince them to chose you above all others.

‘Some women commented that as a young woman, I should be happy to be married and have children, not get into politics’

DK - I recall research from Liam Weeks at UCC on the 2004 local elections that showed that the worst for voting for young women were older women. But it is ironic that, if in part the under representation of women in politics is due to the behaviour of women voters that, the solution is to reward this behaviour by having a quota for those same women! Believe me a quota system won’t be seeing loads of 20 something women getting elected.

‘I stay in it (politics) because I want to continue making a difference in my area and to influence policy within a larger party, but it is frustrating!’

DK - Politics is incredible frustrating, if you can’t cope with frustration then knocking on thousands of doors isn’t for you. This like people complaining that they’d be Olympic distance champions only that they found the hours and hours of training to be really boring. If you can’t do the work involved in the training then don’t expect to get the medals. And political change takes place over decades, not a few months or years.

‘Women found it encouraging seeing a young female candidate seeking re-election’

‘Intimidation and bully tactics are still a very prevalent part of party politics. While existing female councillors are tolerated, obstacles and barriers are put in place to prevent further new female candidates from entering politics’

DK - Bullying or overbearing behaviour is common in lots of jobs, but  let’s face you have to have some sort of ego to stand in front of the public and ask that they vote for you not someone else. If you can’t cope with encountering overbearing egos then representative politics isn’t for you.

‘[There is a] Paternalistic attitude within the political party. Assumptions made that I am in more need of advice because I am a woman. Mostly among older men. Men in their 20s and 30s treat women equally on the whole’

DK - anyone who is on the younger side in any organisation will have any number of older people trying to bend their ear to provide them with the benefit of their advice and experience. Even if much of it is useless and repetitive. You will get the same from the voters. Learn listen and if it’s of any use then great but mostly you’re humouring people.

What the contest in Fine Gael is about

// June 17th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // fine gael

The contest in FG is not urban or rural as Elaine Byrne suggested but between the politics of “what” and “how” as compared with the politics of “who, and where and when”. There is a not inconsiderable number in Irish politics across the party divide for whom the intoning of the party name is the answer to all questions. This is great stuff at the time of an Ard Fheis when rallying the troops but holds less water when faced with more practical problems as we are now.

Enda has rebuilt an organisation that was eager to listen, desperate for salvation, while the general public were not as eager to listen to him. Those abilities and talents which allowed him to achieve this task of re-equipping Fine Gael and to be the best suited person to undertake this task are not the same as the abilities required to get across and convert people who were not so inclined towards the party or who have never thought of voting for it.

And at the time he started, Enda Kenny and the party recognised this and the counter argument to weakness in his approach was that in Irish politics we do not elect an all powerful president, a singular saviour, but we elect a parliament from which our executive will be drawn and this government will be chosen by the individual who commands a majority in that chamber. The value of the Fine Gael approach over the last 8 years was that it emphasised the team: that Fine Gael had solid competent people in the right place. The party was not selling a mere individual but an entire roster. Enda was to be player manager, picking the team beforehand and urging them on new heights on the pitch. He did not need to be the best player in the most important position.

Thus if the public might not be convinced that Enda Kenny knew all when it came to matters economic he had Richard Bruton by his side to reassure them on that. This approach was a harder sell in 2007 than it is now when the panel the leader had to draw from was more threadbare than any Fine Gael leader had been faced with up to that point. Yet the party almost did it if some of the dice had fallen right. Had highly anticipated gains by the other partners in the new Rainbow come through if Dominic Hannigan prevailed, or Dan Boyle held his seat or the Greens made their much vaunted breakthrough in Galway West how differ it might all have been. That time is passed, that particular race is run.

Fact is that Enda was also selected by the party to out-Bertie Bertie and the time for Bertie has passed. Bertie was the ultimate leader of the easy times, faced with a choice between two hard options he would and could pick both. Glad handling and the large scale superficial campaign of recent elections has been replaced by the more nuanced, even tedious policy discussion required to convey a party’s reading of the intricacy of NAMA, achieving national economic recovery in varied forms, dealing with the impressions of the bond markets as we borrow extensively and more before breakfast.

It is this change in political reality that more than anything else necessitates a change in approach and hence in leader. When Enda Kenny suggested at the recent national conference that despite his hailing of the work of Richard Bruton the day before that having him as Minister for Finance was not a deal breaker in any arrangement with Labour it signalled to many in the party and beyond that the FG approach to the restoration of the economy could be easily sidelined to that of Labour. Labour would hold the key ministry of finance from which all resources flow. If that were the case then the public too felt why vote for the middle man if he was not the one who would set the economic course of the country.

The little defence that this is the wrong time admits that this is the right thing to do but just not now. Now that the knife is unsheathed this defence makes no sense at all.  The big defence advanced to date that we should look at what Enda has done as a sign of what he can and will do does not hold water over distance. Enda rebuilt an organisation but surely it does not rebuilding in the same way all over again? Enda did the hard yards but the coach who gets the players through the winter of running up sand dunes to build up their endurance is not the same one to work on their skills in spring. This is not about the past any more, the public have blamed FF for the mistakes we must now provide solutions.

More than anything I would characterise those who are most supportive of Enda to be moreover those for whom the fact of Fine Gael not being Fianna Fail is a bigger selling point to their core voters that the hard facts and policies of what Fine Gael itself stands for and is currently selling. Those ranged in opposition to Enda now are, in my view, those who are more interested convincing the public of what exactly the goals of Fine Gael are and how precisely it will achieve its aims rather that pointing out that Fine Gael are not Fianna Fail. This is where the divide is between those for whom it is more important what we will choose to do and how we do it than the mere fact that it is a Fine Gael minister who pulls the lever. The decision is more important that the person who makes it. Not that the person is irrelevant but less important. The time to merely aim to be not-FF is long past, the time to be Fine Gael has come.

What chances for a smooth change at the top of FG?

// June 14th, 2010 // No Comments » // fine gael

I suspect that it is obvious at this point that the possibility of a change at the top of FG has increased in the last 48 hours and the likelihood of this change over being a smooth and relatively bloodless one has, despite the appearances in the media, increased too. I believe that Enda Kenny knows that the race as currently constituted is run and a change in approach is needed and that he simply can’t overcome the incorrect perception of him that has fixed itself in the mind of the electorate. I say this as a fan of the man, he would be a superb Taoiseach but too large a portion of the electorate can’t see that. So the question is what do we do about it?

In part this mis-perception is to due to the media back lash after he took over the party as many people in the media were somewhat affronted that this guy from the west about whom they knew little had become leader of the main opposition party. Moreover, some of them were appalled that FG hadn’t disappeared to give them the simplistic left right politics they so desperately ached for. Enda Kenny kept the party from relegation into irrelevancy and obscurity but the work to do so meant that most of his time was spent with the organisation the length and breadth of the country and not in Dublin wining and dining with the media insiders. This crucial 18 months when he saved the party has probably damned him in the eyes of the media.

He was exactly what was needed to save the party, but we should remember that Moses never got to the promised Land. For those who say that we must support Enda in all circumstances come what may, I would ask two simply questions.

a) Do they accept that there is a problem with the public’s perception of his abilities? Not with his actual abilities but with the public’s perception of them. If they don’t then they must be blind or delusional.

And b) for those in full command of their faculties who accept there is a problem with that perception then the next question is what do we do about it? If there is something we can do about the then I wish to Christ we could hear it from them cos keeping it as a secret weapon to be deployed just when we need it most has gone on too long. Alternately, if there is nothing more we can do about that perception then either we accept that the party’s support will stagnant into the future at a time when the electorate is in complete flux or they see that a change is necessary. Those are the three options, demonstrate immediately a convincing plan to right the public’s perception of Enda Kenny (and explain why this has not happened before now), accept stagnation of the party’s support or remove the perception problem by removing the man the incorrect perception is of. I’m open to people telling me of other options, but right now those are the only ones I see.

By moving to lance the boil that is the public’s perception of him Enda Kenny can still take the point position in the debate against Brian Cowen, and he can challenge him to match his actions. Enda can profess that the situation has been changed so much by the banking reports that the people need to believe and be convinced that the next Taoiseach will be in command of the economic issues and not be open to being lead or being hostage as it is now so plain Brian Cowen has been, and that FG needs to be strong and seen to be strong in this area in order to ensure that the siren call from Labour to the electorate that there is some easy and painless way out of our economic situation is resisted.

Labour have done well convincing people that we can avoid public sector spending cuts, that we can somehow find significant extra taxation without it impacting on anyone or slowing down the recovering of the economy. There are areas where tax allowances on pensions say can be reduced but you can only do that the once.

We need to find 3 billion this year and then an extra 3 billion again the next and more again the year after that, not the same savings being done again but additional reductions in spending or increases in taxation. If we can get more people in work, then tax revenues will raise and public spending in the form of social welfare reductions.  But where will the money come from to fund this work? If the state were to provide it, we would be borrowing even more which we simply can’t do. That is to relive the 80s all over again.

The end of Enda

// June 11th, 2010 // No Comments » // enda kenny

He has been an excellent leader of the party and has the qualities to make a great Taoiseach but the electorate have fixed in their minds a view of him that is inaccurate, not based on his performance and even at times simply unfair. Yet it would seem that a large portion of them are not for shifting in this view.

It would appear that the public has decided that Enda is the soccer guy who clears out the dead wood, sets up the youth academy, brings through new young players and buys well even wins a few cups but having done all that just can’t seem to connect with them and the squad he has assembled in order to win the league. It’s frustrating and undeserved for Enda Kenny but I think that if the government wins the confidence motion next Tuesday that we as a party should immediately make a smooth transition to a new leader in the form of Richard Bruton and look over the course of the summer to iron out a deal with the Greens that transitions them out of government ASAP. Offer them 3 Taoiseach’s nominee seats in the next Seanad for 3 of their TDs that lose their seats to let them recover as a party in opposition (we’re going to win the Seanad elections anyway with a minimal amount of cllr discipline) and we could look at implementing some of the outstanding Green policies from the PfG that aren’t that awful. A properly constituted directly elected Mayor for Dublin isn’t a bad idea, nor is reform of the planning system.

What the poll shows is our problem that FG are obviously not getting the party’s message across well enough. I get quite annoyed at some of our spokespeople for the their inability to get across a cohesive and consistent narrative of what a vote for FG would mean and what the change that would result from a FG win would be like.

Enda Kenny’s leadership isn’t separate from that but nor it is the whole story.

The rise in Labour’s support is quite impressive for what it is but also very interesting for what it isn’t. It’s not an endorsement of Labour’s policies because they don’t have any. They have a series of well expressed if ill defined goals but not detailed policies to achieve them.

I think the truly massive implication from this poll and other recent ones is that the electorate are hugely volatile. FF have lost the faith of the public and neither FG nor Labour or SF have 100% convinced them to date otherwise Labour would have been over 30% much earlier. There are a lot of voters who are open to listening to a new message and it would seem they are taste testing at the moment. And we should take our lucky stars that we don’t have a rabid party of the right looking for scapegoats amongst racial minorities or minority sections of society.

What this poll does prove once and for all is the folly of many left leaning people in their desire to get FG off the pitch so that a real left/right contest could emerge. It has always been the fact that FF were on Labour’s territory that prevented that sort of contest coming about.

Should FG change leader? I don’t believe so but the question is now will FG change leader? I think it is more possible than it was 6 months ago. There won’t be any movement (with that I’ve probably just damned Enda’s chances of staying on) on the FG leadership this side of the no confidence motion. After all it is entirely possible for McDaid and McGuinness to go walk about, for Lowry to decline to support Cowen (anyone miss his Oxegen ticket give-away?) and Jackie to fail to make the train up from Kerry. And were that to happen all bets are off. For now though it looks to me like the End has started.

What if there was an election and nobody won?

// May 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // ukge2010

That is pretty much what they’ve had in the UK. Labour lost massive numbers of seats, the Tories appear to be solidly short of a majority and the LibDems simply failed to convert support in votes.

It is possible, even more than probable, that another election would lead to an even more balanced parliament. If there is another election held in a short while when a minority Tory administration has had to impose significant cuts and do many, many unpopular things without being able to do anything that has an upside they are likely to lose as many seats as they might gain. While it is hard to see Labour gaining the 70/80 seats they would need to command a majority. It’s not a rerun of a British election in 1983, it is more like Ireland in 82/83.

The Tories baseless fear of PR

// May 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // ukge2010

Jason notes the fear factor being raised by the Daily Mail against PR. One does have to wonder if the poor dears writing for the Daily Mail in the UK know how PR works. Someone should get Richard Waghorne to help them out with it.

Fact is that the Tories would start life under a new PR system with a much better set up than anyone else. True all 3 of the major UK parties would fracture to some degree in the 1st election under what the form of PR-STV they might adopt, there are the Tories who would vote UKIP as 1st preference but they would come back to the Tories in later counts, the same for the LibDems as the more sandal orientated went for a walk in the meadows with the Greens. But it is the Labour movement which would split the most, producing a jamboree of leftish and far leftish parties that would emerge with so much antipathy between them that transfers would not be forthcoming. The 80s militant era would be a cake walk in comparison. It’s no coincidence that the right has tended to get people elected President in France despite the supposed left leaning nature of their voters.

So come on for the big win Conservatives and support PR. You’ve nothing to lose.

William Hague as PM

// April 28th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Based on the noises from Clegg over last weekend, it sounds like he might not wish his party to serve with either Cameron or Brown as PM. So borrowing from the northern Ireland model where party leaders don’t necessarily go for the top gig, could we see Cable as Chancellor with Hague as PM?

Why would Clegg want Hague as PM? Clegg might prefer Hague because he would be electorally less popular than Cameron. Having him as PM would reduce the inclination of the Tories to cut and run too quickly from a Con-Lib agreement before the various pieces of electoral reform and items precious to the Lib-Dems have been legislated for. Cameron, under these circumstances, might well stay as party leader under what might be a time defined administration for say 2/3 years. Having Hague as PM minimises the chances of the Tories cutting and running for an overall majority before the key elements of the Lib-Dem program are passed. This merely adds to the reasons for his neither ‘Cameron nor Brown’ remarks to Marr last Sunday.

Why did Cameron agree to the debates?

// April 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // ukge2010

Many people will think at this point that David Cameron was quite mad to agree to the debates especially with the participation of the LibDems Nick Clegg but I suspect he knew that (a) the Tory support was soft and likely to fracture at some point and (b) there are many people who might still desert Labour but couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the Conservatives - they are still for many people who in their 40s now Thatcher’s children. So his logic in agreeing might have been that he was good at this sort of thing - considerably more so than Gordon Brown - so why not play to his strengths and also that those who could not bring themselves to vote Conservative and were staying with the Labour party for that reason alone might desert if the LibDem leader did ok.

And then Nick Clegg went and did a lot better than ok.

Now it has happened and a lot of Labour and Tory support has shifted over to the LibDems, having the effect of removing the last of Labour’s floating voter support. I think it is very much harder for Labour to win that support back while for the Tories it should be a more straight forward task to win back most of the few % lost so far. The issue of Europe and other little Englander angles in the press will serve them well in doing so. Yes it might leave them getting only 36/37% on polling day which could be short of an overall majority but that is how it has looked for a long while now anyway with the Tories unable to consistently break the 40% barrier. Plus, the LibDems will find it hard to retain all their new support in the face of the media backlash that will come as we approach the 2nd last weekend before polling. Yet a result of say, Tories on 37%, Labour on 29% and LibDems on 26% would be a very real win for the Tories. They will be reasonably able to square away a deal with the DUP and SNP to secure a majority for a couple of years.

So what would be the most important thing Cameron would have gained from the debate? The space that would be provided by a Labour party that might tear itself apart over the next year in a messy leadership contest as it faces up to a real contest for the role of opposition. Had there been no debate and the Tories won a small majority on the back of 38% against Labour on 32%, he would have faced a new Labour leader who didn’t have to worry about a challenge from the LibDems and indeed could count on them to guard a flank as they prepared to face another election within 2/3 years. Instead, they will view as they did in the 1980s the LibDems as rivals and it is that contest which will hurt their ability to bounce back quickly. Just as it did in the 80s when it was the divided opposition which give the Tories such large majorities in parliament despite only getting barely over 40% of the vote.

A 3-way Leader’s debate in Ireland

// April 15th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // ukge2010

With the first of the series of the Uk’s three PM debates on UTV tonight it appears not to have occurred to anyone here that if the polls in Ireland were to remain remotely like they are now that we would have to host a 3-way style debate too. If Labour were over 20% and FF on about 25% with FG over 30% and were all 3 parties were running enough candidates to get an overall majority then it would be almost impossible for RTe or anyone else to refuse the right of the Labour party’s leader to participate. Hell, it could even be that FF would be in third place and we’d be treated to a head to head with just Eamonn and Enda.

At least it would see an end to the desk, and perhaps podium or high stool based delivery.

Are FF in fact the Green Party’s mudguards?

// March 3rd, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Uncategorized

With the various commentary about the future of the Greens and how they might deal with it. Once the government goes to the country whenever that it, I was wondering are FF’s 2nd candidate TDs in fact the Green Party’s own constituency mudguards?

It is frequently noted that the smaller party in government with FF ends up as it’s mudguard taking most of its flak and ultimately paying the price at the polls. But is that really the case for the Greens?

Let’s go through each of the Green TDs and consider more closely the local situation for them

Cuffe is most likely gone because too much (might only be 500/800 1st preferences but it would be enough) of his vote will drift over to Richard Boyd Barrett while he will not get the same transfers from Lab and FG next time. Plus the constituency has gone from a 5 to a 4 seater. So it’s not so much an uphill challenge as it is vertical with some overhang. Verdict: barring miracles a loss here

Gogarty is given some space by the fact that the only FF had the votes last time to challenge for a 2nd seat and that wouldn’t be the case next time. With Harney likely to go FG will gain her seat and SF (who did better than even they expected with Joanne Spain given the ructions over her late adoptioj as the SF candidate) would be the main threat to Gogarty but it is unclear if they will repeat given the underperformance of SF across Dublin in 2009. Verdict: A probably hold.

Sargent is still personally popular and again it is FF that is in poll position to take the first loss here not the GP (that would be a seat loss to the Socialist Party), and neither Lab nor FG appear to have high profile 2nd candidates in the field as yet. Verdict: A probable hold.

Mary White – FF will certainly drop one and FG will get their 2nd here but it is Labour’s weakness (divided across the two counties and with internal division aside from that which were papered over for years by Seamus Pattinson’s holding of the seat) that could let Mary White back in on FF transfers. Verdict: A possible hold.

Eamon Ryan – with FF possibly going into the next election with not outgoing TD standing if Tom Kitt makes good on his threat/promise and the possibility (though don’t write off FG just yet) that Alex White will be a TD already. It is possible that Eamon Ryan could hold on, getting the last seat ahead of the 3rd FG candidate on foot of FF transfers from their eliminated 2nd candidate. Verdict: A probable hold.

John Gormley – FG and Labour will be gunning for a 2nd seat, most likely at Gormley’s expense with Labour best placed to take it on paper and geography if cllr Kevin Humphreys is the 2nd candidate. But DSE is a strange place and many that voted for McDowell last time might give Gormley a vote with a view that he has been firm and placed a sticky wicket (I think that’s a game played down there) passably well. FF might decide to rope in Eoin Ryan to secure their seat if it looks under threat at the expense of Chris Andrews. Verdict: A possible hold.

So were the opposition to (on the QT mind) not beat up on the Greens locally too much they could still come back with a few TDs and a party able to rebuild.