Announcement of candidacy for NUI Seanad

// March 6th, 2011 // No Comments » // GE11, nui seanad 2011, nuim, Seanad, seanad eireann, seanad reform

Image via Wikipedia

I am running once more for Seanad Éireann on the NUI panel, this post will tell you a bit about me and why I’m running*.

I’m an unmarried** 43 year old engineer. I’m a practical person who believes that politics matters most when it is about how we choose to do things, not simply who does them. I’m the son of parents from Kerry who were forced into emigration to England in the 50s and who had to do similar myself in the 90s, going to Japan. I later had the opportunity to choose to work in the US.

My intention is to make  politics work; for all of us, not simply for some of us. Like 95% of the electorate, I cannot vote in this Seanad election. We need your vote. Who would have thought that 4 years on from the 2007 election, where I attempted and, to be frank about it, failed to get some currency for the topic of electoral and political reform that it would now be so much centre stage. Real Political Reform is not an end in itself rather it is a means to an end, to create a society governed more wisely, more compassionately and more competently.

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The swamping of the Fine Gael Facebook page

// February 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // GE11

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

It is amazing that those posting messages about Fine Gael suppposedly censoring comments on their Facebook page don’t bother to look back over the last few days where they will see any number of comments from people posting about Fine Gael supposedly censoring their comments which are clearly visible.  It is hard to tell where or even when precisely this story originated but it’s easy to understand why people are inclined to take the claims at face value despite no actual evidence being presented to show that censor of views is taking place. Like someone in a shopping centre screaming about a missing child we’re focused on finding the child despite none of us having ever seem the child in question before. So anyone who makes inquiries about the details is viewed as delaying the more urgent work of alerting everyone to the missing child, just as anyone asking about the detail in this case is viewed as supporting censorship.

So what is the current situation? There are loads of visible comments that are critical or negative about Fine Gael’s position on same-sex marraige and other topics that have been on the site for a few days now, so why would they be removing some comments, if indeed they were, and not others? From some of the supposedly removed comments that people have screen grabbed and linked back that I’ve looked at their content is for the most part abuse rather than any substantive point. Or they are cut and paste duplicates of the same question that has been asked and already answered, perhaps not to the satisfaction of those asking it but if those asking it are in disagreement with Fine Gael’s policy then they are never going to get an answer that is satisfactory.

What may be taking place is the filtering of how people choose to express themselves and not the substance of the views they are expressing, it might surprise some comments but on-line just as offline if you want to be taken seriously than swearing and vulgar abuse isn’t of much assistance in that regard.

If Fine Gael were censoring comments on the basis of the views being expressed then I would condemn that and say it was bang out of order, but if comments are being removed simply because they use considerably less than parliamentary language on what is a public page for a legitimate political party then that’s quite reasonable. I’ve yet to see evidence of reasonable comments that aren’t cut and paste duplicates being removed, and let’s face it most of those commenting haven’t seen that evidence either but they’re inclined to believe it is happening for reasons unrelated to what might or might not be happening with the page. It is possible for example that FG is using pre-moderation which means that posts don’t appear immediately but are queued for review and later posting once reviewed, the Irish Times and lots of sites do that. That does not mean views are being censored at all just that they don’t appear immediately. But I can’t be any more sure than the rest of those posting are about what precisely is happening, yet they are certain and are reacting to what they believe is certain.

Those supporting these tactics are in effect giving a green light to Cóir and the likes to engage in the same sort of reprehenisble swamping of discussion so as to paint Labour for example in a particularly negative and unrepresenative light. I could think to myself that this is a brilliantly conceived and executed attack by Labour Youth or an affliate but given how Labour’s campaign has gone to date that would be stretching crediblity.

I personally favour moving to full equality for same-sex marriage within the time frame of the next Dail, but I’d suggesting giving the civil partnership legislation some time to bed down first to ensure there are no legal channels or problems arisig from it. I think it is better to do this right than to rush it. But this swamping of the Fine Gael facebook page isn’t about the issue at all, it’s about people who aren’t inclined towards Fine Gael seeking to paint the party in a poor light in the last days of an election campaign.

A question of balance

// February 11th, 2011 // No Comments » // GE11

Image by infomatique via Flickr

Last night we had another one of those eye of the beholder Vincent Browne moments. To set the scene, there was a review of the Fine Gael Manifesto with the panel consisting of two folks from a Labour/Left background, at least Mary Murphy had the decency to be up front about being a Labour party member,and one a centrist sceptic along with Leo Varadkar. And they were joined for a review of the papers by the sub from the UCD equality studies department, Marie Moran, who is there when Kathleen Lynch isn’t available*.

The moment came from the inability of Mary Murphy and Marie Moran to understand that the primary cause of ill-health in those in the more vulnerable social classes might not necessarily that they’re in living on a low income. Leo Varadkar wasn’t arguing that it wasn’t a factor at all in their situation but that in many cases the opposite is true that people are in poverty because they have a chronic illness that limits their ability to work or earn with sufficient regularity to move out of this vulnerability. Vincent then took his bias out for a run, in that laugh it off manner of his, by stating that Leo suffered from the disability of having studied medicine which he had compounded by his membership of Fine Gael**.

The problem for Mary and Marie, and others who thought this was great gas and that Leo was having his ass handed to him on the plage, is that they are looking at a table of data and feeling that it has given them some conclusive insight in people’s life; when all it has done, much like wikipedia, is offer pointers to areas for further investigations. If you select a group on the basis of social exclusion and then you see a pattern of social exclusion that’s doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re seeing a pattern in the data, it could mean you selected the data on the basis of a pattern.

For those for whom the Spirit Level data is some revelatory uncovering, I would say this. I think it is interesting work but too much is made of what appears to be a correlation without there being a necessarily definite causal link. It might actually be that some societies have done better for other reasons, and as a result there is more equality of outcome rather than that they do better because of more equality of outcome in the society.

From personally experience, I did find it strange for example that Japan was included in the spirit level as beacon of equality, certainly the highest earnings in Japan don’t tend to be the same multiples as in the US but there is an enormous degree of social segregation and exclusivity to how the society works. To suggest that Japan is a fantastically more equal society than say Ireland is peculiar to my mind. But that’s what happens when you rely on looking at tables of statistics where people see patterns but ignore the fact that their select criteria helped create the pattern in the first place. People say that numbers don’t lie, but they ignore that there is often more than one singular truth and that the numbers might be telling only one truth and not the whole.

And part of the political problem here, and this is a point of difference for people in Labour and one the left and many of us in Fine Gael, is that it sees people primarily being as members of groups rather than as individuals as Marie Moran illustrated quite well at the end of vinb last night,

A core problem with this work is that it ignores the effect that social mobility over the period of time that relatively free education has operated and what it has done to various communities. In the worst of cases like in the UK with the Richard Boyd Barrettalikes over there, someone from a working class background who goes to college and makes a few quid is viewed as a class traitors as if middle class kids were the arbiters of who was and was not working class. I’m from a working class background as are most of my friends but most of us too are really no longer working class because we were able to make the most of the opportunities that were there with the deliberate assistance of our families. There are others who weren’t able to do so but it wasn’t because they were not well off. It was for a myriad of other reasons, none of which Mary and Marie appear to want to recognise because it would undermine their view that we were simply members of a group and not individuals with our own unique stories.

*I wonder after the Labour party manifesto launch if we will see two people from a right of centre background on the show to tag-team up on the Labour representative, will we hell.

Imagine an Irish election with no transfers that mattered

// November 9th, 2010 // No Comments » // election 2010

It is entirely possible that Donegal South West might see an election with no significant transfers shifts of note. That the result will simply be decided on who does best on the first count. FF appear to have solid tribal party vote there and perhaps the floor to their vote is around 30%, SF meanwhile would have a ceiling in what they would be able to attract and might find it hard to get a majority i.e 50% of the remaining non-FF vote so they would be capped at a 35% maximum. Labour have a national tail wind behind them while FG will be solid but unlikely to see any sort of surge. So FG could be wandering about in the mid 20%s unable to attract those fleeing FF in significant numbers mostly cos of tribal antipathy while the media attention is all on SF and Labour.

Clearly from the Vincent Browne show last night the most polished and articulate candidates are SF’s Pearse Doherty and FF’s Brian ÓDomhnail* (and let’s face it both are already full-time paid elected reps so we should expect no less) , FG’s Barry O’Neill was really only fair to middling in his contributions, seeming to have too much recourse to standard phrases and sound bites (there again he has the least experience in front of a camera of the four so perhaps it was nerves, but he’d want to be more fluid and natural if he gets a chance again on the telly) with the stand out (and not in the best of ways) contributions coming from Labour Frank McBrearty who was constantly reminding me most of various politicians from across the border who were most intent on speaking to their own community and to hell with any sort of rational engagement.

It is very hard, indeed near impossible, to see SF breaching 35% on the 1st count (if they did so and did it by halving the FF vote then every FF TD in the country will have endless sleepless nights ahead) so I’d have them in the low to mid 30s at the moment, FF will be close enough to 30% with FG behind them in the mid 20s and Labour on the mid teens. Expressing that in hard numbers that equates to SF32%/FF28%/FG25%/Lab15%. Those numbers could be soft in places on the 1st count though with the various flavours ofd indos likely to take 4/5% before transferring back into the pool to put us back to those numbers above.

I honestly can’t see those FF and SF numbers shifting too much up or down, so the battle is really between FG and Labour to secure the best possible 3rd place position on the 1st count. If FG could get their % up sufficiently to be a neck ahead of  FF then they might stand a chance but if they did it would mean the amount of Labour transfers were likely to be very limited indeed.

As for transfers, I can easily see Labour splitting pretty evenly between SF and FG (with perhaps a marginal % trend to FG, say 20NT 8% to FF, 38FG 34SF) and with FG not transferring much at all to anyone. Something we more traditionally associate with FF, though the Labour transfers to FG will largely carry on to SF ensuring the election of Pearse Doherty. I expect FF if it comes to it to not transfer much to anyone at all with in excess of 50% NT at all. After that geography trumps all and Doherty would get the lions share of the remainder.

So it’s SF’s to lose in my view with FG caught by the same tribal vote ceiling as SF but only more so.

* which should be required viewing by everyone interested in politics. McBrearty’s reference to €8 bonds is fast becoming a mini-meme and reminded me of the 8 minute abs scene in There’s something about Mary. Bonds for €8, shocking stuff. There again if it was Jackie Healy Rae, he’d nearly refer to not caring if they were Euro Bonds, Brooke Bounds or James Bonds and then go on to top the poll. So I doubt this will do much harm to McBrearty. After all, if Labour’s policy free zone doesn’t bother ya why would a future piece of Labour’s lobby fodder not being precise about financial terminology bother ya.

** I couldn’t help but think it was a very differently accented more animated Ciaran Cuffe speaking at times.