Tough talk demands tough times (a small reprise)… but look at the outcome!
I want to expand on my thoughts about ‘tough times’ and the rhetoric we’ve heard about how the government has to impose ‘tough measures’, either in cuts in the public sector and services (which, given how small our PS/CS is relative to other states is essentially synonymous in most instances), or impose further taxes. Or both. Although the latter two options are not as popular for some curious reason - perhaps because, as with most things, direct impacts - even on those who pontificate most loudly about ‘pain’ - don’t seem to have too much appeal. After all, pain is… well… painful. And few relish that.
Now there’s a modified version of the ‘pain’ argument which goes along the lines of ‘if only the government said it like it was and imposed away then all would be well’. Well, the government hasn’t been entirely coy about its intentions in the recent past, and pain? There’s been pain.
That some of this has now blown back to the Government is obvious. And tying in with that is a piece today in the Irish Times by Stephen Collins which argues very strongly from the ‘pain’ perspective…
What the scale of [Maurice] Ahern’s defeat illustrated more clearly than anything else is that Fianna Fáil is being held responsible by the electorate for the nature of the economic disaster being suffered by the country. Everybody knows there is an international recession, but the “crony capitalist” connections with builders and certain bankers, symbolised by the Galway tent, have provoked a fierce backlash against the party following the bursting of the property bubble.
Yes, true, but he neglects to note that one other key component in that equation, the PDs were already wiped out in part due to much the same reasons albeit a couple of years earlier.
So, where’s the pain?
Paradoxically, the Government is now broadly on the right track, having got to grips with the scale of the economic disaster that has derailed the public finances. The problem is that the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition has no mandate for the kind of decisions that were required, and will continue to be required, to get the public finances in order.
Ah… there it is… ‘the kind of decisions… that will continue to be required’. Thing is I’m not sure about this mandate talk. Two years ago the Government was elected to deal with whatever came its way. That’s the nature of representative democracy. The talk by Kenny of the local and European elections being a referendum on the Government, while understandable on a political level, is self-serving. Surely, the results reflect vast pools of anger at the Government, but in and of itself isn’t sufficient to budge the Government prior to a change in the arithmetic within Dáil Éireann. And to pretend a Government must have a mandate for a very specific set of policies, and as it happens the policies Collins champions, seems unlikely. None of this is to ignore the possibility that the next Budget will see a raft of Joe Behan like latecomers from the FF benches if it is too severe. And then, indeed, the Government will fall.
But he continues:
The substantial cuts in income suffered by workers who have been lucky to keep their jobs, never mind the pain inflicted on those who have lost them, is something that people are simply not willing to accept from this Government. The Opposition’s claims that bankers are bailed out while ordinary people suffer may be a trite simplification, but it clearly resonates with the electorate.
Well, yes. A ‘trite simplification’. Even the Sunday Business Post, for long the champion of the view that the financial sector crisis is somehow divisible from the public finances has finally noted that:
There is no point pretending that there is any excuse of financial stability not to reveal the full details. Everyone knows Anglo is bust and only being supported by the taxpayer. Depositors’ money remains because of the return being offered and the government guarantee, but even some of this has seeped away. Now the issue is how to get out of this mess at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer - and the economy.
We need all the information out in the open. True, the various investigations need to proceed and cannot be prejudiced. But one simple fact needs to be recognised. The taxpayer is now funding Anglo, and we need to know the full story of what happened and how it is being dealt with.
When Anglo and it’s rivals are being handed many multiples of the deficit in the public finance from the public purse it seems delusory to pretend that there is no linkage (and indeed here I deal with precisely that point). But back at the Irish Times the next sentence by Collins is utterly telling…
The spectacular triumph of George Lee in Dublin South illustrates the public mood, particularly in middle-class Dublin.
“Particularly in middle-class Dublin”… Collins has met his base. Hello base, hello Stephen. But what of the “spectacular” triumph of Maureen O’Sullivan (as an aside note that that has been proposed in certain circles, some who should know better, as merely FF voters holding their noses and voting left independent rather than the hated FG)? In a broadly speaking working class constituency does that not also illustrate a public mood?
The majority of voters have simply lost all faith in the Government’s ability to do the job and it is hard to see how that mood will turn around while the coalition continues in office. The problem is that as long as the mood remains, the ability of the Government to do its job will be severely hampered.
Here he seems to be saying that only a government with a ‘mandate’ can impose the harsh regimen that is his solution of choice. But once more consider the Dublin Central result. Or that in Dublin where left-wing parties now hold a majority on the City Council. All those parties from palest pink to deepest red argue against the sort of policies that he advocates. How will a new ‘mandate’ operate then?
The election result exposed the fallacy of the dictum that all politics is local. Real politics is national, particularly in times of crisis. While some politicians can buck the trend, due to local popularity, the national mood swept away many councillors who had actually worked very hard for their constituents over the past five years.
“Real politics”? And what pray tell is the point? Is Collins arguing that local elections should become five yearly referendums? Or is it something else?
And returning to the duality of the result what of the following…
The anti-Government trend was most pronounced in the large urban areas, but it rippled all across the country in a wave that has made Fine Gael the biggest party in the country for the first time, that gave the Labour Party its best local election result to date and that left Fianna Fáil nursing its worst result since the party was founded in 1926.
Problem is that Fine Gael policies are radically different to those of the Labour Party. How does that work?
The Fine Gael decision to table a motion of no confidence means that pressure on the Government will continue this week and there will be no respite until the Dáil summer recess next month. The pressure on the coalition will remain intense for as long as it survives.
Actually the motion of no confidence this rapidly after the elections is not a great idea. Far from piling the pressure on it will most likely merely see a consolidation of the elements within the Government. Already the Green Party have signed on for as long as it survives (with, granted, caveats, but it seems unlikely FF will demur much). Far better had FG stayed its hand and allowed the results of the election to sink in. But then they’re faced with a quandary, if they wait too long it may become an irrelevance as other events overshadow it. And if they strike now, it will result in nothing concrete.
Next week the Taoiseach will attend the critical EU summit on Brussels, which is due to finalise the legal guarantees to enable a rerun of the Lisbon Treaty in the autumn. Over the summer, reports from “An Bord Snip Nua” on reform of the public service and the Commission on Taxation on reform of the tax system will have to be digested by the Government, and decisions made on what measures to adopt.
There have to be serious doubts about the ability of such a badly wounded Government to take decisive action on such important issues, deliver a Yes vote to Lisbon and then formulate another swingeing budget.
But the counter-argument is that if the Government goes now it will definitely lose, whereas if it hangs together, toughs it out and hopes for the best, well, who knows? The economy may strengthen. Those poll numbers may change (I’ve been looking at the figures and that’s a whole different post worth considering). Anything could happen. As it happens my belief is that time will see some portion of the FF vote come home but that FG and Labour will be in a position to form the next government, whether this week or in three years.
Another counter argument is that the results simply do not point to support for the measures Collins seeks. Fine Gael may well be the ‘biggest’ party, whatever that may mean, but its policy platform appears much too vague to give a clear read as to its popularity. Labour and the left provide a strong counterweight and the actual policies of the current Government remained mired in a sort of dismal received neo-liberalism which is too half-hearted (or too aware of possible pitfalls) to implement them in full… which leads to a further dismal conclusion that for Collins this government, at least as it has operated up until now, is perhaps as good as it gets for his mandate… pity us.
So how Collins sees unambiguous support from the electorate for the ‘mandates’ he wants escapes me.
But I guess what he wants is something quick. Something that would, presumably leave FG in power and implementing ‘tough’ policies. Something that will prevent criticism or critique of those policies. Policies that are ‘painful’ but essential for the ‘good’ of the country. Policies that will impact on working people and those dependent on the state disproportionately. But hey, them’s the breaks in our wonderful Ireland Inc.
I think it’s impossible to look at the results of the polls and not fear that were an attempt to put such policies through in the wake of an election ‘mandate’ or no, there would be profound social and political ramifications, and potentially a broken polity.
Now that’s ‘real’ politics.
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