Pdf of SPI 1973 Report of the 1st national congress here: SPI73REPORT
As a means of opening the discussion on the SPI the accompanying document was donated by Mark P (for which many thanks and many thanks also to the SP for allowing us access to some documents from their archive) and seems entirely suitable for [...]

Let’s think happy thoughts for a brief while because much else is… well, less than happy. So, here’s something that cheered me up at least a bit and it’s a point that is rarely touched on by commentators more concerned with the jockeying for position of the larger centre right political parties. Reading The Lost [...]

It’s not up there with “5 more years”, battle cry of both Republicans and Democrats in the not too distant past, now is it? But that’s the reality we’re now facing in the wake of the vote at the Green Party Convention this weekend. 31 months to be precise, leaving out this one, that is [...]

Recently on the Cedar Lounge Revolution smiffy raised an interesting point which was that the future path of the Green Party might be quite similar to that of Democratic Left. I hadn’t thought about it in quite those terms before, not least because I suspect the future for the Green Party may not even be [...]

There’s a certain notion in the air that an election is near inevitable now. And, in one sense hasn’t that always been the case. But, it is correct that the chances of an election this year are better now than they have been. So, with that in mind what are the rumours swirling about out [...]

Does the thought of NAMA concern you? And is the economic crisis and the proposed part solution, the McCarthy Report, a source of anxiety? Are you a bit puzzled as to the rhetoric surrounding it, after all the principals involved seem somewhat hazy on precisely what the effects of the implementation of both those will [...]

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 [...]

I’ve read a couple of different pieces about the prospects for government amongst various potential parties and combined they allow for some useful insights into how the Irish political landscape may be developing.
Yesterday Fintan O’Toole had an impassioned column on his thoughts as to why Labour should wait… in other words to eschew entering coalition [...]

One of the major problems of political life in this age where everything is available almost at an instant is the sense of familiarity, even dullness, of policy proposals. Take, for example, the idea of a third tax rate for high earners as mooted at the Labour Party National Conference yesterday by Eamon Gilmore. It’s [...]

Who would be Brian Cowen at the moment? Who indeed? For as he put the final touches on his latest - or is it his first, in the sense of actually talking more or less directly to us - address to the nation at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis the news for him and his [...]