Tag: #GE2019

UK Election Has Some Lessons For Us, But Most Must Be Ignored

by dsmooney, posted in Boris Johnson, Colum Eastwood, GE2020, Politics, Taoiseach, UK politics

This analysis piece first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on December 16th 2019. Here I consider the lessons fron the Tory’s big win in the UK general election and how very little of what happened there should or could play well in an Irish general election.  

Varadkar and Johnson

Addressing the 1992 U.S. Republican convention, the former Nixon and Reagan speechwriter and perennially unsuccessful right-wing challenger for the presidential nomination, Pat Buchanan, described that year’s Democrat convention as “…the greatest single exhibition of cross-dressing in American political history.”

Buchanan’s problem with the 1992 Democrat convention, and its selection of new-comer Bill Clinton as nominee, was that it wrecked Republican plans to paint them as liberal and disconnected. Instead of going to the radical left as Buchanan and President Bush (1) had wanted Clinton moved quickly to the centre and reached out to the working-class voters who had backed Reagan at the two earlier elections.

Desperate to save the Bush strategy, Buchanan was now trying to claim that the Democrats were still fundamentally liberal (a dirty word in American politics) and were only “dressed up as moderates and centrists” to fool the voters.

Buchanan was wrong.

Continue reading “UK Election Has Some Lessons For Us, But Most Must Be Ignored” →

Confidence & Supply: St Leo’s next letter to the Corkonian? #GE2019

by dsmooney, posted in Confidence and Supply, Leo Varadkar, Micheal Martin, Politics

This Broadsheet column first appeared on Oct 2nd. It appeared there under the headline: Confidence, Supply And Demand though my preferred title is: St Leo’s next letter to the Corkonian?

new-testament-survey-no19-paul-letter-to-ephesus-1-638The news last night that one of the two Fine Gael T.D.s for Louth will henceforth be the Independent T.D. for Louth will gladden the hearts of very few in Fine Gael, not even the Dundalk Cllr selected only a few nights ago to replace him.

While Peter Fitzpatrick may not have been of much strategic importance to the Taoiseach while he was an FG backbencher, he has improved his status now as an Independent – especially one whose support for the budget seems to be conditional.

Fitzpatrick’s withdrawal of support for Varadkar’s minority government comes barely a week after another old school Fine Gael TD and Junior Minister, Catherine Byrne TD, put a shot across the bows of both the Taoiseach and his beleaguered Housing Minister.

If long(ish) serving members of the Leo Varadkar’s own parliamentary party are having public misgivings about this government’s future, then why would Varadkar seriously expect the main opposition party to rush to commit to extend its Confidence and Supply (C&S) agreement for another year, once the Budget speech is done?

The question is rhetorical as that probably is what he does expect. It is what he has been preparing himself and us. Over the summer we saw Varadkar writing lengthy homilies, in the guise of letters, at the Leader of Fianna Fáil like a latter-day St Paul writing to the Ephesians.

Continue reading “Confidence & Supply: St Leo’s next letter to the Corkonian? #GE2019” →