I’m not sure if it will be available online here in Ireland but its something that a few of you may be interested in.
Its a fantastic idea and I’d love if RTE were to re run their coverage of previous elections (if they still had the tape) on their RTE News Now channel.
Well, that was weird at the RNC (of which more anon). The Clint Eastwood ‘thing’ with an empty chair representing Barack Obama was very odd indeed. And unnecessary – Eastwood is not reknowned for being a comic. It was also undignified and while I’m not one to stand on dignity it just felt wrong. Eastwood who actually in general comes across as more decent than he seemed then seemed to take a strange approach, and the tone was incorrect – not least the references to Obama telling Eastwood to eff himself, or whatever.
But funnily enough the most irritating thing was the realisation that it was pretty much a riff on US comedian Bob Newhart’s approach of one sided conversations or ‘solo straightman’. Thing is that while Eastwood is witty enough in general he’s not witty enough in particular to do the job as Newhart would have done.
And ooops! Newhart noted this himself:
“I heard that Clint Eastwood was channelling me at the RNC,” tweeted comic actor Bob Newhart, known for his one-sided conversations. “My lawyers and I are drafting our lawsuit.”
Speaking of Newhart I first heard him in National School in the early 1970s when a teacher brought in a record of him (and IIRC the Ian Gillan Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack). I relistened to his stuff more recently and it was gentle stuff thoguh still pretty funny and not quite as dated as might have been expected – no question that was a different society, the references to women, family, childbirth and so on were very much of their time, but there was also a sense of boundaries being very slightly pushed back.
It’s remarkable to see how much Newhart actually did over the years, variety shows, sitcoms, films and so on. I wonder if the fact he’s not better known on this side of the Atlantic is due to his humour being very American in some fashion.
A poster that I was sent recently (many Thanks) that I have little or no idea about.
I’m not sure when it is from , the circumstances it refers to and if it was produced by the Dublin Council of Republican Congress, its hard to make out at the bottom of the poster.
From 1988 a leaflet for May Day in Cork
On then to a 1971 leaflet “Sinn Féin – Yesterday and Today”
Then a leaflet issued (I think ) by the Sinn Fein POW department “Know Your Rights -Advice on what to do if arrested in the 26 Counties”
“Stand up to Britain -Vote McAllister -Vote the prisoners No. 1″– A poster for Tom McAllister an Anti H Block candidate who ran in Clare in the 1981 General Election
and finally a recent “What we have done in Government” Leaflet from Cáit Keane Fine Gael
This evening’s announcement of cuts was accompanied by this:
From the HSE.
As part of the overall and unprecedented financial challenge facing the country, the HSE has been set clearly defined budget targets by both the Troika and Government.
In 2010 and 2011 the health services saw unprecedented budget reductions of approximately €1.75 billion. This was followed in 2012 with additional reductions of €750m. These reductions occur at a time when demand for health services continues to grow.
It is well known that the HSE is running a significant budget deficit currently. This deficit exists due to a number of factors, including the increased demand for services. For example, due to increased demand, the HSE has issued 125,000 medical cards over and above Service Plan projections, which is contributing to approximately €100m of the current budget deficit.
The deficit as of 31st August 2012 is €259m. The HSE has a statutory obligation to remain within its allocated budget of €13.2bn for 2012.
Detailed cost containment plans have been in place across the health service since the beginning of the year. However, there has been an increasing demand for services which has contributed in a significant way to the continuing deficit. Should robust cost reduction action not be taken at this juncture, the HSE faces a potential year-end deficit of €500m.
In order to deal with the existing deficit and to remain within budget, the HSE is now obliged to introduce a range of additional cost reduction measures to be implemented throughout the remainder of 2012 and into 2013.
The range of additional measures amounts to €130 million. In compiling these measures, every effort has been taken to target areas that do not impact on direct client/ patient services, with a view to protecting, in as much as is possible, the most essential frontline services. However, it is inevitable that some impact on service delivery will be experienced through the implementation of these measures.
The €130m of cost reduction measures is in addition to other non-operational measures to be undertaken, that have been submitted to the Troika. These non-operational measures include cash acceleration of receipts from health insurers and the transfer of surplus money within the health group of votes such as the NTPF.
Amongst the cost reduction measures included within the €130m are:
€37m through cash and stock management initiatives;
€26.5m through savings in medical equipment (non-capital), furniture, education, training, office expenses, travel and subsistence and advertising;
€35m through reductions in the usage of agency and overtime in line with the targets set in the HSE Service Plan of reductions of 50% in agency and 10% in overtime;
€6m savings on reimbursements for certain products including Glucosamine, Orlistat and Omega-3-Triglycerides;
€10.8m through the reduction of Home Help hours. This involves a reduction of 5.5% from the 11 million hours (€195m budget) provided annually. The impact of these reductions will be minimised by ensuring that services are provided for direct patient care;
€1.7m through the reduction of 200 Home Care Packages per month. This accounts for a reduction of 3.7% from the 5,300 packages (€140m budget) delivered annually. The impact of these reductions will be minimised by achieving greater efficiency in the packages currently provided;
€10.8m through the reduction of Personal Assistant hours from the current €1.4 billion budget for the provision of disability services;
€2m through savings in the procurement of medical equipment. This relates to non-capital equipment only.
Each of the Regional Directors of Operations is working with their staff to develop implementation plans in order to give effect to these measures. While many of the measures are already underway currently, further plans will be developed and discussed with staff and unions over the coming week.
While implementing these plans the health services will at all times attempt to minimise the impact on frontline services and ensure that patient/client quality and safety is maintained to the highest standard possible.
The 1913 Committee is planning events to mark the centenary of the
Great Dublin Lockout.
Funded by the TEEU and SIPTU, the committee is composed of trade union
activists and labour historians. Here’s the Facebook page.
So far there are stories about:
– Rosie Hackett, the 18 year old union organiser from Jacobs biscuit factory
– the four lockout martyrs
– the Irish Citizen Army
– audio interviews with Padraig Yeates, the author of ‘Lockout: Dublin 1913’
– songs by the Dubliners and Christy Moore
– Walter Carpenter, socialist campaigner, ITGWU organiser and General
Secretary of Dublin’s “Jewish Union”.
– a Do It Yourself walking tour of sites associated with the Lockout
and more.
Pat Leahy has some interesting thoughts about the Government in the SBP, having written an ‘Enda term report’ – ahem. But it’s not a bad exercise in terms of weighing up how from within the orthodoxy (broadly speaking) the government is perceived.
His assessment?
• The government is making steady progress towards the bigger goals, though it faces some significant short-term problems which will require tough politics.
• Some of those problems are of its own making.
• It is nowhere near as reformist as it pretended to be.
• It is – like many other small European countries – at the mercy of events in the eurozone that it has little or no power to influence.
• Its successes in Europe and in addressing the fiscal challenges (albeit following the Fianna Fáil/troika roadmap) mean that it has a realistic chance of ultimate success: emerging from the programme with a growing economy.
Forget, if one can, points one and two. One of the most striking features of this government has been an unnecessary ineptness. That’s odd given that they had a masterclass in the shape of the Cowen government as to what not to do. But it’s a reality. Hogan’s uneasy tenure at Environment et al is only part of it. Health is looking like no picnic either and there are mutterings from points various, including Burton’s bailiwick. All told that’s pretty shambolic. But those short term problems – the property tax, etc included have significant potential to generate political attrition. It’s no small achievement to put forward a policy that sees (largely) passive resistance on the part of hundreds of thousands of citizens. It certainly suggests an significant disconnect between what the Government might like to do and what is actually feasible. It will, almost certainly, be eventually dealt with, perhaps by adding the current charge onto future property taxes and parking that, but its short to medium term outcomes – all largely avoidable – are something else.
I would hazard a guess that his fourth point is the most important, that ‘it is at the mercy of events in the eurozone’. It is striking, is it not, how the Governments fortunes in terms of banking debt improved – albeit so far only rhetorically, as Leahy notes the deal is by no means done yet – in the wake of events in Greece and the Hollande election. Neither of those were anywhere within the reach of the Irish government. Each could have, and still could, go a different way. It is this reality that makes the bellicose language used in the run up to the last election still the yardstick against which the outcomes will be measured, because that language promised so much more to those who listened to it. Indeed one could argue that it is events beyond the eurozone which will be crucial. Global economic problems will cut the already remarkably rosy expectations of growth which the government (and others) have made. That being the case…
Indeed, contextualised like that, and one can see that everything else is essentially minimal. Reformist? How significant is that really? And in relation to what? Public sector reform? Political reform? Economic reform? We hear much less of the last than the first two. And the Government is tellingly hesitant about all three. It’s probably a good bet that a lot of what we’ve been promised (or threatened with, depending upon viewpoint) will not come to pass in this Dáil term. And perhaps that’s no bad thing either. A crisis is not necessarily the best time to make into an opportunity, not least because attention may be misdirected.
Then there’s his last point, the ‘realistic chance of ultimate success: emerging from the programme with a growing economy’. Well, perhaps, but if you read Richard Curran in the same edition – referenced here – talking about mortgage arrears figures (now creeping up to 1 in 4 mortgages – and more on this soon) you’d be forgiven for not being filled with optimism. Curran rightly notes that we’re facing into another Budget (and he mentions the one after that, and one can mention the one after that again). Of course the other aspect of that is that ‘the realistic chance of ultimate success’ means the prospect of reelection for one or both of the Government parties.
For Fine Gael I would have thought that even as matters stand today that is probably more likely than not. But for Labour? Well, I guess that should FG need to make up numbers a much diminished LP will do the trick. Though what good that is to the LP is an useful question and one given the mutterings amongst the troops something their leadership might want to think about long and hard.
And his conclusion?
Some trends have emerged in the first half of the year which are likely to be more pronounced in the rest of the year.
One is Labour’s need to assert its own identity in the administration, which will be partly done through social policy changes like abortion legislation and gay marriage which are deeply discomfiting for the Fine Gael base.
The other is the transition to ‘normal’ politics. By normal politics, government insiders say they expect the administration to become unpopular and its poll numbers to dip. With no end to austerity in sight, they’re probably right about that.
I’ve already pointed out that social policy changes are unlikely to be enough for the LP base, whatever it may be at this stage – and arguably not enough for a tranche of their members. And whether when it comes to any future election that will work with the electorate any better than, say the rather substantial achievements in the wake of the 1990s Rainbow coalition remains to be seen.
But isn’t his point about ‘normal’ politics somewhat at odds with his thoughts of ‘chance of ultimate success’? Or is it that the impact upon party support of austerity will somehow melt away in the face of growth three years down the line? I can’t be alone in thinking that that’s more hope than expectation.
There’s one other thought that strikes me. Perhaps I’m wrong, but all this suggests that far from any element of the Government seeking to cut and run anytime soon, the dynamics at play here will lock them fairly tightly into prolonging the life of the Coalition. The election has to be held in 2016 at the latest, though one might wonder if they’d be entirely keen to go quite that far given the interesting coincidence of dates and the potential outworking of that on other parties votes. But with a Budget this year, one next and so on, and each containing – for some time to come deflationary measures in greater or lesser degree – how long can they afford to wait for a) signs that growth is starting again and b) that it is sufficiently evident to ensure a fair wind behind them at a subsequent election?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 