Thanks to JH for forwarding the link to this:
Month: June 2020
More unease…and when would you return to pubs/restaurants gigs and events?
People are still nervous about going out to pubs and restaurants while a big majority is uncomfortable about taking an international trip either by plane or ferry.
These are just some of the findings in the latest survey on the social impact of Covid-19 by the Central Statistics Office. The survey was carried out between June 10 and June 17.
It found that 57% of people surveyed feel either “uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” with going to pubs, even with two metre social distancing. That percentage rises to 67% when social distancing is reduced to one metre.
The figure for restaurants is slightly lower at 41% but rises to 55.8% when social distancing is reduced to a metre.
82% of people said they would feel uncomfortable or very uncomfortable at an outdoor event with a large crowd and no social distancing.
I’m not surprised.
But here’s a question or two for the week that is in it with pubs and other businesses reopening in a strange sort of a way. At what point would people here feel comfortable in returning to pubs and restaurants, events and so on?
Some of us have to brave public transport. Others cycle (social distancing there isn’t great as I see for myself every day particularly early in the morning). Office spaces so far seem okay in the main, but I’m sure some of us have seen problematic aspects. What about schools, colleges and educational insitutions, when do people feel they will be comfortable working in or sending their offspring there?
UK polling…
Perhaps not entirely surprising:
Labour leader Keir Starmer has overtaken Boris Johnson as the public preferred choice for Prime Minister, according to the latest Opinium poll for The Observer.
Starmer is preferred to lead the country by 37% of voters polled on Thursday and Friday last week, compared with 35% who say Johnson would be the best Prime Minister.
Though:
While the Tories remain four points ahead of Starmer’s party on 43% to Labour’s 39%, the gap has closed from over 20% in February and early March when the Tories enjoyed a regular commanding lead as the country rallied behind the government, and Jeremy Corbyn was reaching the end of his time as Labour leader.
Which makes the events at the weekend in relation to the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey seem both contrived and cynical and part of a broader push to reposition the image of the BLP. But perhaps worse, they seem unnecessary even in that most cynical of calculations.
A telling omission
The Seanad reconvenes today in all its glory. But RTÉ picks up on one aspect of the Taoiseach’s nominees which is telling:
Meanwhile, the new government has also been criticised for not appointing a Senator from Northern Ireland with a Unionist background.
Former Senator Ian Marshall told the BBC he was “astonished” at this failure, and dismissed a policy commitment by the Government to a “shared island” as a “farce”.
A Government source replied that there would be a “major new focus” by the new Coalition on north/south relations, with the establishment of a new unit in the Department of the Taoiseach.
Mr Marshall, a dairy farmer from Markethill in Co Armagh, and an anti-Brexit campaigner, won a seat on the Agricultural Panel between 2018 and 2020.
Of course a single Senator is but a single Senator, yet even putting aside what some of us would say was a necessity to have voices from the North in the Oireachtas, it seems doubly curious given that Brexit continues and so on.
Election ’87, Education in Crisis: Use Your Vote, Union of Students in Ireland.
To download the above please click on the following link. usi-1987.pdf
Please click here to go the Left Archive.
Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive.
This document released as a USI News Election Special in four pages under the headline Education in Crisis outlines USI policy in regard to education, and the 1987 General Election in the Republic and has the following advice:
USI are not proposing that you vote for any particular party.
However, we urge all students to ask politicians who canvass them what they Intend to do on the Issues that affect students. We suggest the following questions:
1. Will their Party fund _new colleges?
2. Will they stop the vicious fee rises of the last six years?
3. Will they provide all youth with full-time
education, a job or proper training scheme?
4. Will they increase student grants to provide a realistic standard of living for students?
And it argues that:
VOTE FOR EDUCATION
Education should be a growth area for any country trying to break out of a recession – the future depends on the availability of a highly trained young population.
Young people have a right to know specifically what each party will do. If a politician does not give the answers that you want to hear, tell him or her that they will not be getting your vote.
Inside it outlines the questions asked by USI of the various political parties and the answers received.
And it argues that:
The officer Board of USI meeting on Friday February 6th, called for further action in Dublin on the 12th, of February to coincide with the next court appearance of the USI Education Officer. USI President, Ms. Patricia Hegarty called on all students to get involved in the action. “With the General Election we must show politicians that we are serious in our actions on education issues. USI hopes that students will come to Dublin and show their solidarity with Peter. We call on all politicians to meet our demands for a fees freeze, and immediate rise in student grants and the provisions of adequate places and facilities in the colleges.
Economist Professor Bill Mitchell – Europe and the EU after Brexit
Economist Professor Bill Mitchell – Europe and the EU after Brexit, Reclaiming the State.
Wynne’s Hotel Dublin, Saturday February 15th, 2020.
Sponsored by the Desmond Greaves School and the People’s Movement.
Bill Mitchell was co – author with Thomas Fazi of the influential book: Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World “re-conceptualises the nation state as a vehicle for progressive change. They show how despite the ravages of neoliberalism, the state still contains resources for democratic control of a nation’s economy and finances.
The populist turn provides an opening to develop an ambitious but feasible left political strategy. It offers an urgent, provocative and prescient political analysis of our current predicament, and lays out a comprehensive strategy for revitalising progressive economics in the 21st century.”
Episode 3 of the Podcast -Christian Principles Party and the Christian Centrist Party
The rss feed is https://anchor.fm/s/2431404c/podcast/rss
Alan Kinsella · The Others The Alan Kinsella Podcast -Episode 3 -Christian Principles Christian Centrist
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
