The Great Fairytale that is Democracy

Now labour have abandoned the left we will soon have a new government, they as the media keep telling us will need time to warm up, reduce the interest rate on our debt, fix the health service the public service and generally strike the very poor with stealth charges. Watching the week in politics told much about what it is we can expect going forward. Firstly all the serious poiliticans wear suits, you wont find any of them prancing around in football shirts like Mick Wallace, even Sinn Fein now the largest party on the left had their representative beautifully turned out.

The suit as always is a statement of respectability and of business, a fellow wearing a nice shirt and tie knows his business, and moreover he can be trusted. There now are so few women in politics don't be surprised if many take to wearing pin-stripes themselves with false moustaches. Thinking of that did Wicklow elect a cast member of Bugsy Malone?

Which brings me to my contoversial views on democracy, safe to say that it doesn't really sit that well with me, you see I don't trust it. For it to work we must all agree that the voting public are intelligent and well informed and not at all tainted by the hysterical media surrounding us.

Now that is hardly a given, so I will move on to my second point, remember Northern Ireland and Margaret Thatcher, 'When the majority of people in Northern Ireland want a united Ireland,' this island went through decades of war due her government hiding behind democracy, for a start the majority she was refferring to stood over the most unequal and sectarian state in the world, they also were only a tiny minority, if you take these Islands as one entity.



Well lets concentrate on our little country and not be minding past wars, I propose that in order to vote you should first sit an exam, one of the questions that will disinfranchise you will be , 'Has the candidate ever fixed anything for you personally, or in your region, so as to give you an advantage,' or 'Did your father or mother ever vote for these idiots?"

Another idea is to take the vote off the over 40's and give it to twelve year olds instead as they will have to live with the fall out over a longer period.

Alternatives to democracy would be to randomly pick thirty people from the phonebook to handle Finance, Education, one Bank and our natural resources the civil service could do the rest and they probably do. Maybe a dictator like Eamonn De Valera, or one of the bishops, or we could be run directly from Rome by the pope, now there is an idea.

I am off tomorrow to buy a nice suit, its about time people started taking me seriously!

Will the real Irish labour party stand up?

We are on our way to national government the people have spoken,both Fianna Gael and Labour have a mandate to carry this little nation out of the mire and lead us on the road to recovery. Labour will posture and they will present whatever deal they negotiate to their party faithful and it will be ratified then they hope to secure some key cabinet positions in the next government and the job as they say is done.

Yet as I see it this is probably the greatest opportunity ever presented to the left in Ireland to once and for all establish itself as a serious player in future generations, and the labour party have now got the opportunity to change the course of Irish political history. I have no doubt they will fail miserably in this task as the lure of government offers its sticky hand, some will argue that their duty lies in calming the expected excesses of Fianna Gael and their new role is to protect from within.

Yet what if labour crosses the floor into oppositon, this will leave Fianna Gael courting some obscure and other popular independents, or will they end up relying on their true brothers the mighty Fianna Fail. Labour have it within their grasp to create an almost exclusively left wing opposition of considerable strength in both numbers and experience. Let the centre right lead the fight, let them find out the new untold secrets of the banking crisis, they can model and sell austerity to the middle classes who can afford to absorb these measures, reduce the public service and maybe even eliminate social welfare while there at it. Labour can fight against all of these measure in the knowledge of huge support on the opposite side of the house they can constantly challenge the excesses of the right and represent the poor, the disabled, the ordinary people.

If labour choose goverment which they will the stakes in the eternal game will be very high as austerity bites and a system which is by its nature flawed will crumble, and so possibly labours future support along with it.