Should Teflon Bertie go or cling on to power .

sovtek

oscarBravo wrote: »

Do we really want an alternative government with an equal sense of arrogance and entitlement?

I completely agree. They should be afraid of us...and loosing our vote based on their track record on policy. No one should assume they will get a vote just based on their party affiliation.

gbh

oscarBravo wrote: »

Something about this idea grates nastily with me. Basically, it seems to come down to a perceived need to fight gobshitery with gobshitery.

Do we really want an alternative government with an equal sense of arrogance and entitlement?

Elections are unfortunately a competition and you have to pull out all the stops. Cultivating a core vote doesnt nessecarily need to degenerate to gobshitery. But i don't see why workering class people shouldn't vote left wing, etc, people opposed to FF vote for other parties, instead of not voting at all.

We all know the FF voters in our community, they make no bones about it nor afraid to show it. And we all know the pull the same voters have and how they can get things done for them when they pick up the phone, etc. That is never going to go away, you aren't going to end that overnight...but of course if another party acted this way FF would label them with every name under the sun...

gbh

Tristrame wrote: »

Secret deals ,the Sindo?
Lol to be honest-if some of the headlines and rubbish read in that paper constitutes stuff helpfull to FF,then I don't know the definition of harmfull.
If the media includes the Irish Times and the Daily mail then I don't think it was persuading people to Vote FF that they were up to...

I think the point is...lose the core vote and the floating vote isn't much use to you.
It's all about the numbers.

It's not in dispute that the Sindo and Tony O'Reilly hold a major and influential share of the media market in Ireland...The Sindo is his propaganda paper...that's fairly clear and what's clear also is its bias towards FF in recent years. Of two of its regular writers, Willie O'Dea is FF and Eoin Harris is pseudo-FF as opposed to no other political party contributor.

It's not in dispute either that a secret deal was done between O'Railly and FF before the election.

gandalf

In answer to the original question, yes in any other democracy someone who is as potentially tainted would have had the good sense and honour to step down a long time ago. I think one of the journalists in an article I read recently put it very well, Bertie is being undone by the "death of 1000 cuts". The more situations that come out like the one in the past week of "he's my friend" "No I'm not" ilk are making Berties position look ridiculous at this stage.

purple'n'gold

Bertie is suffering from the same complaint that all politicians who have been in situ too long suffer from. (Except his is an extreme example) He thinks he is infallible. In his mind we are very lucky to have him as our leader and he finds it incomprehensible that anyone should question his bone fides. He cannot imagine himself as anything else except taoiseach. He lost the run of himself a long time ago; he actually thinks that he is an important leader on the world stage. Just look at his attitude to his recent huge pay rise, and they way he is dismissive of our health crisis. If he ever had a humble bone in his body, (which I doubt) it disappeared a long time ago. Yes he should go, ASAP.

Tea drinker

ballooba wrote: »

The people who voted for Fianna Fail knew the score before the election.

Well, I disagree to a certain extent.
I think some knew, and liked the way life was going for them, but I think most voters actually believed they (FF) were the engine of Irish success.
Actually it was quite a bit after the election that bedgudgers came out and started damaging the economy with their defeatist talk. This was purported to be the source of all our problems.
Now, one of the biggest get out of jail free cards is the credit crunch / interest rates thing, ah, sure be janey, 'tis nothin dat FF dun!

If he was honest I think he would step down. But, well, he's not steppin down, is he?

serfboard

purplengold wrote: »

Bertie is suffering from the same complaint that all politicians who have been in situ too long suffer from. Just look at his attitude to his recent huge pay rise, and they way he is dismissive of our health crisis. If he ever had a humble bone in his body, (which I doubt) it disappeared a long time ago. Yes he should go, ASAP.

Bar the 2 (and a bit) years that Fine Gael were in government, Fianna Fail have been in government for the last 20 years, and if this current government lasts it will have been 25 years. It's no wonder that they (and Bertie in particular) have gotten to be so arrogant.

What's surprising to me is Bertie's two-fingered attitude since the general election. Starting with that bitter interview he did on the night of the election, and continuing with a) the pay rise and b) his atrocious defence of it, it seems he really couldn't give a damn what anyone thinks. I presume that this is because he won't be running at the next general election. However, if he continues with this attitude, he will damage FF and so they will move to "fast-track" his retirement.

A pay rise that's greater than the average industrial wage really nails the "man of the people" myth.

gbh

I agree with the two fingeredness...

Particularly...where he accepts a 38,000 pay increase and calls it tokenism...yet trys to pressure people on less than 38,000 a year not to look for significant increases...its just beyond belief how he dealt with the issue, a real kick in the teeth to ordinary working people, but thats FF politicians for ya...The "I'm alright Jack, the rest of yee can get by best as you can" attitude...To be honest I don't really think FF care about anything other than power, power, power, they certainly don't care about ordinary people struggling at the lower end and hoping they don't end up in our 3rd world health system along the way...

Secondly, the "political implications" as Noel O'Flynn has rightly described it of his recent Mahon Tribunal testimony is important and vital to giving a true assessment of his charachter and not the Sindo/Eoin Harris guff that comes to his rescue every so often...of course FF want us all not to focus on it and laugh it off as a dig out...

oscarBravo

gbh banned for a month, and offending material edited out.

I'm going zero-tolerance on this issue from here out. Anyone who posts prejudicial remarks about matters being investigated by the Mahon Tribunal will be banned.

Final warning.