TONIGHT With Vincent Browne

The Volt

browne was a FG candidate some years back wasn't he?

Dan_Solo

Lots of captains of free enterprise here in no way cringing at the irony of €50 billion of public money being handed to private banks and developers.

brianthebard

Sardonicat wrote: »

IMO, it's important to suspend personal opinion and remain equally skeptical of all parties to gain a balanced view. I would see Vinnie's role as this.

Well he has clearly failed spectacularly if that's his role, he has obviously shown the opinion that FF are a bunch of corrupt inept bollocks, and that he personally hates SF and thinks they are economic illiterates.

ArtSmart

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Lots of captains of free enterprise here in no way cringing at the irony of €50 billion of public money being handed to private banks and developers.

yeah, its truly amazing.

we've collectively accepted it as 'has to be done' - including myself.

yet the reality is that's exactly what happened.

public funds are paying for private enterprise folly.

i actually find myself getting more and more angry about it, not less. weird.

this 'free enterprise' talked about so much, nearly sank a country - and still might.

through raw greed.

steelcityblues

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Lots of captains of free enterprise here in no way cringing at the irony of €50 billion of public money being handed to private banks and developers.

Look at the supposed free enterprise champions of the Progressive Democrats, who went along with FF's high government spending and didn't curtail the likes of the HSE and so on. Mary Harney and Noel Grealish supporting the Bailout measures as 'independents'.

Irish politics continues to be mainly an ideology free zone with far too much faith placed in the State.

FG, under Kenny, will go down the same route I guarantee.

brianthebard

I would say that the PDs (and in the past 10 years or so FF) have been very ideologically driven, they are clearly endorsing the neo liberal agenda, the problem is this dominant position has been accepted almost completely by FG and with Labour moving ever closer to New Labour territory it has become unseemly to challenge the status quo.

Sardonicat

brianthebard wrote: »

I would say that the PDs (and in the past 10 years or so FF) have been very ideologically driven, they are clearly endorsing the neo liberal agenda, the problem is this dominant position has been accepted almost completely by FG and with Labour moving ever closer to New Labour territory it has become unseemly to challenge the status quo.

Yes, challenging the status quo was called Being Negative. totally agree with you re neo-lib agenda of pd/ff. I would say FG are closer to pds than "traditional" FF.

You think labour are turning into New labour?

brianthebard

Sardonicat wrote: »

Yes, challenging the status quo was called Being Negative. totally agree with you re neo-lib agenda of pd/ff. I would say FG are closer to pds than "traditional" FF.

I would broadly agree but traditional FF doesn't get to cabinet positions imo any more, at least not without having succumbed to the pd/neo-liberal agenda. Remember folks Cowen didn't guarantee the banks cause he's dumb or inept he did it because he believed it was the right thing to do according to his ideology - an even scarier reality than those other possibilities.

You think labour are turning into New labour?

Every day that Labour refuses to consider a left wing coalition and continues to try and grab the floating middle class vote they are moving closer and closer to the right and picking up or agreeing with FG policies. So yes in time the only possibility for the party if they do not change this is to arrive somewhere in the centre and even to the right of centre (but not as far as FF or FG).

ArtSmart

yeah, labour need to get a few clear messages out

raw unfettered capitalism got us into this mess.

wealth distribution is unequal and needs to be made more equal

the Irish people are not going to pay for the speculation of the few

so what if the country doesnt get wealthier as it did this last 10 years - as long as what is made is spread evenly across are members of society.

Europe is not going to dictate our lives.

kill FF

steelcityblues

brianthebard wrote: »

I would broadly agree but traditional FF doesn't get to cabinet positions imo any more, at least not without having succumbed to the pd/neo-liberal agenda. Remember folks Cowen didn't guarantee the banks cause he's dumb or inept he did it because he believed it was the right thing to do according to his ideology - an even scarier reality than those other possibilities.



Every day that Labour refuses to consider a left wing coalition and continues to try and grab the floating middle class vote they are moving closer and closer to the right and picking up or agreeing with FG policies. So yes in time the only possibility for the party if they do not change this is to arrive somewhere in the centre and even to the right of centre (but not as far as FF or FG).

Started another thread suggesting that Labour rebrand themselves as 'The Social Democrats', like most European parties, as there is very little that is traditional Left about their agenda under Gilmore.

Does not help when they have a lot of the relics of the old WP days, who seem to favour a high taxation policy that does not favour working-class voters.

brianthebard

steelcityblues wrote: »

Started another thread suggesting that Labour rebrand themselves as 'The Social Democrats', like most European parties, as there is very little that is traditional Left about their agenda under Gilmore.

Does not help when they have a lot of the relics of the old WP days, who seem to favour a high taxation policy that does not favour working-class voters.

funnily enough if you asked most of their members they would say their position is that of a social democrat and I think they include that phrase in their documentation somewhere but they haven't actually gone through with the rebranding fully, possibly in case they were to be confused with the sdlp by even a few voters?

steelcityblues

brianthebard wrote: »

funnily enough if you asked most of their members they would say their position is that of a social democrat and I think they include that phrase in their documentation somewhere but they haven't actually gone through with the rebranding fully, possibly in case they were to be confused with the sdlp by even a few voters?

No, because they still want to patronise the working class while taxing them to death and assisting in bailing out rich crooks.

Neo-liberalism in short.

Sardonicat

brianthebard wrote: »

I would broadly agree but traditional FF doesn't get to cabinet positions imo any more, at least not without having succumbed to the pd/neo-liberal agenda. Remember folks Cowen didn't guarantee the banks cause he's dumb or inept he did it because he believed it was the right thing to do according to his ideology - an even scarier reality than those other possibilities.



Every day that Labour refuses to consider a left wing coalition and continues to try and grab the floating middle class vote they are moving closer and closer to the right and picking up or agreeing with FG policies. So yes in time the only possibility for the party if they do not change this is to arrive somewhere in the centre and even to the right of centre (but not as far as FF or FG).

With the greates of respect, and i posted this a little earlier in response to someone who mistook me as a FFer, not agreeing with one does not apply agreeing with the other. i would not go into a coalition with ula either and i'm not right wing. having said that, i wouldn't go into coalition with fg either!

brianthebard

Sardonicat wrote: »

With the greates of respect, and i posted this a little earlier in response to someone who mistook me as a FFer, not agreeing with one does not apply agreeing with the other. i would not go into a coalition with ula either and i'm not right wing. having said that, i wouldn't go into coalition with fg either!

No coalition partner completely agrees with the other. Even candidates within the same party do not completely agree with one another, so its futile to hope that such a thing can occur. However Labour/Gilmore have in the recent past expressed hopes that Irish politics would shift to a more european style axis of left and right(paraphrasing). For that to happen a left wing coalition has to be a possibility and labour would have to by default hold policies or have more common ground with those on the far left than those on the right. At the minute labour are failing their potential voters on the left and they cannot compete on the right and have steadily declined in opinion polls as a result.

enfant terrible

brianthebard wrote: »

Remember folks Cowen didn't guarantee the banks cause he's dumb or inept he did it because he believed it was the right thing to do according to his ideology - an even scarier reality than those other possibilities.

Why didn't the kings of capitalism the US bail out one of their major banks the Lehman Brothers?

"Many have questioned U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s decision to let Lehman Brothers fail. Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, claimed that the decision was “horrendous.” This has been echoed by many other European policy makers and investors who blame the decision on ideology, claiming that Paulson refused to offer aid to avoid accusations of moral hazard."

Seems like the US allowed the capitalist system to function how it should.

Dempo1

brianthebard wrote: »

They did an all female panel a few weeks ago, well before Joan's accusations of sexism. That last nights' show was poor was mainly down to Vincent's questioning and hissy fits. As I said before the questions about coalition partners were not worth answering. When he wasn't getting an answer he liked he acted as if he were about to break into tears instead of dealing with it intelligently.

Hopefully tonight's show will be alright, I hope he intends to take SF and the ULA's proposals to seperate sovereign and bank debt and have the banks default seriously or it will be a very long night.

Sadly another poor show, bunch of lunatics to be frank, whilst some of these lefties have admirable policies they are however living in cuckoo land.

Jesus, I always knew Claire Daly was a tough cookie but never realized she looked so scary, would not fancy having her call to my door on a dark evening.

Poly

Good line up tonight:


"Tonight with Vincent Browne:Guests: Constantin Gurdgiev,Paul Sommerville,Peter Mathews,AntonMurphy.Twitter:Suzie B,Papers:Nicola Cooke"

SB-08

Really great line-up tonight. Constantin Gurdgiev,Paul Sommerville and Peter Mathews are all great at what they do and it's always refreshing to hear experts explain what's going on instead of political waffle.

Sardonicat

SB-08 wrote: »

Really great line-up tonight. Constantin Gurdgiev,Paul Sommerville and Peter Mathews are all great at what they do and it's always refreshing to hear experts explain what's going on instead of political waffle.

Hurrah!:D

I will be enoying tonights show.

ArtSmart

yeah should be good fun. always get a kick outta Somerville. and the bald headed contessa is always worth watching to see if his fact filled head finally explodes

JonathanAnon

I dont know lads.. I think Sommerville and Matthews need to address the misreading of the figures that took place on this show before, the last time they had an "all economists" panel... I've really lost a bit of credibility in both of them.... i.e. but not in my Russian hero ....

And isnt Peter Matthews one of those group of self confessed "I got the economic crash wrong" economists? Why any of this group are still allowed as contributors is beyond me...

ArtSmart

JonathanAnon wrote: »

I dont know lads.. I think Sommerville and Matthews need to address the misreading of the figures that took place on this show before, the last time they had an "all economists" panel...

wasnt that mostly Lucey?

I've really lost a bit of credibility in both of them.... i.e. but not in my Russian hero ....

And isnt Peter Matthews one of those group of self confessed "I got the economic crash wrong" economists? Why any of this group are still allowed as contributors is beyond me...

we get to see him self-flagellate.

Johnny, if we took these boyz seriously we'd all be fishing off the forty foot.

tis craic boy crrraiccckkk as they say in crrrrkkkk.

JonathanAnon

yeah, you are right about Lucey as well, but Sommerville was also involved in contributing to a misreading of the figures... Colm McCarthy was on radio the next day saying that it was irresponsible of them to make such comments as they could have called..

Another "economist" Jim Power was also on with Vincent recently. Him who wrote an article chastising Morgan Kelly over his article about the property bubble in 2007 .. and then had to humbly apologise..

Another example Marie Sherlock, SIPTU economist... This is the greatest contradiction in terms... I think broadcasters should be very careful when labelling people economists, as this title alone gives them credence...

In bad form tonight lads, been programming all day..

brianthebard

This could be good, I like somerville and the russki, somerville seems tightly wound though. It will be especially interesting to see what sort of treatment vincent gives somerville considering he holds almost the exact same policy of default that SF and ULA have which he has rubbished so much in the past week or so.

Sardonicat

brianthebard wrote: »

It will be especially interesting to see what sort of treatment vincent gives somerville considering he holds almost the exact same policy of default that SF and ULA have which he has rubbished so much in the past week or so.

Excellent point. Will be watching closely.

The Volt

Weren't Sommerville and Matthews on very recently? Yawn.

SEPT 23 1989

Always a bit of craic and banter when the "The Count" is on:D

ArtSmart

being a traitor at the mo - watchin rte thingy.

brianthebard

ArtSmart wrote: »

being a traitor at the mo - watchin rte thingy.

Don't know how you can watch that, too much flashing graphics and sports analogies for me.

Skid

jaysus, he's doing Fridays now post Late Late

This is overkill, I'm getting electioned out