Yeah, he's a dipshit, but he's not the one speaking.
Irish Politics
- Thread starter JakeC
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
He’s the one who chose to cut the video right before she gave any kind of proper answer to the question. Now she may well have waffled on with a load of empty nonsense (as politicians do) but the video has clearly been edited to make her look as bad as possible. Textbook Twitter culture war behaviour. Which Cosgrave has been up to his bollox in for years.
Who is she anyway?
Lumpenproletariat
Exactly. That phrase resonates. And lumpen is German for Ragged and that always makes me think of Tressel's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists which is the other issue with us proles. All so tediously frustrating.
Happy days.
There's a clip in the last 20 minutes of Hutch arriving at the RDS and being interviewed outside. Not able to speak a full sentence. Grim.
Not the kind of sentence I’d like to see him completing tbh.
thank god. Well done Sherlock
So the exit polls where wrong. It predicted SF in 1st place.
FF 21.9%
FG 20.8%
SF 19%
FF 21.9%
FG 20.8%
SF 19%
Absolute grifter. Piss off back to Spain, you shitbag.
The media are pricks. No wonder democracies are all dysfunctional with the state of those sensation chasing tossers.
Hutch losing out on a seat despite getting the 4th most first preferences once again highlighting the value of PR-STV.
The exit polls had a margin of error of 1.4% so I wouldn’t say they were wrong.
SF mark was out 2.1% which is massive in elections
FF was supposed to be 3rd and ended up first which is 2.4% out.
FG is the one that is well within margin.
It's like they got the FF and SF the wrong way round and if it was the other way round the exit polls would have been spot on and well well within margin of error.
It also changes the narrative that SF where starting to put out about being the biggest on both sides of the border etc.
Why are you doing this, Ireland?
It’s hardly that bad compared to a lot of European trends is it? We’ve completely rejected the far right.
No signs of culture war in FG or FF?
Voting in the same government after 15 years. Pretty remarkably stupid. The entire nation is a bit of a joke. From the press to the incestuous fifth generation TDs.
Maybe it's for the best if FG/FG get enough seats to form a coalition without a smaller party. I can't imagine it'll make a massive difference to the next government's policies, and at least there won't be a smaller left-wing party to get the sacrificial kicking next time around.
Yeah, will be interesting to see who takes the brunt of the blame next time. FG as FF’s mudguard would be…something
None whatsoever. Despite being portrayed as essentially fascist by Irish lefties, they are not right wing parties at all when it comes to the hot topic culture war stuff.
It does seem that being in the center is classed as right wing by the left.
So the three biggest parties in Ireland are two centrist parties and one left wing party?
Correct. Although FF/FG are both right of centre. But not by much. And progressive on a lot of important issues (LGBTQ rights, woman’s rights, immigration etc.)
Then what's all the complaining about?
They’ve overseen an unprecedented housing crisis, ruined our health service, made us the most expensive country in Europe for just about everything, failed to build any meaning infrastructure, and generally just been a bit shite in power.
I know you’re taking the piss but the short answer is neoliberalism. Ireland is falling foul of the same shit that is worsening inequality basically everywhere. And when that happens it’s the present incumbent that people blame. With a little sprinkling of a very Irish jobs for the boys low grade corruption in the mix. Plus any party that is right of centre is more closely aligned with capitalism than those to the left.
I posit that if your problem is neoliberalism, you have right-wing parties 
Housing, healthcare, and education (mostly at the younger levels but some parties would have implemented a free third level policy).
Housing and homelessness has never been worse here. That's the complaint really. And these two are directly to blame for that. If they solve it, I won't complain. I just do not see them solving it.
Basically correct. I mean the only policies you'd really want exported to the government are radical action on social housing and far more investment in healthcare and education. Of course, there's more. But sort those three out and most other things would come into line.
Plus any party that is right of centre is more closely aligned with capitalism than those to the left.
Very familiar problems. I wouldn't say we quite have them in Norway, but they're definitely making their way across Europe (and the US).
It's interesting that this has all been happening while Ireland's GPD (and thus GPD per capita) has shot up, making a lot of people assume Ireland is doing amazingly.
Our GDP is meaningless because we’re a tax haven that multinationals funnel their profits through. Not to say salaries aren’t high here, they are, but they wouldn’t compare with Norway.
Plus any party that is right of centre is more closely aligned with capitalism than those to the left.
You talk about neoliberalism as if it's like the flu, and you catch it. It's a specific economic policy that needs implementation.
Ireland spends 22% of its GDP on its state expenditure. The EU average is something like 40%.
Which is probably what accounts for the above. False GDP figures. Highly inflated.
It’s a global policy, going back a very long time, that everyone is trying to operate within. How do you extricate the Irish economy from it? And what would the consequences be for Ireland?
In some senses we are doing well relative to other countries.
The economy is (currently) healthy, we had some of the lowest inflation in europe this year, 2/3rds of voters said they are as well or better off than they were 12 month ago (as per the exit poll), and if you compare our recent budget to the UK's for example we're very far from the austerity-chasing position they're in. And while there has been an upsurge in far-right activism, it hasn't translated to any electoral success, nor has the cultural war bullshit infected our mainstream parties to the same extent it has other countries.
The problem is simply that none of that has translated to adequate infrastructure, or left Ireland feeling anything like as wealthy a country as it actually is in terms of public services.
It's an economic theory.
Part of stopping with the provision of social housing and leaving it to the markets is an example of policy influenced by neoliberal economics.
There would be no consequences on our global position?
Edit - from Wikipedia
"The Handbook of Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is contemporarily used to refer to market-oriented reform policies such as "eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, lowering trade barriers" and reducing, especially through privatization and austerity, state influence in the economy."
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