Archive for the 'Politics' Category

The darkest night before the dawn..

Friday, June 11th, 2010

Yesterday’s opinion poll marked a new low point for Fianna Fáil and for the government, but the real low point has been the slow drip drip, of death by a thousand cuts and gradual erosion of party support over the past many months and even years.

I’ve long said it is not good enough to simply want [...]

“Excellent in parts”..

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

According to wikipedia the phrase “curate’s egg” refers to something that is partly good and partly bad, but as a result is entirely spoiled. Modern usage has tended to change this to mean something having a mix of good and bad qualities. I am still veering between the two definitions in the context of this [...]

#IBA 10 !

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Irish Blog Awards 2010 (aka #iba10 to Dan Boyle and the like) is here again. Delighted to see that for the third year in a row I have been nominated for an award.
This year I feature in two categories, this blog is in under ‘Best blog by a politician’ which I quite like as before [...]

Boy George, Bye Bye

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Catch my latest post over at IrishElection.com ;
http://www.irishelection.com/2010/02/boy-george-no-more/
A story about a little boy who threw all his toys out of the pram.

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(Mostly) all politics are local

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Note this is a cross post from IrishElection.com where I’ve been posting a lot lately. There is quite a busy discussion going on over there also on the same piece.
This post stems from a discussion in the comments section under ‘All politics is local’. We were comparing and contrasting the UK and Irish systems in [...]

More Highs and Lows 2009

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Just to advise, I have published a longer version of my original highs and lows on IrishElection.com at the following URL:
http://www.irishelection.com/2010/01/highs-and-lows-2009/
Quite a few comments and discussion if you want to drop by there.

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Highs and Lows 2009

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

I’ve pulled together a collection of some highs and lows from 2009.  There may be a few which are neither highs or lows but have aspects of both or worthy of commentary for some other reason.
Some highs:
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Budget 2010. Whilst I accept this was difficult to swallow for many and my own household (being 50% public [...]

The good ship union adrift at sea?

Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009

It appears the unions have managed to scuttle their own ship before it even left port with the events of the past few days. They always looked to be leaking, at least to those on land, but are they now holed below the waterline?
There was going to be a challenge from the start in rallying [...]

Something for the weekend

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

For those that like to keep up with my musings (and I know you’re a select few, kudos!) just a note to say I’ve recently started contributing over at IrishElection.com…
Sometimes I’ll cross post, sometimes I won’t depends on the topic. This weekend, it’s a bit of fun, Halloween scare the (big) kids kind of stuff, [...]

The Price of Politics (Part II)

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

I received figures this morning documenting all candidates expenses and returns for the recent local elections. These were made available to all elected members and as a candidate I also requested and received a copy.
Interesting to dissect the different trends. In deference to the different individuals, I do not intend to treat of any specifics [...]