Anyway I’ve digressed but my original message was to say whilst I haven’t been posting (blog wise) a lot lately, I’ve been busy over on twitter which to be honest is a whole lot easier than writing a full article. So for anyone interested you’ll find me over here in between blog posts…

PS Our former leader (Bertie Ahern TD) begins his News of the World column tomorrow, and whatever about apple tarts, the man knows his sport. Might even pick up a copy as my usual business post is sadly lacking in the green field department..

In the middle of all this we have an opinion poll. FF are on 22% – a historic low. Like most members I’m pretty disappointed by this but not hugely surprised. The public sector pension measures were never going to be popular with those affected; people are not sadomasochists. People are angry and to a certain extent nervous of what’s around the corner. Like most workers out there I’m not expecting any increments or bonuses this year, and will consider myself lucky if that’s all I have to worry about. It’s not easy. Jobs are being lost hand over fist in the private sector.

The last couple of days have been pretty much worst case scenarios for the government. The ILP / AngloIrish transactions beggar belief. The recap scheme was followed by BoI doubling its bad debt write off the very same day. Brian Goggin (BoI CEO) came on the news to tell us he would “only” earn “just under 2 million” next year. Are these people for real? The government need to kick some ass and quick. Heads have started to roll but more needs to come. And it can’t be just about public hangings. Jesus was fed to an angry mob. Get the right heads rolling and fast..

Back to that opinion poll. I think though the government have been under pressure they’ve actually turned a corner in the last fortnight. But they’re not sellling the message. I guess it’s hard to steer a ship and man the radio at the same time. But someone needs to do it or the vacuum will be filled elsewhere. It’s already happening – I used to like Gilmore – I’ve praised him on this blog before – but I cannot believe his performance over recent times. It’s the worst kind of economic populism (Burton too). It’s easy to throw out soundbites and beat an empty drum. And it’s so hypocritical. Only a few months ago Gilmore and his apparatchiks were readying to steamroll a ‘New Labour’, Blair style reform package, through the NEC (Labour central council), stimying the grassroots and unions and centralising control in a new centre right leadership. Just ask a Labour activist about the ‘commission on twenty-first century labour’. But hey presto its in the trashcan since the winds of change started blowing – who needs ideology eh? Yet the poll suggests it’s working for them. I think it’s very dangerous. We are entering a 1930′s style era economically – and we all know how that one worked out.

I close with a quote from a favourite poem (Yeats Second Coming) – seems pretty apt in current climate:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I will be voting Yes, not just because the big man say so, (although as an FF activist I am highly motivated to deliver a successful first outing for him) but also because I have studied the issues and concluded it is the right thing to do. The treaty enhances democracy, streamlines procedures, makes sensible procedural adjustments and ensures equality across all member states, no mean feat considering the extremes of size and weight across the union. In fact countries like Ireland end up punching above our weight with the same presence at the table as Germany, France or any the other larger member states. Sure we lose a comissioner for 5 out of every 15 years, but so does everyone else and we all know above a certain critical mass a committee can no longer function effectively. The treaty is hard to sell because there are no big new ideas like the single currency or enlargement, but rather housekeeping, making the union work better from within and without. National and the European parliament have greatly increase powers increasing the democratic ethos of the union, whilst the citizens’ charter enables participative democracy on a grand pan-european scale. Interestingly this million-sig petition idea came from John Gormley who similarly has comparable ideas at local level in the recent local government green paper. The treaty has been in progress for over ten years, and I believe in order for the union to continue to function these changes are essential – the status quo is not an option. At the end of the day the key agreements were forged under the Irish presidency when then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and then Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen put 90% of it together.

Lastly on the local scene, the Taoiseach and our very own Commissioner McCreevy were in town last week where I joined them for a whistlestop tour up Naas main street. Reaction was good as most people are engaged at this point with minds focussing during the closing stages and more and more information coming onstream. Most the local councillors have personalised posters up at this stage signifying the final rallying round before the big day. Top points for european exposure go to Paddy Mac and the Labour posters which one could be forgiven for taking as local election posters so faint is the white Lisbon related text buried away in the top corner above a huge photo and name plate. In fairness to Paddy it seems to be the Labour template as I’ve seen them in Dublin too with all the Labour councillors and why not, they might as well kill two birds at one stone – recycling at its best. A cynical thought did strike me though – with the left so split on the issue, could they possibly be attempting to have it both ways with maximum profiling on the issue and yet a degree of detachment from the message. Play the man not the treaty.. Given Gilmore’s vigorous championing on various news programmes it’s hardly the official line but to the man on the street looking at a poster, name association achieved with minimal baggage?? Far fetched perhaps but fiendishly cute at the same time!

Realising that no amount of hand-wringing or high flown rhetoric can compensate for good old fashioned graft, addressing the Labour executive in Waterford last weekend, he called upon all public representatives to spend at least two hours a week on constituency work and ideally pounding the pavements.

Fianna Fáil election poster from 1954

Problem for Mr. Gilmore he’s just about eighty years too late. Fianna Fáil have been doing this since the foundation of the party and have been long famed for constituency apparatus, getting the vote out, looking after the base etc etc. No less so in modern times. I’d say I spend two hours a day, never mind a week on constituency work and I’m not even a public rep.

Ironically the very model Gilmore wants the Labour party to copy is that of An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern’s St. Lukes constituency office where a solid, consistent and professional approach to local representative matters has delivered the Taoiseach surplus after surplus in successive elections since he first entered the Dáil.

Local activity, putting in the leg work, delivering for the people all year round is what wins elections. Fianna Fáil are at 36% in today’s Sunday Business Post/Red C poll. A welcome jump of 4% on the last one but these things are overplayed. I remember there were all sorts of polls in the run up to election 07 and I saw Sean Dorgan (FF General Secretary) on RTE one night unfazed by any of them. He pointed out that his calculations were based on per-constituency, local level analyses where FF candidates were out working the ground, rather than worrying about latest Irish Times opinion figures. As the Taoiseach himself would say, there’s only one poll that counts. Well the next one of those is June 2009. And Fianna Fáil will be counted.