The Conference Hall, post Leader's Address
Gilmore’s address contained nothing entirely unexpected. There is little a party leader can say these days that has not been said before, be in in a party address or in the Dáil. Read the rest of this entry »
Something of a downer for Labour on the day that’s in it. Tomorrow’s Red C / Sunday Business Post poll:
FG 31 (+1)
FF 28 (+5)
Lab 17 (-5)
SF 7 (-4)
Green 7 (+1)
Others 10 (+2)
After looking for our questions, Brian Cowen has now responded on YouTube. In an email to me (and several thousand others) with the subject line ‘Answering your questions,’ Cowen says: “Over the last two weeks, people from all over the country have been submitting their questions for me through the new Fianna Fáil website. I received over a thousand questions on a vast number of topics. Given the overwhelming number you submitted, I’ve only been able to answer a selection of the most popular questions. I’d like to thank each of you for putting these questions to me.”
He links to the FF website where you can watch his responses to questions under four topics – the economy, the pension levy, the ‘political situation’, and ‘a smarter economy’. Here he is answering questions on the pension levy: Read the rest of this entry »
Given the seriousness of our economic situation, there was some speculation around City West on Saturday that the television audience for Cowen’s speech to the Soldiers (his fourth ‘State of the Nation,’ as it were) might break the 500,000 mark. In the event he pulled in 375,000.
That amounts to a decent 24.6% of the audience at that time. I suppose expecting the half mill was wishful thinking on a day when 1 million viewers had already watched a rugby match. Many of the viewers at home probably had their fill of TV for the day, while the pub audience would have moved on to a higher state of enlightenment by half past eight.
RTÉ also tell me that 88,000 watched Gerry Adams’ speech at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis the previous Saturday (10.9% of the audience). I reckon it’s time Sinn Féin move to the 8.30-9pm slot – not many are able for the 50 minute-long political speech these days.
Cowen’s audience was well above the 263,000 (16.6%) who watched Kenny’s speech in November (though that was a Fine Gael ‘national conference’ and not a fully-fledged Ard Fheis), and also way past the 246,000 (14.6%) who watched Gilmore’s address to the Labour faithful at a ’special delegate conference’ later that month.
First, please bear in mind that this is my reaction to the speech having witnessed it from inside the conference hall. It was pitched for a television audience so the reactions of the folks at home are more important than our opinions here in City West.
Having said all that, I thought the delivery was fine. Just fine. But the content was not so hot. Read the rest of this entry »
BikeMi rank at Piazza del Duomo, Milan
Brian Cowen entered the conference hall of the FF Ard Fheis this evening to Arcade Fire’s ‘No Cars Go’. While our Taoiseach may not have seen the environmental message I have decided is contained therein it feels apt that a week ahead of the Green Party’s conference in Wexford (Eoin and Lenny will be down there for YellowRomanCandles) we check out how the Italians have established a bike rental scheme to complement its public transport system.
Before I try to explain how the scheme works I should probably explain how far the Italians, and the Milanese in particular, are ahead of us in the public transport stakes. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ll be joining the rest of the Irish political blogosphere in blogging Cowen’s address later. Suzy has retired to the comfort of her living room, but Gavin, Mark and I intend to be inside the conference hall for the speech. You can follow both live blogs here and here.
In terms of news, this Ard Fheis has been slow. The result is more attention being focused on tonight’s speech, which apparently was being redrafted up until 1 o’clock this afternoon (the press room has yet to see the embargoed copy). It’s hard to see how Cowen can live up to it. At this stage, I think he will be happy with a moderately positive reception.
That’s probably all from me ’til after the rugby. George Hook has been tweeting from the studio in Croker.
The FF slump continues. Labour on the rise. In tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post:
FG 30% (-3)
FF 23% (-5)
LAB 22% (+8)
GRN 6% (-2)
SF 11% (+2)
Ind 8%
Via Irish Election
Ah, democracy. On the face of it, UCD’s FF branch had a reasonably solid resolution calling for the Minister to Education to “maintain the ‘free fees initiative’”. But speaking in support of the measure, Naas delegate Kevin Dillon said maybe they could look at a graduate tax, which would be “fair” and “maintain our competitiveness”.
I suppose the phrase ‘free fees initiative’ in quotation marks technically refers to the current situation where the State pays students’ course fees. It’s a technical phrase that allows the party to appear to support free third level education while introducing a graduate tax would make college education even more expensive.
When it came to taking the vote, the chairman of the education session incorrectly summarized the resolution saying it “acknowledges the benefit that 3rd level education has played in building the Irish economy,” while completely ignoring the ‘meat’ of the proposal: maintaining the ‘free fees iniative’. This seemed to throw delegates and, of a packed room of 300 people, around 12 voted in favour and 4 against.
We were supposed to doorstep Dermot Ahern (should have more on that shortly) but after much confusion and a trip around the corridors of Mansfield’s complex, it was postponed. That meant I couldn’t make it down to the ‘Voting Marquee’ in time to snap the mess made by delegates earlier when they were campaigning for election to FF’s ‘Committee of 20′ (seats on the party’s Ard Comhairle that can be contested by ordinary members). Here’s all that was left of a huge carpark that was blanketed in flyers an hour earlier. It’s hard to imagine how much was spent on printing leaflets for this in-house election.
Or at least his speechwriter did.
From Gerry Adams’ Sinn Féin Ard Fheis address last weekend:
Woody Guthrie once wrote: ‘Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen’.
From Dermot Ahern’s speech to the Justice session of the FF Ard Fheis today:
That late great American folf singer woody Guthrie sang of how ’some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.’
Poor.
I arrived late at City West this evening, as is my wont, but still caught most of the plenary session where Cowen defended the policy of local election candidates being selected by HQ. In fact, he managed to come down equally on both sides of that argument, saying he had “no problem” with the motion objecting to the new selection process. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems ironic that a considerable number of bloggers will be attending the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in City West this weekend, given the annoyance caused by the Joe Raspars event on Wednesday evening. Cheesing off some of the country’s most read bloggers wasn’t the best way for FF to launch its embracing of Web 2.0.
But Twitter was all a flutter yesterday with Letterkenny town councillor Damien Blake offering to organise accreditation, while Maman Poulet and Gavin have already confirmed that they’ll be blogging from the event. As will yours truly. Read the rest of this entry »
I had registered to attend last night’s seminar by the Obama presidential campaign’s New Media director Joe Rospars but, in the end, my gig broadcasting to the masses in UCD prevented me from attending. And I missed quite a storm, it seems. Read the rest of this entry »
Paul Gogarty has been known to express himself in unusual ways. In a Hotpress interview to be published on Thursday, his thoughts on coalition with Fianna Fáil:
Put it this way, if you get into bed with anyone you have prostituted yourself! We are lying there bollix naked next to Fianna Fail. We’ve been screwed by them a few times, but we are hoping we can roll them around to get what we want, over the longer term.
And on John Gormley:
John has gone inward. He has gone a bit within himself because of the ministry. He’s not a cuddly teddy bear! He’s one of the good guys, but he’s like one of these hippos that, if you stand on his tail, he will demolish you! John has balls and he’ll fight his corner. He’ll cut your throat if it means doing the right thing. But the question is, have we the balls to put it to Fianna Fail and has he taken his share of responsibility? The jury is still out.
Much more, including his thoughts on Beverley Flynn and a “flirty” Mary Coughlan, here.
