Post-conference revue

I’ll do one as soon as I earn a reprieve from essay-land – hopefully later this week. I believe I was the only blogger to attend all five party conferences this year and I have a few observations to share from my experiences. I also have a few thoughts on the usefulness of having bloggers cover these events. All going well, I should have it up here by Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned.

Cowen answers ‘my’ questions

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:

FF trying to pull a fast one on bloggers?

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.

Hoping we won’t shoot the messenger

Hats off to Carl O’Brien for his insightful feature on the economic situation in my native county, Longford. Through talking to a wide cross section of the local community – politicians, traders, publicans, auctioneers, farmers, commuters, immigrants – he paints what I feel is a very accurate picture of what’s happening there.

A drive through most parishes reveals an empty or unfinished housing development, while recently built commercial/industrial units lie dormant on the outskirts of Longford town. In the town itself, the high number of vacant retail spaces is evident and on the Main St a brand new shopping centre lies empty with no anchor tenant. The county has experienced many problems with its water supply in recent years and, like everywhere else, the job situation is prompting young people to skip the country.

Growing up in Longford, I always felt that local establishment figures (namely politicians and local media) were always too sensitive to any coverage the county received in the national media.

Better, but too bad no one was watching

Photo: The Labour Party.

“Well? Are you inspired?” somebody asked me just after Enda Kenny’s speech in Wexford. The tone was sarcastic but the questioner had seen quite a few of these jamborees and who was I to question his cynicism. It was my first party conference but I’ve seen plenty of leaders’ speeches on television over the years to know that these are not inspirational moments. I thought Kenny’s speech was reasonably well delivered but, in terms of content, was lacking anything approaching new or refreshing. He aimed to be stern, yet reassuring and I think he hit his mark.

The Wexford experience coloured my approach to Eamon Gilmore’s speech in Kilkenny last weekend. I was unable to attend the Labour Party’s ’special delegate conference’ but sitting at home you could see that this speech had more fire and less pragmatism than Kenny’s offering. Inspired is far too strong a word to use here but it’s fair to say I was impressed.

Murdoch’s influence on the Sunday Times’ Lisbon stance

Sarah Carey sheds some light on an area of the Irish media that’s rarely discussed publicly – the inner workings of Rupert Murdoch’s Irish (and in some cases Oirish) outlets. The ex-Sunday Times columnist details how the editor of that paper’s Irish edition suddenly changed his stance on the Lisbon Treaty just weeks before the referendum. Frank Fitzgibbon originally believed the treaty was a “political imperative,” she says, but then changed his mind and banned any pro-treaty opinion articles from appearing in the paper.

It goes without saying that Murdoch has been a long-time critic of the European project and his newspapers in the UK reflect that. With a second referendum now looking inevitable, all possible reasons for the first result will be closely scrutinised in the coming weeks. Carey is asking that people consider whether some backers of the No vote are taking that position for ulterior motives:

I’m not saying that anyone who voted No didn’t care about Ireland. But I am saying that certain constituencies who argued against Lisbon did so not because they believed it to be the right thing, but for other reasons. If our entire political establishment was dismayed because Lisbon was defeated and the cheers from Wapping were ringing in our ears, doesn’t that make anyone wonder whether No was the right answer to the question?

It’s worth noting that while Carey believes Fitzgibbon told her he was infavour of the treaty, she accepts it is possible that she “misunderstood his views”.

Also, it’s refreshing to see a columnist write so openly about the internal machinations of another newspaper. The national media is a relatively small pond in Ireland and we don’t see such frank criticism of journalists by their colleagues (or former colleagues) very often.