Time for a Turkey Party?

Sleepy

No, not Dustin running for president again... an idea I had when hearing the old 'Turkeys voting for Christmas' line again...

I was wondering if the best way to get the country back on track would be for a group of non-politically affiliated people to run for election in every constituency in the country under the mandate that they would sort out wastage in the running of our country.

The idea would be that if enough of these people got elected they could form a government and pass legislation regarding politicians expenses (i.e. only vouched legitimate expenses, no turning up money or 'allowances' for chairing committees), permanently link politicians pay to national average wage, get a referendum passed (if one is needed) to reduce the number of seats in the Dail and reform the Seaned etc. Once all this had been done (shouldn't take more than a month), they'd call a general election and hand back the reigns of power to whoever was elected.

I'd certainly vote for such a party and I believe there'd be quite a chance of them getting enough seats under this mandate. If they didn't get quite all the seats I could see some independents and perhaps someone like Sinn Fein / Socialist Workers Party etc getting involved for the good publicity...

Probably not realistic but as an idea, what do the people of boards.ie think?

turgon

Good in principle, but what happens when they get into the Dail and they realize they have the power of the country to themselves, and no political obligations?

Scofflaw

Sleepy wrote: »

No, not Dustin running for president again... an idea I had when hearing the old 'Turkeys voting for Christmas' line again...

I was wondering if the best way to get the country back on track would be for a group of non-politically affiliated people to run for election in every constituency in the country under the mandate that they would sort out wastage in the running of our country.

The idea would be that if enough of these people got elected they could form a government and pass legislation regarding politicians expenses (i.e. only vouched legitimate expenses, no turning up money or 'allowances' for chairing committees), permanently link politicians pay to national average wage, get a referendum passed (if one is needed) to reduce the number of seats in the Dail and reform the Seaned etc. Once all this had been done (shouldn't take more than a month), they'd call a general election and hand back the reigns of power to whoever was elected.

I'd certainly vote for such a party and I believe there'd be quite a chance of them getting enough seats under this mandate. If they didn't get quite all the seats I could see some independents and perhaps someone like Sinn Fein / Socialist Workers Party etc getting involved for the good publicity...

Probably not realistic but as an idea, what do the people of boards.ie think?

I'm not sure it would work on a national level - the entrenched politics of each constituency are, well, entrenched.

It might well work on a local level, if every local council had someone who was elected purely on the basis of being a "citizen watchman", whose only job was to report in a non-partisan way on the doings of the council.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Tim Robbins

Sleepy wrote: »

I'd certainly vote for such a party and I believe there'd be quite a chance of them getting enough seats under this mandate. If they didn't get quite all the seats I could see some independents and perhaps someone like Sinn Fein / Socialist Workers Party etc getting involved for the good publicity...

Probably not realistic but as an idea, what do the people of boards.ie think?

A joke. It's actually quite difficult to draft legislation. You need a lot of legal knowledge or you make an absolute mess of it. This is one reason why all political parties have a large number of Solicitors and Barristers.

The other point I'd make is that for a small country, we already have a large number of political parties, perhaps too many as there's very little difference between many of them.

What would be better is if more young people who are not happy with things, joining political parties, NGOs etc got involved.

But the problem is we're just dim. The best thing that happen to this state was Europe and we gave that the two fingers last year.

Sleepy

Tim Robbins, are you telling me that politicians write the legislation themselves? I was pretty sure that was handled by civil servants.

The purpose of this 'party' would be too exist purely as a one off, to vote for the christmas (and billions in savings) that the current turkeys won't vote for, to cull the numbers and potentially the number of parties in the process.

For most of us joining a political party is rather a waste of time. The two major parties are imho, too conservative and too corrupt, Labour's as good as owned by the unions and the rest are a bunch of crackpots / criminals.

994

Tim Robbins wrote: »

The other point I'd make is that for a small country, we already have a large number of political parties, perhaps too many as there's very little difference between many of them.

We don't have nearly enough parties - as for the difference, have you heard of Hoteller's Law?

wylo

Sleepy wrote: »

.

I was wondering if the best way to get the country back on track would be for a group of non-politically affiliated people to run for election in every constituency in the country under the mandate that they would sort out wastage in the running of our country.

The idea would be that if enough of these people got elected they could form a government and pass legislation regarding politicians expenses (i.e. only vouched legitimate expenses, no turning up money or 'allowances' for chairing committees),

Sounds good until these very people get swallowed up by the pettyness of politics themselves (it wouldnt take long), what do we then? vote for even newer people to sort out these guys?

I know people in local residents associations that enjoy their bit of power,

Dannyboy83

We need robots.
I will be the first to welcome our new robot overlords.

No, seriously tho, I don't care if its between Labour or Fine Gael.

We just need to get Fianna Fail out now and get some damage control. They're in government too long and too corrupt.

Get FF out, Let FF have their own little civil war, root out the bad guys and get credible people instead of Willie O Dea, Bertie etc. then when they're ready, they can come back.

The reality is half the country and most of the public service will vote Fianna Fail back into power.

Put it this way:
FF stay in power - public sector will get another 10% wage cut next in 2009 and 2010 again.
FF go out of power - public sector will be culled considerably, bigger wage cuts, huge elimination of public waste.

Public sector employees have swelled under Fianna Fail.
They have bascially built their own private electorate, who are bound with golden hand cuffs.

The only thing FG/Labour to could is to promise to not cull public sector jobs.
That can't happen because if they were elected they would have to sort the mess out.


Conclusion:
1/2 this country would prefer to continue living in the myth and take 30% wage cuts, as to facing reality and losing their jobs.

Sleepy

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

The only thing FG/Labour to could is to promise to not cull public sector jobs.
That can't happen because if they were elected they would have to sort the mess out.

Why couldn't they? It's not like the Irish public would be surprised to have a political party renege on an election promise!

sceptre

994 wrote: »

We don't have nearly enough parties - as for the difference, have you heard of Hoteller's Law?

Do you mean Hotelling's Law? It's a nice catchy line to throw out about clustering, but the assumptions about fixed or non-fixed price fixing (which are central to the theory) make it pretty much non-applicable outside economics as anything other than a nice catchy line to throw out about clustering.

Tim Robbins

Sleepy wrote: »

Tim Robbins, are you telling me that politicians write the legislation themselves? I was pretty sure that was handled by civil servants.

Some of them do. McDowell did. Which is one reason why his department was also pushing more legislation than anyone elses because he was such a legal genius he was able to get it done much quicker. What generally happens is the Minsister comes up with the idea and gets help drafting the legislation.

A cr*p Minister rarely gets any legislation in, usually because they are so clueless they are afraid of standing over any change as they would be ripped apart as the legislation / bill etc was going through the Dail.

For most of us joining a political party is rather a waste of time. The two major parties are imho, too conservative and too corrupt, Labour's as good as owned by the unions and the rest are a bunch of crackpots / criminals.

And then turkey party has no structure, no policy, no coherent manifesto.

Tim Robbins

994 wrote: »

We don't have nearly enough parties - as for the difference, have you heard of Hoteller's Law?

Great buzzword, thanks.