Eamon Gilmore shows naivity about attrocity in Norway

Slideshowbob

I had my doubts before, but I could barely believe Gilmore's chatter this morning on the radio.

Despite his primary role as Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gilmore felt he had to extol the virtues of the Irish Labour Party having the same name as the Norweigan Labour Party.

I know they go on about alliances in the EU, but in reality, how closely alligned can both parties be and what has that got to do with the extent of the sympathy he should be portraying on behalf of all of the Irish people.

I fear for the new government.

What programme was he on - any link?

I'm fairly sure some Irish Labour folk would have met some of the victims at seminars and suchlike over the years, and there is a good bit of crossover between the Irish party and the Norwegian one. I wouldn't mind hearing the clip.

Slideshowbob

Thought I heard it on Morning Ireland but did a quick scan and found nothing.

IIRC was on somewhere at about 8.50am.

I found this on the Labour website:

http://www.labour.ie/press/listing/13114137845969052.html

When the acts of a mad man come into it and reek such damage do party politics really matter Eamon????

Maybe I am wrong here so maybe someone can demonstrate to me how closely aligned the two Labour parties are?!?

Of course I may just be being callous here but just a thought!

Reekwind

Slideshowbob wrote: »

When the acts of a mad man come into it and reek such damage do party politics really matter Eamon????

It's not party politics and he's not looking to score political points. What he is doing is expressing a degree of solidarity with another branch of the European social democratic movement. And yes, this is a movement that has always placed a high emphasis on internationalism. Most obviously, both are members of the Socialist International

Frankly it's only yourself who is turning this into a political game by somehow finding fault with this

Edit: And yes, politics certainly matters when this "mad man" explicitly targeted the Norwegian Labour Party. This was not some random choice and Gilmore, whom I'm not a fan of, is perfectly within his rights to extend condolences to the NLP as head of the ILP

Labour and the Greens have pretty high-minded ideas of their European allegiances; it rubs some people up the wrong way but it's genuine and the Social Democrats and Greens do think of themselves as big political families. The Christian Democrats are the same to an extent, though it doesn't really pop up that much over here.

Maybe it annoys people because Fianna Fáil never introduced it to the Irish narrative so the idea still seems strange. For a while, FF were stuck with a pretty mediocre grouping in the European Parliament and it was really nothing worth telling anyone about.

I thought Gilmore's statement on the website was spot on, though I'd still like to hear the clip. He also extended his condolences as a father, I notice.