Anglo Tapes

NORTH1

Good loser wrote: »

The best ever put down of Browne. Loved it.

You love the fact that a perfectly legitimate question asked, is ignored? and it showed that they only wanted questions they had approved asked. That woman is a civil servant, not a euro servant. The country is fooked, because of people like her seem to have forgotten they are working for us, and you love the fact the question is been"put down"? Do you pay taxes? Do you get a pay slip? Check the additional charges on it due to this crisis.

If you don't? Well get yourself informed before drawing attention to yourself.....

flutered

there is one ms nolan at the top or near it anyways of the department of finance therw is another ms nolan at or near the top of banof ireland or aib, i forget which, they are incedently sisters, hi sis, how did things go at work today?, soory i cant tell, code of ethic you know, yeah ted, how fookin likley?.

Scofflaw

NORTH1 wrote: »

You love the fact that a perfectly legitimate question asked, is ignored? and it showed that they only wanted questions they had approved asked. That woman is a civil servant, not a euro servant. The country is fooked, because of people like her seem to have forgotten they are working for us, and you love the fact the question is been"put down"? Do you pay taxes? Do you get a pay slip? Check the additional charges on it due to this crisis.

If you don't? Well get yourself informed before drawing attention to yourself.....

He was actually being asked to let other journalists get their questions in. Like Patricia McKenna, VB has a tendency to take up all the time available for everyone else as well as his own. And, like McKenna, both he and his fans tend to see any attempt to let others use their speaking time as an assault on the great one's freedom.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Going Forward

Scofflaw wrote: »

He was actually being asked to let other journalists get their questions in. Like Patricia McKenna, VB has a tendency to take up all the time available for everyone else as well as his own. And, like McKenna, both he and his fans tend to see any attempt to let others use their speaking time as an assault on the great one's freedom.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Please.

Less than 2 years earlier Babs herself proudly proclaimed:
"In my new job, I want to make sure that the voice of Irish stakeholders is heard by the European Commission. I believe that the role of civil society in representing citizens' interests is critical to shaping good policy measures."
-Just not at a Commission stage managed press conference eh?

Klaus pays the piper.....................

creedp

emo72 wrote: »

what fairytale? the facts? she could come forward and deny it? FFS why would you even invent a fairytale to defend her?

do you seriously think she took a bullet for her finance minister? which explanation is more plausible. jesus christ.

Discussion is getting a bit heated so I'll blindly accept what others deem correct. For the record again I am not defending Ms Nolan .. that's another fairytale .. Instead I'll believe civil servants don't work for politicians .. they are not their political masters. Ministers don't call the shots but always do what their civil servants tell them .. I know I've heard all these fairy stories before .. but if it makes people happier in their comfy armchair then believe that 'Yes Minister' reflects reality.

creedp

Sand wrote: »

They are there to represent the public interest *against* short term political interests - not to serve them. While I and other Irish taxpayers pay the civil servants wages they better hold my interests above the interests of the Minister - they'll find he wont be able to pay as well as I can. Jaysus....it has got to the point where the indignant defence against charges of corruption is essentially more corruption.

I'm sure every civil servant reading this will feel the hair standing on the back of their necks as they steel themselves to tell Ministers that I dont care about your programme for Govt or your manifesto or Enda's doctrine .. I'm standing up for my real employers the great people of this great land. Makes a great story if not a great fairytale

Sand

@creedp

I'm sure every civil servant reading this will feel the hair standing on the back of their necks as they steel themselves to tell Ministers that I dont care about your programme for Govt or your manifesto or Enda's doctrine .. I'm standing up for my real employers the great people of this great land. Makes a great story if not a great fairytale

When you read my post, did you get the sense that I recognize the current civil service is hopelessly corrupt and needs complete reform? I'm not sure because I'm pretty sure that's what I posted, yet your response "Ya, but the civil service is broken!"

I wouldn't rely on the civil servants having a sudden outburst of patriotism and civic spirit. Their current behavior and failure is a response to the system they operate under. The solution is to change the system.

Scofflaw

Going Forward wrote: »

Please.

Less than 2 years earlier Babs herself proudly proclaimed:
"In my new job, I want to make sure that the voice of Irish stakeholders is heard by the European Commission. I believe that the role of civil society in representing citizens' interests is critical to shaping good policy measures."
-Just not at a Commission stage managed press conference eh?

Klaus pays the piper.....................

Er, yes, she would have been doing exactly that - Vincent Browne is not Ireland's only stakeholder, and other journalists were being prevented from asking their questions by Vincent monopolising the microphone. The original longer version of the clip made that rather clear, which is presumably why it got trimmed.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Good loser

NORTH1 wrote: »

You love the fact that a perfectly legitimate question asked, is ignored? and it showed that they only wanted questions they had approved asked. That woman is a civil servant, not a euro servant. The country is fooked, because of people like her seem to have forgotten they are working for us, and you love the fact the question is been"put down"? Do you pay taxes? Do you get a pay slip? Check the additional charges on it due to this crisis.

If you don't? Well get yourself informed before drawing attention to yourself.....

Yes I get a State pension. Browne doesn't represent me when he asks these populist, patronising questions - which lead precisely nowhwere.

His incisive (so called) questions led the Troika to cancel all future press conferences I believe.

emo72

creedp wrote: »

Discussion is getting a bit heated so I'll blindly accept what others deem correct. For the record again I am not defending Ms Nolan .. that's another fairytale .. Instead I'll believe civil servants don't work for politicians .. they are not their political masters. Ministers don't call the shots but always do what their civil servants tell them .. I know I've heard all these fairy stories before .. but if it makes people happier in their comfy armchair then believe that 'Yes Minister' reflects reality.

i want to apologise for that. that was over the top. sorry.

is anyone investigating this anyway?

Noreen1

Good loser wrote: »

Yes I get a State pension. Browne doesn't represent me when he asks these populist, patronising questions - which lead precisely nowhwere.

His incisive (so called) questions led the Troika to cancel all future press conferences I believe.

I haven't watched the programme, but would you not feel that the Troika shouldn't cancel press conferences just because they don't like the questions they are being asked?

Surely anyone that is being entirely above board shouldn't mind questions being asked by the media, so that the information can be relayed to the people who are affected by their "recommendations" - ie. Us!

emo72

exactly, if you're not doing anything wrong, why are you afraid of questions?

Ryder

Good loser wrote: »

Yes I get a State pension. Browne doesn't represent me when he asks these populist, patronising questions - which lead precisely nowhwere.

His incisive (so called) questions led the Troika to cancel all future press conferences I believe.

its interesting that you call it patrionising...because when I heard the ECB guy drone in about the taxi driver, that's exactly what I felt, patronized. If anyone was ever fed a line about what to say at an Irish press conference...

Going Forward

Ryder wrote: »

its interesting that you call it patrionising...because when I heard the ECB guy drone in about the taxi driver, that's exactly what I felt, patronized. If anyone was ever fed a line about what to say at an Irish press conference...

And I thought it was just me.

Going Forward

Scofflaw wrote: »

Er, yes, she would have been doing exactly that - Vincent Browne is not Ireland's only stakeholder, and other journalists were being prevented from asking their questions by Vincent monopolising the microphone. The original longer version of the clip made that rather clear, which is presumably why it got trimmed.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Is there any relationship between this Ms. Nolan and the other 2?

Its difficult to find any information about her considering her position.

Scofflaw

emo72 wrote: »

exactly, if you're not doing anything wrong, why are you afraid of questions?

I don't think anyone was afraid of Vincent's questions, they'd just answered them, and Vinny was doing a "made for TV performance" in his usual hectoring style - good for Vincent's profile, but completely meaningless otherwise, because the questions were basically "have you stopped beating your wife" ones..

Personally, I liked being able to watch the troika review press conference, and if they cancelled it over Vincent's viral, then very much the only winner here was Vincent.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Going Forward wrote: »

Is there any relationship between this Ms. Nolan and the other 2?

Its difficult to find any information about her considering her position.

No idea - never was a fan of the Nolan Sisters.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Noreen1

Scofflaw wrote: »

I don't think anyone was afraid of Vincent's questions, they'd just answered them, and Vinny was doing a "made for TV performance" in his usual hectoring style - good for Vincent's profile, but completely meaningless otherwise, because the questions were basically "have you stopped beating your wife" ones..

Personally, I liked being able to watch the troika review press conference, and if they cancelled it over Vincent's viral, then very much the only winner here was Vincent.

cordially,
Scofflaw

So, effectively, they were either unable, or unwilling, to deal with hectoring or aggressive questioning?

That's just pathetic, really.
I don't see why they couldn't have dealt with it.
It smacks of a childish "You were nasty to me, so I'm not going to talk to anyone!" sulk.
It's also a rather convenient excuse not to answer any questions from anyone, if you think about it.
There's absolutely no reason they couldn't refuse to accept questions from Vincent Brown, if he was that offensive, whilst still accepting questions from other journalists.

Scofflaw

Noreen1 wrote: »

So, effectively, they were either unable, or unwilling, to deal with hectoring or aggressive questioning?

That's just pathetic, really.
I don't see why they couldn't have dealt with it.
It smacks of a childish "You were nasty to me, so I'm not going to talk to anyone!" sulk.
It's also a rather convenient excuse not to answer any questions from anyone, if you think about it.
There's absolutely no reason they couldn't refuse to accept questions from Vincent Brown, if he was that offensive, whilst still accepting questions from other journalists.

That was what they did at the press conference, which then (with appropriate editing, and a certain amount of blind Vinnie-worship) generated an absolute storm on Irish social media.

The aim of a press conference is to inform, and to provide transparency. If your press conferences are going to be hijacked to misinform and generate clouds of obscurity, they're not worth doing. Far, far fewer people watched the actual press conference than saw the Vinnie clip.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Noreen1

That still doesn't prevent them giving further press conferences, and excluding Vincent Brown, though!

emo72

he never answered the question "why are irish taxpayers on the hook for anglo banking debt?". the correct answer is we shouldnt be. but they cant/wont say that.

emo72

Scofflaw wrote: »

That was what they did at the press conference, which then (with appropriate editing, and a certain amount of blind Vinnie-worship) generated an absolute storm on Irish social media.

The aim of a press conference is to inform, and to provide transparency. If your press conferences are going to be hijacked to misinform and generate clouds of obscurity, they're not worth doing. Far, far fewer people watched the actual press conference than saw the Vinnie clip.

cordially,
Scofflaw

do you not like vinnie? is there some other journalist that you would rank as better?

what about vinnie highlighting the letter that was edited/changed that was sent to lenihan? why is no one else probing that?

Scofflaw

emo72 wrote: »

do you not like vinnie? is there some other journalist that you would rank as better?

what about vinnie highlighting the letter that was edited/changed that was sent to lenihan? why is no one else probing that?

I don't like journalists as a class, pretty much - they're far too often sensationalist, sloppy, and generally inaccurate if not actually dishonest. Vinnie represents the breed fairly well in some respects, crossed with another species I dislike, the TV show host.

Having said that, I think Vincent does valuable work in general in being the gadfly he is, pursuing things like the Anglo letter edits, and we would be very much worse off without him and others like him.

I would say, though, that I strongly prefer people like Gavin Sheridan, whose style is very much more investigative, and whose m.o. is to obtain the facts and let you make your own judgement. I would swap several Vinnies for a Sheridan....actually, in a perfect world, I'd like to swap a single Vinnie for several more Sheridans.

I think in this case, Vincent was more talk show host and egotistic grandstander than investigative journalist - he had already asked the same questions before, and received the same answer, so this was fundamentally just bluster and bullying for the sake of it - and the net outcome was negative for overall transparency. I can't admire that, although apparently many admire exactly that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

emo72

vinnie never came across as egotistcal to me. hes definitely confident. and if he was grandstanding at the infamous imf q and a, good.

he put the question into our heads, made us think, and not just blindly accept whats being been told to us.

no more imf conferences tells its own story.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Scofflaw wrote: »

I think in this case, Vincent was more talk show host and egotistic grandstander than investigative journalist - he had already asked the same questions before, and received the same answer, so this was fundamentally just bluster and bullying for the sake of it - and the net outcome was negative for overall transparency. I can't admire that, although apparently many admire exactly that.

I'd broadly agree with your qualified assessment of VB. IMHO, there's such a shortage of challenging journalists out there, that on balance his contribution is positive.

I don't agree on this particular point, though. There's a blandness to Eurobabble that needs to be challenged. Exposing the incapacity of the system to give a straight answer was a service, even if the target should really have been our own Government.

Ryder

Scofflaw wrote: »

I don't like journalists as a class, pretty much - they're far too often sensationalist, sloppy, and generally inaccurate if not actually dishonest. Vinnie represents the breed fairly well in some respects, crossed with another species I dislike, the TV show host.

Having said that, I think Vincent does valuable work in general in being the gadfly he is, pursuing things like the Anglo letter edits, and we would be very much worse off without him and others like him.

I would say, though, that I strongly prefer people like Gavin Sheridan, whose style is very much more investigative, and whose m.o. is to obtain the facts and let you make your own judgement. I would swap several Vinnies for a Sheridan....actually, in a perfect world, I'd like to swap a single Vinnie for several more Sheridans.

I think in this case, Vincent was more talk show host and egotistic grandstander than investigative journalist - he had already asked the same questions before, and received the same answer, so this was fundamentally just bluster and bullying for the sake of it - and the net outcome was negative for overall transparency. I can't admire that, although apparently many admire exactly that.

cordially,
Scofflaw

on your last point, he pursued a question that was obfuscated previously in euro speak. I think his question reflects the single most important issue in the mindset of the citizen, and no amount of taxi driver stories will placate that. Sure, there was grandstanding, but look, it allows him the profile to ask those questions

Scofflaw

Ryder wrote: »

on your last point, he pursued a question that was obfuscated previously in euro speak. I think his question reflects the single most important issue in the mindset of the citizen, and no amount of taxi driver stories will placate that. Sure, there was grandstanding, but look, it allows him the profile to ask those questions

A good point, but I still don't think there was much point to what he actually asked, and I don't think he was expecting an answer.

His question:

Vincent Browne: “Klaus Masuch, did your taxi driver tell you how the Irish people are bewildered that we are required to pay unguaranteed bondholders billions of euros for debts that the Irish people have no relation to or no bearing with, primarily to bail out or to ensure the solvency of European banks? And if the taxi driver had asked you that question,hat would have been your response? That’s my first question.”

and Masuch's answer:

Masuch: “I have answered a very similar question of you – I think it was two reviews ago – and can…”

Browne: “[inaudible] the question”

Masuch: “… and I answered it. I can understand that this is a difficult decision to be made by the government and there’s no doubt about it but there are different aspects of the problem to be, to be balanced against each other and I can understand that the government came to, came to the view that, all in all, the costs for the, for Irish people, for the, for the stability of the banking system, for the confidence in the banking system of taking a certain action in this respect which you are mentioning could likely have been much bigger than the benefits for the taxpayer which of course would have been there. So the financial sector would have been affected; the confidence of the financial sector would have been negatively affected, and I can understand that there were, that there was a difficult decision but that the decision was taken in this direction.”

and Browne:

Browne: “That, that… Well, that doesn’t address the issue. We are required to pay, in respect of a defunct bank – that has no bearing on the welfare of the Irish people at all – we are required to pay in respect of this defunct bank, billions on unguaranteed bonds in order to ensure the health of European banks. Now how would you explain that situation to the taxi driver that you talked about earlier?”

Possibly my euro speak is more fluent, but Masuch does answer the question - the decision was undertaken by the government for the good of the Irish banks. What Browne is doing is rejecting that answer, and saying that the answer he wants is why it was done for the good of the European banks.

The issue I have with that is that that's not an 'investigative' question, it's an accusation couched as a question, and presupposes that Vincent is correct in that being why the decision was taken. It's an oddly put accusation, too, in that it concentrates on the fact that Anglo is defunct, something that wasn't the case at the time of the bailout as a result of the insistence of the Irish government in keeping Anglo open - the decision to close Anglo was only made on foot of EU pressure.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it did an excellent job of associating in the minds of the Irish public the billions in bank debt with the troika, even though the majority of that debt was acquired before the troika bailout under the government's guarantee.

So while Browne's public finger-pointing may be useful as a general rule, in this case the finger was pointing in a pretty misleading direction - which brings me back to my problems with journalists in general, that they're far more at home to an engaging narrative than they are to facts.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Good loser

emo72 wrote: »

he never answered the question "why are irish taxpayers on the hook for anglo banking debt?". the correct answer is we shouldnt be. but they cant/wont say that.

Refer to Scofflaw's excellent post 629.

When VB turns a statement into a question he wants/demands only one answer 'You speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth'.
His show is usually stacked with fellow travellers who will arse-lick him.

Imo the Troika have no need to press conference - as is now the case. It is up to the Govt to do any PR they wish. The Troika are answerable to the Govt, or vice versa - not the people.

emo72

well the way i see it, when commercial entities are not allowed to fail, then its GUBU time.

crack open skulls.

Scofflaw

emo72 wrote: »

he never answered the question "why are irish taxpayers on the hook for anglo banking debt?". the correct answer is we shouldnt be. but they cant/wont say that.

Well, no, the problem was that he got an answer - "the Irish government put them there, for reasons that seemed good to them at the time". It's just not the answer he wanted from the people he was, eh, 'cross-examining' at that moment.

emo72 wrote:

well the way i see it, when commercial entities are not allowed to fail, then its GUBU time.

crack open skulls.

And Vinnie channels that emotional viewpoint - the problem is that "crack open skulls" isn't the same as "patiently get to the bottom of the thing and make sure both that appropriate penalties are handed out and that it doesn't happen again" - those who want skulls cracked are generally keener to get to the cracking asap, and tend to decry efforts to really get to the bottom of things as 'time-wasting obfuscation'.

Now that the dust has settled somewhat, what exactly did Vinnie achieve? The cancellation of future press conferences seems to have been the only result, if one discounts a sense of vicarious satisfaction from the public bullying of a couple of civil servants who had nothing to do with the decisions in question.

I don't call that a valuable service.

cordially,
Scofflaw