Don't vote for him, His pints are awful!

bridget84 · 15-05-2014 2:17am #1

My father canvassed for a politician in the local elections yesterday evening. The yolk he canvassed for was ranting at my father all evening about one of his rivals who owns a pub. That is all he could come up with. No wonder the country is arseways. It says alot about the candidates priorities.

SterlingArcher · 15-05-2014 2:19am

bridget84 wrote: »

My father canvassed for a politician in the local elections yesterday evening. The yolk he canvassed for was ranting at my father all evening about one of his rivals who owns a pub. That is all he could come up with. No wonder the country is arseways. It says alot about the candidates priorities.

He sounds like the next JFK.

The Backwards Man · 15-05-2014 2:21am

I'd rather a politician that had bad pints and good points than the opposite tbh.

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller · 15-05-2014 2:28am

Without naming names, who is it? An anagram will do.

bridget84 · 15-05-2014 2:32am

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller wrote: »

Without naming names, who is it? An anagram will do.

A Co.Limerick candidate.

bridget84 · 15-05-2014 2:32am

Wishiwasa Littlebitaller wrote: »

Without naming names, who is it? An anagram will do.

A Co.Limerick candidate.

SterlingArcher · 15-05-2014 2:41am

bridget84 wrote: »

A Co.Limerick candidate.

Ah so its nowhere important. thank the good lordy for that. For a minute there I thought we had another costly tribunal in the making.

bridget84 · 15-05-2014 2:54am

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Ah so its nowhere important. thank the good lordy for that. For a minute there I thought we had another costly tribunal in the making.

Yeah. Make a joke out of the kind of ilk that run our country!

biko · 15-05-2014 3:01am

"His pints are awful" seems to be up there with "he fixed the road"...
Tbh most people aren't clever enough to fully understand politics/macro economics (myself included) so will grasp at anything to help us make our minds up - just like the politicians themselves.

SterlingArcher · 15-05-2014 3:01am

bridget84 wrote: »

Yeah. Make a joke out of the kind of ilk that run our country!

That's the punchline, they're a joke. All of them. Don't lose sleep over it. It's only as pathetic as "Don't vote for him his lies are more transparent than our lies" get the picture Bridget.

The only people that have a lust to be a politician are inherently con artists. The ones that aren't and mean well don't last so were only conning themselves , or they compromise the very integrity they once had and become one.

It's a dirty game.

Cookie_Monster · 15-05-2014 4:30am

being a local councillor he's not going to be actually doing anything useful and/or relevant anyway so it's as goo a reason as any not to vote for them.

Grab All Association · 15-05-2014 5:04am

I will not be voting in the local elections this year although I live in rural Ireland (hopefully not for long hate the ****ing place) the abolition of City, Borough and Town Councils is really just a cash grab on the rich urban areas of Ireland because rural Ireland and the county councils are going bust. Almost all the people I have met who are defending the abolition of the urban councils have not even read the "Putting people first" programme and don't get impact this will have for jobs and some of the smaller towns nationwide. Lets use Tipperary as an example. At the moment a lot of businesses in Tipp are struggling with paying rates. Any money raised in towns like Thurles, Clonmel and Nenagh the three main towns in Tipperary through rates, council rents, parking etc will not stay in the towns it will go directly to the unified Tipperary County Council and will be disbursed throughout the county filling potholes in villages like Drom, Terryglass, Lisronagh etc or be spent in other towns on gombeen projects. Also it will be one business rate across the whole county so towns like Cashel, Templemore and Tipperary which had cheaper business rates will lose out to the 3 big towns.

In two years remember this. I told you so.

Grab All Association · 15-05-2014 5:16am

Sorry to go off topic btw but I was talking to a guy today who was going on about this candidate from the countryside running in the Clonmel or Carrick Municipal district (can't remember which town he was on about he was just boring me) anyway all he kept saying was how great he was and how all the farmers will vote for him and he will get all the back roads fixed and ****e. Do we really want hicks like that elected and representing our urban areas?

Jamiekelly · 15-05-2014 5:36am

Ah sure isn't it an awful awfule awful thing, oh begorrah bejaysus to be sure potato

Arthur Beesley · 15-05-2014 5:50am

Sounds like the pipes need a clean out.

foggy_lad · 15-05-2014 8:18am

Arthur Beesley wrote: »

Sounds like the pipes need a clean out.

His pints will feckin kill ye but on the other end of the business sure he'll give ye a good send off.(many rural publicans are also the local undertakers).

matrim · 15-05-2014 8:33am

TBH it might be something that I would think about as affecting my choice, it wouldn't necessarily be that his pints are bad, that's just a symptom of the problem. It would be the fact that if someone's day job is a publican and he doesn't care enough about his customers to attempt to provide a consistent and quality product them what's he going to be like as a politician.

A similar situation would be, if someone who owned a shop ran for the spot. If that shop was known as the most expensive in town that was constantly treating it's staff bad and selling out of date stock, would you vote for him?

califano · 15-05-2014 8:34am

The country is in a state of chassis

the groutch · 15-05-2014 9:08am

matrim wrote: »

TBH it might be something that I would think about as affecting my choice, it wouldn't necessarily be that his pints are bad, that's just a symptom of the problem. It would be the fact that if someone's day job is a publican and he doesn't care enough about his customers to attempt to provide a consistent and quality product them what's he going to be like as a politician.

A similar situation would be, if someone who owned a shop ran for the spot. If that shop was known as the most expensive in town that was constantly treating it's staff bad and selling out of date stock, would you vote for him?

I'd vote for neither, because imo being a publican/shop owner doesn't make someone in any way qualified to take part in running the country.

Cookie_Monster · 15-05-2014 9:44am

the groutch wrote: »

I'd vote for neither, because imo being a publican/shop owner doesn't make someone in any way qualified to take part in running the country.

so what does then? Note they have zero impact in running the country.

here's a brief courtesy of Scofflaw

Scofflaw wrote: »

I can understand the point of the European elections. I actually do care about things like climate change targets, levels of agricultural subsidies, trade agreements, intellectual property, digital development, and so on.

However, I cannot for the life of me really understand the importance given to the local elections though. Successive Irish governments have stripped county councils of their taxing powers, their decision-making powers, their connection with local areas, and their very existence, more or less at whim, and with a persistence and attention to detail they bring to few other things. Even the much-vaunted ending of the "dual mandate" of TD and Councillor served primarily to destroy any council influence in the Dáil.

An excellent Bock the Robber blog post summarises the situation for me:

Kindly, he provides a handy checklist:

Powers of local councillors ||
||
Individual powers |NONE |
||
Collective powers |Planning policy |YES
|Planning decisions |NO
|Sanitation policy |YES
|Sanitation decisions |NO
|Roads policy |YES
|Selecting roadworks |NO
|Motorways |NO
|Employment |NO
|Policing |NO
|Housing policy |YES
|Allocation of housing |NO
|Selecting houses for repair |NO
|Selecting houses for improvement |NO
|Water supply |NO
|Water charges |NO
|Property tax |NO
|Education |NO
|Health |NO
|Agriculture |NO
|Foreign affairs |NO
|Social welfare |NO
|Sport |NO
|Youth work |NO

In brief - housing policy, sanitation policy, planning policy, and roads policy. General guidelines only. No detailed decision-making. They can say "we should aim to develop the town out this way", and the detail of how that happens is then decided by the professional staff.

I'm not saying the power to rezone isn't important - and lucrative - but how many councillors are actually standing on the basis of their policy in these areas? How much of the excitement around the local elections revolves around planning?

[EDIT]And apparently the (collective) power to vary LPT rates by +/-15% from January 1st next year (thank Phoebas).[/EDIT]

cordially,
Scofflaw

dublinman1990 · 15-05-2014 11:17am

Jesus, l am coming to the conclusion now after reading this thread that local politics in Ireland is like a poor man's politics in the developed world.

The function of the electorate in our local communities to make it this bad in Ireland for many years is really quite disturbing to the extent. How on earth is local democracy meant to be accounted for if this is meant to continue into the future?

Maybe with a directly elected mayor for Dublin may change things for the better. However, we don't know what type of changes are going to be ahead of us in the year to come in our capital city.

Local councillors around our country need to start having some cop on in regards to how politics is meant to be more effective in their local communities. But local after their own personal interests won't change that for the better it will make it worse.

This is a just a sad reflection on how our country is run that will not give any more confidence if it is further unresolved.

Don't vote for him, His pints are awful!

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