Labour for Coalition - Good or Bad??

Smiegal · 02-11-2010 08:59PM #1

So heres the deal... Ive never had a strong elegance to any party... but I'm begining to look a bit closer at Labour lately... Some views would be good. Here's where Im at with my thought;

Fine Fail have led us into, and dont seem to be getting us out of, a huge black hole. So I have zero confidence here.

The Greens are the Greens... Enough said there.
Sinn Fein... Ill say nothing!

Fine Gael seem to me to be much to simialar to Fine Fail and the fact that Kenny survived the last leadership challenge, means that one of FG's strongest link, Bruton has taken a back seat. If he had been successful on the other hand and taken up the postition of Leader I think the public would take a differant view of Fine Gael.

Labour. Well, thats all thats left. Would Labour have an important part to play in protecting the rights of Irish workers in a period where these same rights are slowly and surely being degenerated.

I heard an interesting quote on Newstalk today where the comentator said "Some of the top International Economists are giving our Government a pat on back for all the cuts they are making, but they dont have to live here, do they?"

So, to finish, I'm interested in your views on the pros and cons of aLabour Government.

Thanks.

Head The Wall · 02-11-2010 09:13PM

Smiegal wrote: »

So heres the deal... Ive never had a strong elegance to any party... but I'm begining to look a bit closer at Labour lately... Some views would be good. Here's where Im at with my thought;

Fine Fail have led us into, and dont seem to be getting us out of, a huge black hole. So I have zero confidence here.

The Greens are the Greens... Enough said there.
Sinn Fein... Ill say nothing!

Fine Gael seem to me to be much to simialar to Fine Fail and the fact that Kenny survived the last leadership challenge, means that one of FG's strongest link, Bruton has taken a back seat. If he had been successful on the other hand and taken up the postition of Leader I think the public would take a differant view of Fine Gael.

Labour. Well, thats all thats left. Would Labour have an important part to play in protecting the rights of Irish workers in a period where these same rights are slowly and surely being degenerated.

I heard an interesting quote on Newstalk today where the comentator said "Some of the top International Economists are giving our Government a pat on back for all the cuts they are making, but they dont have to live here, do they?"

So, to finish, I'm interested in your views on the pros and cons of aLabour Government.

Thanks.

I see the PS unions have shifted their allegiance to Labour in the hopes they get their pay cuts back. You may feel your rights are being denegrated but they are not, what is happening is your employer is broke. When this happens paycuts, redundancies and other things happen. I have left out reform and efficiencies as this is the PS you are on about

Personally I have yet to make my mind up but Labour would be on the bottom of the list because of their union links. I will make up my mind up when there is an actual election.

RichardAnd · 02-11-2010 09:25PM

I'd put my money on FG to be the next party in power but given the way people vote in this country, I wouldn't be entirely surprised to see FF re-elected. Not that it would make much difference anyway.

As for Labour in power, well that's something I'd rather not see. As mentioned above, Labour have ties to unions and having them in power might lead to them plying their trade across the nation; bastardised socialism.

Smiegal · 02-11-2010 09:36PM

Head The Wall wrote: »

I have left out reform and efficiencies as this is the PS you are on about.

I never mentioned the PS. I mentioned workers. But thanks for your input... I haven't made my own mind up yet either. But I reckon a GE is on the way and therefore worth discussing in this context.

The reason I believe Workers rights will be eroded is simply because the Jobs Market has done a severe turnaround and is now firmly in the favour of employers. This obviously puts Workers at a disadvantage. As such would Labour in Governement be a bad thing for Workers?

Head The Wall · 02-11-2010 10:03PM

Employers are entitled to have some things in their favour, no one forces them to employ people and that's something we need to bear in mind. We do have very good employment legislation in this country that has to be adhered too.

CoalBucket · 02-11-2010 10:07PM

The party with the biggest links to the Unions are Fianna Fail. Whilst bending over and agreeing to pay rise after pay rise in the partnership agreements and also agreeing to gauruntee that pay will not be cut during the croke park agreement despite planning to cut everything else under government control. In addition to this they appointed trade union leaders to quangos in order to keep them sweet while putting through the agreements.

David Begg is on the board of the ESRI and the National Economic and Social Council. He was appointed as governor of the Irish Times Trust and a director of the Central Bank. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

Peter McLoone was on the board of Fas. before he resigned after the expenses scandal. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

Des Geraghty is on the RTE authority and also involved with the Central Bank. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

Patricia King was also on the RTE authority and on the board of the NRA. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

And people say Labour have strong union links !!!!!

Shazanne · 02-11-2010 10:14PM

I feel that the current Labour TD's in the Dail are poor. Eamonn Gilmore is nothing more than a bag of wind and water - he comes out with sound-byte after sound-byte but I cannot recall him coming out with a definite policy or solution to the current crisis or anything else for that matter. Joan Bruton makes sense with alot of what she says but she's not strong enough as a politician to swim in the big pool. Rabbitte and Quinn are probably the best talent in the party but they've done their stint at the top and are unlikely to want the crown of thorns again. Overall I don't think Labour would have the clout to make a significant impact and I personally would not waste a vote on them.

Tora Bora · 02-11-2010 10:24PM

CoalBucket wrote: »

The party with the biggest links to the Unions are Fianna Fail. Whilst bending over and agreeing to pay rise after pay rise in the partnership agreements and also agreeing to gauruntee that pay will not be cut during the croke park agreement despite planning to cut everything else under government control. In addition to this they appointed trade union leaders to quangos in order to keep them sweet while putting through the agreements.

David Begg is on the board of the ESRI and the National Economic and Social Council. He was appointed as governor of the Irish Times Trust and a director of the Central Bank. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

Peter McLoone was on the board of Fas. before he resigned after the expenses scandal. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

Des Geraghty is on the RTE authority and also involved with the Central Bank. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

Patricia King was also on the RTE authority and on the board of the NRA. Appointed by Fianna Fail.

And people say Labour have strong union links !!!!!

You mean appointed by Bertie. Not necessarily by FF.

CoalBucket · 02-11-2010 10:33PM

Tora Bora wrote: »

You mean appointed by Bertie. Not necessarily by FF.

Bertie being the elected leader of the Fianna Fail party. No I mean Fianna Fail.

Smiegal · 03-11-2010 09:07AM

Head The Wall wrote: »

Employers are entitled to have some things in their favour, no one forces them to employ people and that's something we need to bear in mind. We do have very good employment legislation in this country that has to be adhered too.

Don't get me wrong, I agree 100% with you that employers also need things infield favours. It must be so bloody frustrating for the employers who actually treat their staff well to have a union turn around at every juncture making his or her life difficult. I fully acknowledge this.

However, because now more then ever, employers are looking to cut costs left right an centre labour costs are the first and most obvious place to start. Whilst many of these decisions will be based on putting a crumbling business back on a firm foundation, there no doubt will be those who take advantage of the spin of the media - even though the business is doing as well as ever.

johnboy_123 · 03-11-2010 10:11AM

I will probably go FG with there intention of slashing P.S numbers and wage...This is a cash cow that the milk is no longer there. Also for the O.P no comment about S.F. I think S.F are gaining a lot of support in this day and age. But once again I think this will come down to what the different parties put in their agenda

Nody · 03-11-2010 10:33AM

Smiegal wrote: »

However, because now more then ever, employers are looking to cut costs left right an centre labour costs are the first and most obvious place to start. Whilst many of these decisions will be based on putting a crumbling business back on a firm foundation, there no doubt will be those who take advantage of the spin of the media - even though the business is doing as well as ever.

And you think that Labour can some how control what a private company will do? This is excluding the reaction of the market were the money to keep the budget rolling is being loaned on a yearly basis.

If anything I'd expect Labour would actually drive the private workers (and by extension public workers when there is no more money) to be far worse of simply because people/companies would up and leave from all the additional taxes (only real way to pay for all their ideas is to tax it or loan more for it, either way leads to Ireland going worse at the minute). You may celebrate "victory" for a day in stronger legislation but will cry for years over all lost jobs and increased taxes from such a decision.

Of course I'd like to have a strong third option out there but FG is as good as it looks to get at the moment (which is not saying a whole lot).

That's my 2c.

Smiegal · 03-11-2010 11:09AM

johnboy_123 wrote: »

Also for the O.P no comment about S.F. I think S.F are gaining a lot of support in this day and age. But once again I think this will come down to what the different parties put in their agenda

Sinn Féin have made up alaot of ground thats true. But look at wehre they have come from. It's not very hard to make up ground from where they "used" to be.

I remember meeting Martin Ferris at a function some years back. Nice chap. But I asked him what his party's intentions were now that they had moved away from the armed struggle and towards the political arena. His answer was this: A united Ireland by 2014".

Now putting aside the historic and patriotic aspect of that comment, think of what would happen economicly should we take on a further 6 counties.

So whilst I acknoledge that SF have made up some ground, its important to keep an eye on where they originaly came from with respect to the last 50 years.

Smiegal · 03-11-2010 11:28AM

Nody wrote: »

And you think that Labour can some how control what a private company will do? This is excluding the reaction of the market were the money to keep the budget rolling is being loaned on a yearly basis.

No. But would they seem to have the working class interests more at heart and therefore may begin taxing wealth a bit more. Most of our wealthiest people just happen to major employers. At the end of the day it was the wealthy making the big decisions that got us into this. Let them get us out!!!

I'm simply trying to gauge the response of posters here re Labour.

I personally dont know enough about them to make an informed choice. However, from discussing them with freinds and family in the past, the most common response seems to be they have no policy or their policy's are "crap". When I go on to ask them have they read thier policy's everyone says that they haven't and dont want to either. But how can you make such a critical statement on a partys policy without even reading them or making an effort??

http://www.labour.ie/policy/listing.html

I believe that a General Election is coming hard around the corner and I for one am going to make an effort to read as many of the key policies of the main parties on their relevant websites instead of depending on our agenda and sometimes government driven media.

Dorcha · 03-11-2010 12:01PM

I’m rather amazed that people think Labour would side with the unions if they were in power. This view stems from the now redundant propaganda spewed out by Fianna Fail on a regular basis that Labour were Communists under their coats. Even Fianna Fail don’t bother with this anymore, because they can see it’s so plainly nonsensical that no one would believe it. (They’ve forgotten that some people will believe anything.)

The last true socialist leader that Labour had was Brendan Corish. Since then the party has moved slowly towards the centre, and then to the right. I haven’t voted for Labour (or any political party) for thirty years, but vote independent instead. I gave my reasons for this in the thread “The No-Party State” on the Political Theory forum.

The reason why the first priority of the Irish People should be to get rid of Fianna Fail is fairly obvious to me. They’ve been in power so long that they’ve become lazy, dictatorial and contemptuous of the wishes of the Irish people. They’re like children who’ve been so spoiled that they’ve become the centres of their own little universe, and anything or anyone outside of it has no importance for them. Whether Labour/Fine Gael will be any better is really immaterial at the moment, because continuing to pamper Fianna Fail is not an option if we don’t want to bring more misery on ourselves. Labour/Fine Gael will be unseated the same way if they don’t produce. And it’s much more likely, because the anger will carry over into the new administration and people will be even less tolerant of its failings than they were of Fianna Fail.

I would be extremely interested in seeing how Labour would perform if they were in a new government. It’s easy to counteract others’ policies when you have no chance of being elected, but when you have you must realise that your policies will affect real people and will have consequences for them. I would like to see how they would handle that. I can envision them being something like Tony Blair’s New Labour.

I am in the same situation with Fine Gael. I rather think they might surprise people who have been comparing them to Fianna Fail and provide a fair government. The only thing we can be fairly certain about at this stage is that the next government will be a collation as well.

Count Dooku · 03-11-2010 01:50PM

Labour in government will mean that welfare benefits will be not touched and it will drive unemployment to higher levels and as result nobody will invest in Ireland anymore

Long-term unemployment has increased sharply raising major concerns about the persistence of joblessness well into the recovery. While the share of long-term unemployment initially declined during the recession due to large inflows into unemployment, its share has increased significantly during the second half of 2009, reaching 38% in the last quarter of 2009, well above the pre-crisis share. The rise in long-term unemployment in combination with a reduction in the maximum duration of Jobseeker’s Benefit payments (UI) has resulted in a major shift in the registered unemployed from UI benefits (-15% over the year to May 2010) to unemployment assistance benefits (+13%). This indicates that the large majority of jobseekers who are confronted with expiring UI entitlements qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance. Since Jobseeker’s Allowance payments are generally close to Jobseeker’s Benefit payments, the rise in long-term unemployment by itself does not raise major social concerns related to the adequacy of available income support. However, the rise in long-term unemployment does raise important concerns over its possible incidence on structural unemployment and the extent to which it reduces effective labour supply with potential negative effects on potential economic growth. These concerns are compounded by the relatively generous and time-unlimited nature of Jobseeker’s Allowance, which provides weak incentives for work, especially for low-skilled workers.

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/14/37/45603074.pdf

Labour trapped by their left wing rhetoric and can only speed up default
From Budget 2009 submissions page 15

Investing in the future
Christmas Payment

http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/budgetpowerpoint.pdf

I don't thin that buzzwords such as "Strategic Investment Bank" can fool investors anymore. Without clear policy on government spending FG/LP government can forget about foreign investments

Dorcha · 03-11-2010 08:55PM

Count Dooku wrote: »

Labour in government will mean that welfare benefits will be not touched and it will drive unemployment to higher levels and as result nobody will invest in Ireland anymore

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/14/37/45603074.pdf

Labour trapped by their left wing rhetoric and can only speed up default
From Budget 2009 submissions page 15

http://www.labour.ie/download/pdf/budgetpowerpoint.pdf

I don't thin that buzzwords such as "Strategic Investment Bank" can fool investors anymore. Without clear policy on government spending FG/LP government can forget about foreign investments

Left Wing/Right Wing – labels are so convenient: anyone who doesn’t agree with me is from the opposite wing and the opposite wing is always stupid and has no merits and, no, we’re going to put our hands over our ears and not listen to any of their arguments; they’re only talking nonsense or have an agenda and will say anything to support it.

And so it goes around and around, everyone talking and no one listening.

There are a few facts we can surely agree on.

It’s a world-wide recession, and banks in other countries have also been caught with their pants down. It only matters what happens in other countries in so far as we hope to learn from their experience on how they’re dealing with it, and what they’re doing is working, or not. In the meantime, we have to make our own decisions.

No one can deny that the banks have damaged the country through their greed and stupidity, and every day that goes by the damage is increasing. The billions that have been paid to them aren’t going into a black hole and vanishing out of existence, as many would have us believe. No, that money hasn’t vanished; it has simply been transferred to someone else’s pockets.

The banks loaned the money and the developers borrowed it. When you borrow something, you pay it back. Saying you lost it, isn’t a valid excuse. If you borrowed it, you pay it back, bit by bit, year after year until it’s all been paid. Why aren’t the banks doing this? Why did they rush off to Brian Lenihan and beg for taxpayer’s money? Because the banks which they, themselves, borrowed from have found out that their coffers are empty, and are, in turn demanding their pound of flesh.

Even at this stage, they did the dishonourable thing. They didn’t give him time to think; they told him that if didn’t instantly give them the billions to appease the foreign banks, then the foreign banks would foreclose on the Irish ones and Ireland would find itself without a banking system. They didn’t tell him the full extent of the mess they were in, because that might have made him pause before hocking his country’s future for decades.

They got their money and they came back for more. And more. And more. And Lenihan began to look foolish as he continually readjusted the amount of money the country would have to raise to pay this debt. The money wasn’t readily available from the people who’d defaulted on it, so it was taken out of public finance, leaving less for health and social welfare.

Lenihan admitted that the banks withheld information from him and yet he did nothing about it. At the very least, considering that the government were pumping so much money into the banks, he should have made the resignation of the top officials a condition. But the same people who had played fast and loose with other people’s money, were given yet more money.

This is a dismal failure of government to govern. And then we get the mantra from Brian Cowen: “We must all share the pain”. Now it’s true that we will all have to contribute to get this country out of the mess that some bankers, developers and politicians have got it into, but this money should be taken from people according to their means, rather than their power to resist. There are far too many people in this government on salaries inflated beyond all reason. Make the incomes of all those people equal to the average income and then you will hear no resistance to “sharing the pain”.

Labour for Coalition - Good or Bad??

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