JC Skinner's guide to PR-STV tactical voting

Sorry, should have got this up earlier. Hopefully it'll still reach a few people before the voting closes.

1. As John Waters says, vote all the way down the list of candidates to potentially maximise the use of your vote.

2. In practice, you actually do the opposite. This means counting the number of candidates on the ballot and then voting all the way up from that number to 1. If there are 12 candidates, you find the one you hate the most and least wish to see elected and put the number 12 next to their name. Then you find the next most loathed, and they get number 11. And so on, till you get to number 1.

Do this carefully, and if you get it wrong, ask for an eraser or a new ballot paper from those in the polling station, telling them you made a mistake. Don't put a messed up ballot or an ambiguous one in the box or it will be discounted. Check over your vote to make sure all numbers are accounted for and each one only once. Don't miss out preference number 3 and have two number 4s for example.

3. If you want to vote tactically, do your homework. Check out bookie odds, like Paddy Power, or constituency profiles such as are in local papers, the Irish Times, etc, to see who is most favoured to be returned.

Let's say you want to punish Fianna Fail and they're running two candidates in your constituency. Obviously, you want to put them last and second last on your ballot. But in which order? In the order so that the least likely of the two candidates is higher placed. So do your homework to establish, within parties, which candidates have the best chance of election.

But what if one of them is likely to get a seat and the other has little hope? Then you reverse the order. Only do this if you're sure that one of them is getting in, though. In cases (FF in Dun Laoghaire is one) where there is going to be one candidate elected from a party but it's unclear which, vote according to your own preferences.

4. This works positively too. Let's say you're a Labour voter. If they're running two candidates in your area, you want to put them 1 and 2. But in which order? Put the least likely candidate higher, since the preference will keep them in the game longer. If he does drop out, your vote will then drop down to bolster the other Labour candidate.

5. Consider saving the deposits of brave independents who have no chance of winning a seat. They've done what you and I didn't have the stones to do - put their money and neck on the line, and tried to take on the big boys in a David and Goliath struggle that they cannot win, just to make their point. If there are two or three of these in your constituency, they'll be the first ones to be eliminated.

But if they get sufficient preferences, they'll at least get their deposit back. Once they are eliminated, your vote can then drop down to the candidates you actually want to see elected. So consider giving your number one to the brave independent with no chance of election. It costs you nothing, voting wise, as your vote will remain in play. But it could save them their money.

6. Don't think locally - think nationally. These are Dail elections, not a popularity X-factor vote on which gombeen is most likely to fix the road. Currently, this means your choice is between three options - Fine Gael, Fine Gael and Labour, or Fine Gael minority with Independent support. (Fine Gael and Green or Fine Gael and Sinn Fein are both extremely unlikely, and anything involving Fianna Fail is a non-runner.)

So, if you want to see a Fine Gael government without Labour, Labour candidates should go below Fianna Fail ones and everyone else on your ballot. Equally, if you want to see Labour in government and do not wish to see a Blueshirt only government, you want to put Labour candidates as high up as possible, and the Fine Gael ones below Fianna Fail, Christian Solidarity and everyone else.

7. Punish incompetence, corruption and criminality. If one of your local candidates was part of the last corrupt government that sold out the nation to benefit bankers, punish them for it. If your local TD is a known Independent gombeen man who propped the government up in order to play the big shot locally, punish them for it.

Only if we punish these people, not only by de-selecting them but also by giving them the smallest number of votes possible, will they begin to understand that such venality is no longer to be tolerated by the Irish electorate.

8. Don't be too concerned about giving higher preferences to distasteful parties. If you follow the tips above, you may disconcertingly find people like Christian Solidarity or Sinn Fein unusually high on your ballot. Don't worry too much about this. They're not getting elected (caveat for those dozen or so constituencies where there is a Shinner in the mix) and it's actually more important to make your vote work for you hard in the manner described above than to be overly worried about giving a looney your number 6 preference.

After all, mad as a brush and potentially dangerous they may well be, but they aren't getting elected and even if they did they could not do as much damage to this state as was just done by the last government.

9. As we say in the North, vote early and vote often! Exercise your democratic right today, because if you don't you've no right to complain later. Make sure others do too. Give people a lift to the polling station if you can. Help old people out to vote (unless they're FF tribalists, in which case, feel free to barricade them in for the day!)

Most of the planet don't have the democracy we do. They're on the streets risking their lives for it all over North Africa right now. So don't let the incompetence and corruption of our politicians jaundice you and make you apathetic about the system. It's a good system but you have to use it and you have to make it work for you. Hopefully this post will help you do just that.

A millennium of Irish kidnapping, exile and enslavement

The first man I met this morning is expecting his fiancee to be kidnapped and made to slave abroad anytime now.

"It's inevitable at this stage," he said through bloodshot, sleepless eyes. "I fell like I'm powerless to stop it. It's like my entire future has just been amputated. What can any of us do?"

The second man I met this morning has already had both his sons kidnapped and is fearing his daughter may soon be taken too.

"It hurts every day," he admitted. "But you can't say that. People think you're whining. Everyone's in the same boat. Who hasn't had someone depart? It used to be that exile and banishment was a punishment for some of the worst possible crimes. Nowadays, it's all young people have to look forward to."

The third man I met had been kidnapped himself many years ago. It took him decades, most of his life, to escape and return home.

"We were conditioned to accept it, weren't we?" he asked. "We just didn't query it. It was normal. That's what people did. They went away. People went to slave abroad and those left behind were to just act as if that was perfectly normal. But it wasn't normal. It was how a slave race behaves. In darkest Africa, where they don't have anything at all, they have their children, their fathers, their husbands and wives. Their children aren't taken. But ours were. And are."

This is a tale of Irish helotry. A long dark tale with no happy ending.

A millennium ago, the Norsemen conducted raids all across the North Atlantic, pillaging land and monasteries, and taking children and women as slaves. Among the worst affected places was Ireland, where the passive locals seemed to accept a proportion of death and captivity as their lot in life. Elsewhere, they fought the Vikings off.

In 1631, Barbary Corsairs from the North African coast conducted a famous raid on Baltimore in Cork. The slavers departed with the entire populace of the town, all but one of whom were destined for a life as a galley slave or harem whore.

The Seventeenth Century was something of a high water mark of Irish people being kidnapped into slavery abroad. Following the Battle of Kinsale, the English had 30,000 military prisoners to deal with. So they sent a load of them into slavery in the New World colonies.

The first ones are thought to have arrived in the Amazon around 1612. A proclamation in 1625 formalised the system. Irish political dissidents would be transported and sold as labourers to planters in the West Indies.

Cromwell upped the ante further in 1649 after sacking Drogheda, when he said: "I do not think 30 0f the whole number escaped with their lives, but those that did are in safe custody in Barbados." The following year he oversaw the sale of 25,000 Irish children to planters in the island of St Kitts. That following decade, more than 100,000 Irish children, mostly under 14 years old, were sold as slaves to planters in the Caribbean and New England.

For the masters of independent Ireland in the period between the 30s and the 60s, economic development was much less important than subduing the populace with fundamentalist religion and maintaining the post-colonial one-party state for the benefit of the elite within that party.

The policy was simple - export the excess population, the ones with drive, ambition, education. Because they were dangerous. They risked rocking the boat. They risked overthrowing the cosy cartel. So the elite learnt from Cromwell - export your enemies. Exile the opposition.

A later variant of this same poisonous clique realised that a certain degree of economic development might be welcome, since it would provide a bigger pie for them to carve up among themselves. After a period of time, they found that they had for the first time in a millennium, reversed the flow of population.

Ireland's lost children took the opportunity to return. They sold up their successful lives abroad in their thousands for the chance to return home and be among their friends and family once more.

But they were bitterly betrayed, their fortunes pirated from their pockets by the property developers and then their futures at home eradicated by the cosy cartel of thieves as they stole all the wealth, and indentured the country to pay for their gambling debts.

And now, after that brief hiatus, we find ourselves resuming the same sad old song we've been keening for over a thousand years. Once again, our bright, our young, our talented, are being exiled to slave abroad.

One time, nearly a millennium ago now, the Irish resisted the process of kidnapping, exile and enslavement.

Brian Boru faced down the Viking raiders in the Battle of Clontarf, the visceral anger of the Irish finally sprung forth and found voice. Of 6500 Vikings, only one in ten was still alive when the day was over. There were casualties - Brian himself fell in battle. But that one time, the message of resistance was clear.

We need that same spirit today. We can no longer indulge the coterie of filth who line their pockets while our families are broken up, our loved ones exported like cattle abroad.

When Fianna Fail come knocking - if they dare - think on everyone you know forced abroad as a result of their pocket-lining policies.

And I won't blame you if you give them a taste of what Brian Boru would have done to them.

The tricky task of finding a Ceann Comhairle

The Irish parliament needs a speaker, after the last one was caught swanning around the planet like Marie-Antoinette at the taxpayers' expense.

This is a problem for Fianna Fail, because while the ideal would be for a member of an opposition party to take the chair (thus boosting the government's slender majority), it's unlikely that anyone from Labour or Sinn Fein can be bought off, and Fine Gael will have those who might be tempted on a tight leash in the hope of forcing an election or change of government.

Hence we're seeing some strange names popping up. The latest is Trevor 'I won't lead the Greens into Government with Fianna Fail' Sargent. On the one hand, that would ensure at least one Green in the next Dail, as literally all of their seats are now under real threat.

From a Fianna Fail perspective, it makes holding what they have in Dublin North very difficult. For them to win two seats, as they currently have, next time out would be a huge ask in the current climate.

But given the utter anonymity of their two deputies there, and the vast backlash against Fianna Fail, putting Sargent into the chair would leave them trying to defend two seats out of three when they could well be pushed to get one.

This is why I suspect Biffo will reverse one of the most egregious casualties of his Culchie Coup and elevate Tom Kitt, former Fianna Fail chief whip, to the post.

Kitt was always a good operator, knows the procedural elements of parliament backwards (unlike John O'Donoghue) and is civil and respected by the other parties (again unlike John O'Donoghue.)

But more importantly, he's threatened to step down from his seat in Dublin South, the constituency where former minister Seamus Brennan died and Fianna Fail were unable to defend the seat in a by-election that took a full year to be held.

Currently, that would leave Fianna Fail in the desperate position of having no one except Shay Brennan (Seamus' son) who was wallopped into a distant third place when he was parachuted into the aforementioned by-election, to run in the hope of regaining two seats.

But if Kitt retained his seat as Ceann Comhairle, a totally different picture emerges. Suddenly Fine Gael are in the position of trying to defend three seats in a four seater - impossible, frankly. And Fianna Fail retain the reins of the parliamentary chair for some time to come.

Fianna Fail are already in major damage limitation mode. They can smell the election coming. They saw at the weekend how close the rump Greens are to walking out of government. They've had to issue a stern warning just to whip the Greens into line on the forthcoming budget. In short, they know the gig is soon to be up.

So already, they're plotting for a life after government. A term in opposition, with a favourable Ceann Comhairle, and the opportunity to take at least one Fine Gael scalp during the forthcoming meltdown, would seem to be their best option.

If Kitt's not dead set on retirement (and I suspect he only promised to quit because of how he was ousted from cabinet by Cowen when he had reason to expect promotion), then I imagine he will be placed in the post.

What sort of cold-hearted cunt is Barack Obama?

George Hussein Obama, centre, in Huruma shanty town, Nairobi, Kenya, where he lives unaided by his somewhat wealthier brother Barack.

There are serious questions about Barack Obama that aren't being answered.

Questions like: was he actually born in Hawaii or was he born in Kenya, which would invalidate him from even running?

Questions like: what did he actually do during his years as a community activist and why have his employment records suddenly been made classified the minute journalists started asking to look at them?

But the most serious question about Barack Obama is the one about his character.

What sort of a man can run for high office, the highest on Earth, promising his vision of care for all, expressing his concern that no one be left behind and that the weakest be protected, while all the time he has abandoned his own brother to a diseased shanty town and Third World squalor?

Barack Hussein Obama is that man.

And George Hussein Obama is his brother, seen above being propped up by a journalist and friend due to either illness or drug use.

He lives in Huruma shanty town in Nairobi, next door to a low-rent brothel in an area where AIDS is endemic. He doesn't work, smokes dope all day, and lives with his aunt on a pittance he raises by begging. He also appears to be in poor health.

Barack has never given George any help. He's never even given George a penny to help himself. But he's written multi-million selling books boasting about his pride in family, in his heritage. Somehow, he's never seen fit to share the tiniest bit of that wealth with his own brother, who is forced to beg for a living in a Third World slum instead.

Despite that, poor George still supports Barack and has the whole neighbourhood backing him in the forthcoming presidential race.

I'm not American and I don't have a vote. Even if I did, I'd be a natural Democrat in US terms. But I cannot endorse such a man as Barack Obama.

I'm getting saddened at how so many otherwise intelligent people have fallen for the rhetoric here. Everyone seems to be sleepwalking into believing they've found the black JFK rather than actually questioning the candidate, and properly examining who they're seeking to elect.

John McCain has a thousand pages of medical records, was tortured in Nam and is running for this post four or eight years too late. John McCain, if elected, might die in office and leave Sarah Palin in charge, which is scary for many people.

John McCain has a lot of money, cars and houses. People pick on him for that. But Obama has a lot of wealth too. The difference, for me, is that John McCain hasn't left anyone in his family behind in a squalid gutter.

That's probably because John McCain was the person left behind in the squalor for years when he was a POW in Asia.

John McCain is demonstrably a man of integrity. A man who can't remember how many homes he has, perhaps. Let's say he's an old, occasionally forgetful man of integrity.

But any multi-millionaire man of power and influence who would leave his brother to fester in such a hellhole without even offering to help is no man of integrity.

And when that man then starts spouting about how he wants to care for everyone in his nation, I start thinking about his abandoned brother and wonder whether what I'm hearing is hypocrisy, psychosis or simply cynical lying to get elected at all costs.

Barack Obama is a man without character who left his poor brother to rot in a festering, Aids-ridden, malarial Third World shanty town, despite being himself a millionaire who boasts of his desire to help everyone he can.

Bear that in mind. Don't say I didn't warn you when he turns out not to be the black JFK after all.

P.S. Some Americans wish to help poor George even if his big brother the millionaire senator does not. Here's the link for Help George Obama, if you're interested in being a better human being than Barack Obama.

JC Skinner wants your vote

There is a large proportion of the American electorate who are unconvinced by either Obama's vision thing or McCain's maverick conservatism.

Reluctantly, I have finally agreed to put my name forward following a massive groundswell of appeals that I enter my candidacy in the forthcoming election:

Miss Alaska for Vice-President?

Or maybe even for President in four years time?

It seems that John McCain has decided to go with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate.

It's a superlative choice that's really going to let the Democrats know they're in a fight for the Whitehouse.

She is a dream candidate for the Republicans - she's extremely photogenic (even now, as opposed to her beauty queen heyday, right), married to an Inuit (there goes a slice of Obama's ethnic vote), the mother of a Downs' Syndrome kid and a soldier on active duty, and she has actual experience of governance (unlike Obama, Biden or McCain).

She'll appeal to the ethnic vote, to the swing vote and to the still disgruntled Clintonista sisterhood vote.

An election that ought on paper to have been a Democrat landslide is now blown wide open. They have the wrong candidate, the wrong vice-presidential candidate and the wrong election strategy (Roman pillars for the acceptance speech? WTF?)

By contrast, McCain is quietly playing a blinder. Palin is a genuine heavyweight candidate, despite her beauty and relative youth. Alaskan politicos allege that the political landscape of the territory is littered with the corpses of those who've opposed her in the past.

She will give Biden a good debate and she will shore up the demographic holes in the McCain vote.

Despite the Obamania of the convention, the much-awaited bump in the polls has not materialised for the Democrats. McCain remains doggedly in touch.

It will be interesting to see the polls following the Republican convention. I suspect by then McCain will be neck-and-neck with Obama if not in front.

Certainly, the media agenda hijacking of the Democrat convention by today's announcement is a genius move by the GOP that the Democrats have nothing to respond with.

If they keep boxing clever like that, no amount of waffly Obama rhetoric will be able to propel him to the Whitehouse come November.

What's worse for the Democrats is that if the McCain ticket does get elected, then Palin can run against Obama or Hilary or whoever the Dems choose in 2012 with four years of executive experience under her belt.

The real nightmare for them would be for McCain to die about three years into a term of office. They'd be looking realistically at eight years of Bush junior, followed by three of McCain, followed by nine of Palin.

Obama becoming more unelectable by the day

Apparently it IS possible to make Barack Hussein Obama even more unelectable than he already is.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next never-will-be-vice-president of the United States, Joe Biden.

Okay, he's an aged white man, just like the Obamaniacs wanted (though one wonders why.)

But he's also one of the wettest eco-liberals in US politics. Not exactly the sort of person to mitigate and soften Obama's own hyper-lefty tendencies so much as exaggerate and amplify them.

Biden's pro-environment, pro-choice, anti-tax cuts, pro-gun control and pro-gay civil unions. Whatever the merits of any of those individual positions, they certainly won't endear the Obama ticket to the MOR Republican-lite voters and undecideds that they need to get over the line in November. If anything, the opposite.

He is vaunted for his foreign affairs knowledge, however. Again, his positions seem unelectable to me. He's in favour of dialogue with Iran and North Korea, the so-called axis of evil, for example. He wants American troops sent into Darfur.

While his pro-Israel views might align him with the US mainstream, they're hardly a standout issue. After all, is there ANYONE in American politics who doesn't give the Zionist regime a carte blanche?

According to the Washington Post, who analysed senatorial voting patterns, pretty much the only Senator with a more liberal voting record than Biden is - Obama, of course.

Response in the States has been predictable:

Glee from the McCain camp, who are delighted to see Obama pick such an unelectable running mate.

More dark murmurings from the Clintonistas and the sisterhood that they don't feel comfortable voting for the Obama ticket, especially without a woman on it, and double-especially without Hilary.

Forced cheer from the true believers, whose initial JFK hysteria is subsiding into an 'Omigod, what have we done?' hangover more and more each day.

What does it all add up to? Another Republican president, of course, albeit a one-termer.

I don't mind adding my voice to the cliche - the Democrats really are set hard on grasping defeat from the jaws of victory, and it looks like they've managed it now.

The American presidential election digested

From the inimitable Fred Reed comes the most succinct summary of the choice America faces in the forthcoming months about which leader to choose:

We’ve got Obama, an empty suit with a good line of patter and a past few write about, and McCain, a pugnacious senile temper tantrum who can’t remember whether Al Qaeda is Sunni or Shiite.
Not too promising.
That leaves Clitler, a strange visitor from another planet probably and crooked as kite string in a ceiling fan, but neither stupid, ignorant, nor crazy.

Needless to say, he's a Hilary supporter by default. Though given he resides in Mexico, she's unlikely to benefit from his vote.

He's pretty good on current and former presidents too:

Bill Clinton was said to be the first black president. W is the first kinky president, which is a whole new approach to democracy.
All sorts of countries torture people, because intelligence agencies naturally attract cowboys, assassins, incorrigible juveniles, and sadists.
But W’s S&M operation in Gitmo is a first. Whipseys and Cheneys. It’s because he’s a Christian. Poor Jesus.
His followers act like the Marquis de Sade—torturing, burning old women at the stake, turning water into water boards. I’d love to know what movies you might find on hard drives at the White House.

There you have it - the five minute lesson in US presidents past, present and future. Perhaps they should lure Fred back across the Rio Grande and stick him in the White House. Not that he'd do it, of course. He knows Washington too well:

Washington is a curious city, separated from most of the rest of the United States by a gaping cultural chasm. It is probably the nation’s best educated town, and it is certainly a place where people know the score.
The population consists of politicians, reporters, beltway bandits attached to Uncle Sucker’s well-worn mammaries, wonks from policy shops, or outfits supplying all of them with one thing or another.
In a country that doesn’t, they travel.
It doesn’t make them better people than others. It means that they know it’s all a game, a matter of whose rice bowl gets filled by what contract and who gets re-elected how.
Things are dirty and rigged and one either hides things from the public or misrepresents them to gull the rubes. This of course is no secret. It doesn’t have to be. It works anyway.

But if Fred was, somehow, to assume the reins of power, he does have a plan, a single idea to put an end to the war in Iraq. I like his plan. It's neat, and it just might work:

I will strap the mothers of the graduating class of Harvard to the front bumpers of Humvees in Baghdad, and see how long support for the war lasts.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Michael McDole

As promised, here are some pics of Michael McDowell at the recent general election count at the RDS, during which he made his speech resigning from political life.

There has been some debate in the media and online about whether McDowell was mobbed and jeered by Sinn Fein supporters as he made his speech. This first pic clearly indicates that it was the media who did the mobbing.

McDowell was no sooner in the RDS than he was surrounded by photographers and hacks, as this pic indicates.



Here he is giving his speech about loving his country and so on.



And following his departure, where he was indeed jeered by a People Before Profit member carrying a sign reading 'Michael McDole', John Gormley of the Green Party arrived in time to be declared elected.



Finally, some people might be pleased to know that the 'Michael McDole' sign, a piece of history from this particular general election campaign, was retrieved for posterity and is now in a safe place. Here's me posing with it!

I'd just like to add that I was not the person waving it about at McDowell, nor was I the person who retrieved it from the trashcan. Neither a protestor nor a bin-dipper am I! (But special thanks to those who did retrieve it and who let me borrow it for this snap - you know who you are!)

You asked for it

You asked for a Fianna Fail government and it looks like you're going to get one.

Be careful what you wish for. Good luck with dealing with hours of daily commuting, yo-yoing house prices, a derelict health service and hundreds of new stealth taxes.

Hope you enjoy the corruption in government, an 'unexpected' trebling of the cost of the airport metro, more motorways through sites of national heritage and more revelations of a Taoiseach on the make at the tribunals.

The great thing about the democratic process is that people generally get the government they deserve. Whether it will be Fianna Fail + randomers, Fianna Fail + the Greens or Fianna Fail + Labour, it will be a marginally more caring and equitable government than any government with the morally bankrupt Progressive Democrats.

Farewell and good riddance to McDowell and his neo-con cronies. (Picture of McDowell resigning before my eyes last night to follow.)

But whatever government is returned this week will be a Fianna Fail government. I wonder what it says about us that that is all the Irish people deserve.

Exit Poll

Exit polls put FF on 41.6%, FG on 26.3%, Labour on 9.9%, SF 7.3%, Greens 4.8%, PDs 2.6% and others at 4.8%.
Some websites and news sources make that a FF government, and Paddy Power has already paid out on Bertie as next Taoiseach.
But my number crunching suggests that that can only lead to a rainbow, unless Labour do a FF deal or FF go into bed with SF and/or the Greens.
It still seems to be an extremely tight election, people. Roll on the first counts at lunchtime!
I'll be in the RDS this evening monitoring six of the Dublin counts and will be reporting back to Cian and the boys at Irishelection.com with live updates.

Back from the Orient

I'm now back from the far east, and have quite a number of observations to make about China. But I'll do that next week, as it's impossible to ignore the small matter of a general election this week.

It looks like Bribeable Bert's in real trouble over the small matter of receiving free houses and maintenance buy-offs from shadowy businessmen in Manchester. This doesn't exactly fill me with hope for the nation, since he's still neck and neck to form the next government.

What does it actually take to convince the rump 35% or so that the current batch of Fianna Fail are a ragbag of crooks and incompentants? Do they actually need to see them exiting the Bank of Ireland wearing stripey pyjamas and masks carrying bags with 'Swag' written on them before they understand?

Anyhow, there is at least cheering news that the neo-cons who've actually been running the country for the past decade, while the Fianna Failures were busy lining their pockets, are set to be wiped out.

At least the nation seems to have copped on to the PDs at long last. Perhaps it was Harney's presiding over ever deteriorating health services, while trying to sell off the best bits to her mates, or perhaps it is the perennial frothing mouthed anti-democratic insanity of McDowell that has led them to this pass.

But since those two are the only ones likely to be returned to the Dail, it's more likely that the public have finally copped that there is no PD party. It's just a flag of convenience flown by a truly bizarre bunch of right-wing fellow travellers, each with their own personal reasons for wishing to be a big fish in an ever-evaporating pond.

On the other hand, the Shinners seems set to consolidate a lot of gains, perhaps even enough to force a hung Dail or minority government. In which case, the question is will bribeable Bert be persuaded into bed with the gunmen?

Labour are continuing to insist that they won't assist a Fianna Fail coalition, but that rather depends on them making up the numbers with Fine Gael and, perhaps, the Greens. Which it's looking dubious that they will.

The bookies still like the look of a FF-Lab coalition despite Rabbitte's rantings, and if that does transpire, you can expect to see Pat hoist by his Mullingar petard, leaving the way clear for Brendan Howlin to become Tanaiste.

In short, it's the most exciting, and crucial, election held in Ireland for well over a generation.

Make sure to play your part by casting a vote this week, even if it's only for the Christian Solidarity or Immigration Control candidates.

Actually, I'm joking. If either of those appeal, you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Coming soon: why Irish builders should move to Tibet.

Vote Skinner!

I was a bit late registering as a political party, so I'm a 'write-in' candidate.

I'm running in your constituency.

You have to write in my name, though. Just scribble out any name you recognise and write JC Skinner instead, or go for my preferred option of writing it in at the top of the list and drawing a separate wee box and putting the number one in there.

If I get elected, I intend to introduce a private member's bill making cocaine mandatory for Enda Kenny, introduce a law declaring Michael McDowell illegal, and I will personally host a dinner in Manchester every week for any of Bertie Ahern's mates who want to give me £30,000.

I will also cull Mary Harney and process her into food for starving economic migrants.

The Green Party will be relocated to Rockall, which will be made independent and given to them to live underground on, like hobbits.

Sinn Fein members will be made to fight the Irish Rangers to the death in special gladiatorial bouts to be held in Croke Park. They will be armed with pikes and copies of Danny Morrison's novel, 'West Belfast.' The Rangers will be issued with Uzis.

Ian Paisley will be stuffed, mounted and glued onto the side of Croagh Patrick to make a nice Mount Rushmore type national monument.

The Hill of Tara will be placed on giant stilts so the motorway can go under it. We will also build a tunnel to Iceland, to reduce commuting times to Dublin from the Arctic Circle.

A new Luas line will be routed through Bono's living room, so that we can all 'see where he lives', like he said we should in one of his songs. It will feature a loop-the-loop section.

Vote Skinner. Better than the other shower.

Dail dissolved

Well, it was getting embarrassing.

First telling our unelected President to cancel all appointments for Friday afternoon, then bottling it at the last minute.

Then hapless Bert gets a quick graft of backbone from the party, who are fed up at watching their coalition lead erode in the polls.

And it's a dash to the Aras this morning to get La McAleese's autograph before she goes walkies abroad again, as is her wont.

So the Dail is now dissolved. A pity that couldn't be taken literally. Every five years, we could douse the lot of them in a strong hydrochloric acid bath for being useless, pocket-lining chancers.

It would certainly winnow out the less altruistic candidates for election, that's for sure.

Well, folks, you now have until May 24th to decide which chancer running in your neck of the woods is less likely to shaft the economy and you personally than the other chancers.

Don't let apathy win. Your vote counts. Quiz them on the doorsteps, question them on the issues that matter to you. Tell them about your shoddy health service, overpriced public-private partnerships on what should be essential infrastructure and your concerns about the housing market.

Demand costed plans for their manifestos. Seek evidence that they are not the corrupt, pocket-lining time-servers that we have so long suffered in this country in place of public representatives.

Consider voting for candidates that highlight issues you believe in, even if they won't form a government. People who espouse green issues, father's rights, a united Ireland, the preservation of your local hospital.

But make sure to give a preference high up to the candidate of the government of your choice.

Make your say count. There's no mandate for moaning if you didn't vote in the first place. This is your opportunity to hold politicians to account. It only happens once every four or five years. Use it.

Vote for Parents' Rights

Voters in four constituencies in Ireland will get the chance to vote for parents' rights in the forthcoming election after the Fathers Rights-Responsibility Party became the state's newest official political party this week.

Candidates include former MEP candidate Liam O'Gogain, a veteran campaigner for shared parenting and founder of campaigning organisation Parental Equality, and Alan Beirne, one of Parental Equality's leading members who came to public prominence when he featured in RTE's groundbreaking documentary series on divorce some years back.

Unlike our current Taoiseach, who had wealthy pals to buy him a house and bankroll his marital separation, many divorced and separated fathers in Ireland suffer real financial hardship when their relationships break down.

And unlike our current Taoiseach, they do not always gain unlimited or even any access to their children following separation.

The creakingly antique laws relating to parenting in Ireland are predicated on the outdated belief that a woman's place is in the home and the children's place is at her apron-strings.

Hence the phenomenon of so many children who are now being raised in Ireland without meaningful influence from their fathers. Around 40% of all births in Ireland are now to unmarried parents, but what those many fathers often do not realise is that the state gives their relationship with their children absolutely no protection.

They are not granted automatic guardianship of their children, and if they split with their children's mother, they must petition for access via the courts. They must also seek 'custody', that odious phrase with all its connotations of children as possessions.

Instances of bitter women denying fathers access to their kids, and being facilitated in doing so by our outdated legal system, run into the thousands. In fact, Irish fathers face the worst discrimination in Europe.

The adversarial, Kramer Versus Kramer, format pits mother against father on a queered playing pitch which ensures only that fathers must empty their pockets to finance their former partner's lives, while being simultaneously unable to have meaningful relationships with their children.

The result is that we are raising an experimental generation of children with no paternal input into their lives. Forget the media lie of deadbeat dads. We have a deadbeat system, and it is no wonder that it results in an ASBO generation where the Department of Social Welfare has become husband to lone mothers and father to their children.

The Fathers Rights-Responsibility Party advocate a mediated, shared parenting system that benefits all, especially the children.

To all voters in constituencies where their candidates are running, I urge you to offer these candidates a preference in the forthcoming election, a first preference if possible.

That way, you can send a message out to the incoming government, whoever they may be, that it is time we dragged our legal system out of the dark ages for our children's sake.

D- for canvassing

I've been a bit miffed at the lack of canvassing in our area. I would normally have expected Fianna Failures at the door on an hourly basis this close to an election, swiftly followed by that famous Sinn Fein election machine.

Obviously, one is an extremely privileged soul if you manage to get a PD canvasser to your door, since they're rarer than hen's teeth. And the Blueshirts don't tend to come around my area too often either.

But I'd gone to all the trouble to draw up a lengthy list of complaints for all parties, and hence I've been extremely disappointed at the lack of opportunities I've had to present them.

However, the Shinner juggernaut finally traversed our street today, and I was delighted to see that they're running honey traps now. A genuinely stunning young blonde came to the door, all day-glo teeth, Toni and Guy hair and fake tan, asking me would I consider voting Sinn Fein?

The short answer is of course, only at gunpoint, which when discussing the party in question is never entirely off the table.

But in order to produce my list of woes for the first time, I was initially non-committal.

"I'm still thinking about who to vote for," I pondered. "But it won't be Fianna Fail, because I'd like to see some change."

Unfortunately she picked up on my accent.

"You're from the North?" she asked perceptively.

"I am indeed, occupied six counties and all that."

"Ah, right," she looked at her clipboard, marked a tick against something I couldn't see, and started walking away.

As she started knocking on the neighbour's door, I coughed politely and called to her, "I do have a vote, you know!"

"I know you do," she said. "But let's be honest, if you're from the North, you know Sinn Fein and what we stand for. So you're hardly undecided, are you? You're either with us or against us, and I reckon you're against us."

That's Sinn Fein for you, always fighting the war.

D minus for canvassing abilities, though.

2007 Predictions

I suppose I am a little tardy rolling out my predictions a fortnight into the new year, but I really did want to chew them over first. Last thing I need is to have you all on my back come December going ner-ner-ner-ner-ner! at me for getting it all wrong.

So here are my predictions for 2007, carefully considered and guaranteed to come true or your money back.* Get down to the bookies now!

Mystic JC gazes into his crystal ball and sees:

1. The NI elections will see a bump in the SDLP vote, but not enough to overhaul Sinn Fein. Both parties will hail their performances as a success. The UUP will similarly close on the DUP and both parties again will claim public support for their strategies. Ian Paisley will then find further nit-picking reasons not to enter power-sharing, and the whole process will end up on ice again, and Northern Irish citizens will still be denied democracy.
2. More American troops will enter Iraq, which will deteriorate further, if that is indeed possible. The US government will blame Iranian influences within Iraq for the upsurge in violence and, with the support of Tony Blair, though without British troops, will attempt to overthrow the Ahmedinejad regime.
3. The destruction of Afghanistan will continue apace, in media silence and to no particular outcry from the Western world. Al-Qaeda will retain a presence there, and British and American troops will start to leave in order to free up manpower for Iraq, and later, Iran. Opium will flow out of the place, children will starve, women will be suppressed and many people will die needlessly.
   
4. Fianna Fail will be returned to power in a bad-tempered election marked by the emergence of negative campaigning for the first time in Ireland. Expect particular trouble in the Dublin Central constituency, where Bertie the cheque signer faces off against the fashion wing of the Republican movement, Mary-Lou.
5. However, the PDs will not be returned to power, leaving McDowell in control of himself only in the Dail, as Mary Harney, Mae Sexton and the rest all bow out ungraciously. The PDs will be behind Joe Higgins' Socialists in parliament after they secure a second seat.
6. The Shinners will boost their number of TDs, but not so much as to create a hung Dail. Bertie will make up the numbers of his government with randomers like Jackie Healy-Rae as he did previously.
7. Enda Kenny will face a leadership challenge, as will Pat Rabbitte. Enda may survive his, but Pat will not. Expect to see Brendan Howlin in charge of Labour by year's end.
   
8. Tony Blair will finally get thrown out of Number Ten, to be replaced by Gordon Brown after a late party leadership challenge from John Reid and some other numpties. 'New' Labour will continue to ignore the needs of the British working class despite the figurehead change, and will continue to leak support to the Tories. The BNP, Respect and Scots and Welsh nationalist votes will all inexorably rise.
9. The Basque peace process will collapse, leading to further sporadic bombings and violence. Shinners will wring their hands about it and talk about the need for dialogue.
10. Conflicts will flare across Africa, in Sudan, Somalia, and along the Western coast. But that happens every year, so that's not really much of a prediction, I admit.
    
11. Manchester United will win the Premiership, leading to the 'mutually agreed' departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea. In a fit of pique, he will take Frank Lampard with him to Real Madrid. Whoever wins the Barcelona-Liverpool tie will win the Champions' League.
12. There will be a major spike in oil prices again.

That's your lot! Thanks for listening. Remember, I'm on 5% of all winnings, which can be remitted to me in used notes of either Euro or Sterling (no soft currencies like the dollar, which is going down further this year than a deep-throating hooker). Non-consecutive numbers please.




*Guarantee dependent on acts of God, and of people who think they're God, like Georgie Bush, Tony Blair, Jose Mourinho, etc.

We'd like the island and the big house back, thanks

First things first. Let's save trees. That's what the interweb is for. Download your copy of the Moriarty Report here. Now you have your Christmas reading material sorted.

Of course, Charlie Bird and numerous other breathless hacks have already spoiled the best gags in there, like how our evil hero Charlie Haughey stole three quarters of his best mate's liver transplant fund.

Or how he lived a mere 171 times beyond his means while telling the people of Ireland to tighten their belts and sell more of their children into emigration.

But really, we've all known for an awfully long time what a total scumbag and crook this venal little man was. Terry Keane, another venal little person, has repeatedly sold her story, so we already have it on eyewitness account that he was an adulterous man who splashed enormous cash because his bossy mistress made him feel like the uncultured shitehawk he actually was.

And as far back as the McCracken tribunal, we knew Charlie was dodgier than Gary Glitter running a kindergarten.

So really, the only outstanding issues that remain are as follows:

Why did it take so long to publish this report? Could some form of it not have emerged during the old thief's life, so that he knew exactly how disgraced and rumbled he was? Why was he permitted to bullshit the tribunal that he wasn't fit to attend for six years, during which he fecked off to regattas in the south of France and holidayed on his personal island?

Our current Taoiseach, now revealed as Charlie's cheque-signer, is allegedly a trained accountant. Since even children know that you don't sign blank cheques, how in the name of God does the Moriarty report whitewash Bertie? Either he should be stripped of both being Taoiseach and his accountancy qualifications for being a total moron, or else he should be facing corruption charges too. Saying he's a gobdaw is not sufficient.

Now we know Abbeville and Inishvickillaun are the products of corrupt behaviour. So why aren't they being turned over to the people? Why should Haughey's ugly brood benefit from this corruption? Apparently Haughey's €20 million in legal bills to the tribunal are to be paid by the state. Why should you and I have to pay that scumbag's legal bills, which he ran up while telling porkies to the tribunal to try to cover up his massively corrupt lifestyle? Sell the big house and the private island to pay the fucking bills.

Remember all of these questions come the next election, people. This report shouldn't go away. The people in power now were around then and knew what was going on.

When some candidate comes to the door crowing about Fianna Fail's success in the Irish economy or some such crap, demand that the Haughey family are made to pay their corrupt pappy's legal bills. Demand that the Criminal Assets Bureau seize the family estate and private island as products of corrupt behaviour and ill-gotten gain.

And via your votes, remove from power a man who considered it fine business practice to sign blank cheques for crooks.

Just press the button and the machine does the rest...

Minister for profligacy Martin Cullen is likely tearing through more packs of fags than usual today after hearing the news that European hackers are able to hack his 60 million euro machines effortlessly, detect votes as they are cast and even manipulate the results.

Cullen, who championed the introduction of e-voting in the face of vociferous objection from the public and IT experts, will be wondering if he would have been better off spending that money on another round the world trip with his former PR consultant and serial libel litigant Monica Leech (above after being appointed to her latest sinecure with Waterford Chamber of Commerce).

Even at Monica's rather wallet-lightening rate of 1,200 euro per day, Marty could have swanned around the planet with his trusty media guru to hand for nearly 140 years for the same price he paid for the useless hunks of electronics that are now gathering dust throughout the country.

Every so often, we've seen an idea floated as to what can be done with the machines, other than scrapping them or permitting them to languish in storage at the taxpayers' expense. But whether they end up as game consoles in American bars, as was once suggested, one thing is for sure. No one will be using them to vote in this country any time soon.

According to notorious German hackers, the Computer Chaos Club, the machines give off radio waves that could be intercepted by anyone in a 25 metre vicinity, thereby revealing the 'secret' voting choices of the electorate.

And only last week, it appears that their Dutch colleagues, the lobby group "Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet" (That's "We don't trust e-voting machines" to you and me) demonstrated on TV how the machines can be easily manipulated, using the very manuals that came with the machines Martin Cullen bought.

"Anyone when given brief access to the devices at any time before the election, can gain complete and virtually undetectable control over the election results," they revealed.

Perhaps Marty should dust the machines off, bite the bullet and take the e-voting vision to phase 2 by having the machines decide our government for us next year. We'll just press a few buttons, and the machines can do the rest.

At least that way, we would have something else to blame than ourselves for having people like Cullen in cabinet.