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.

The quandary of the reluctant floating voter

I can't vote for Fianna Fail or the Green Party because they are national traitors who deserve to be in jail.

I can't vote for Fine Gael because they are a bunch of would-be Tories itching to lower taxes for the rich and devastate social welfare.

I can't vote for Labour because they want to preserve unionised public sector jobs at the expense of those in the private sector who can no longer afford to keep the parasite public sector class in their 49% higher-paid jobs.

I can't vote for Sinn Fein because they are closet fascists who endorse mass immigration without the introduction of a points-based work permit system.

I can't vote for Independents because they are almost all pothole-filling clientelist parish pump attendants who will flex no muscle or power or influence over government.

Christian Solidarity are Catholic fundamentalists, New Vision are actually a very old vision (Indie Fianna Failers) and Fis Nua are disgruntled Greens.

I need a party to vote for who will cull the excess in the public sector, create jobs, preserve the social welfare net for those in genuine need, close the open-door on immigration, reverse emigration, and provide affordable education for the people of Ireland.

But that party doesn't apparently exist. So who the hell am I supposed to vote for?

Comedy government continues

Long after it stopped being amusing and became a sick joke.

Cowen has quit as Fianna Fail leader, but not as Taoiseach.

Party before people, as it ever was with the soldiers of destiny.

"We must cast off the shroud of negativity and regain our national perspective," says Biffo.

You really couldn't make this shit up.

The last laugh comes on Wednesday with Labour's vote of confidence in the Taoiseach. Since he won't walk, it appears he has to be removed forcibly. The Greens are now hinting they will support the motion. I hope they do.

The crucial thing at this point is that the Finance Bill is not enacted into law, so that a new government, after the election, will have the room to renegotiate the bailout.

A small point on the issue of democracy

I've not yet heard anyone make the following simple point, least of all those who are seeking to create the 'progressive coalition' in Britain.

Sure, the Tories got the most seats. That's their argument.
And sure, the Liberals and Labour collectively got many more votes. That's the only argument they've offered in terms of legitimacy so far.

But my argument would be this: surely a coalition made up of Labour, the Lib Dems, the SDLP, Lady Sylvia (former UUP), NI Alliance Party, the Greens (and possibly Scots and Welsh nationalists too) represents a much broader and wider sweep of the UK than a simple coalition of Tories and Liberals, propped up perhaps by the DUP.

The Tory spin that such a coalition would be fragile is undone by this argument. Because the very thing that makes it fragile is the very thing that makes it democratic - plurality of representation.

The cult of AGW

It's been the coldest winter since 1963 here in Ireland, apparently.

And we're not unique. Most of the planet has been experiencing exceptionally cold weather this winter.

This goes quite a long way towards explaining why you don't hear the words 'global warming' being bandied about so much any more.

These days, the buzz words are 'climate change'. I'd be inclined to refer to climate changing by its old-fashioned title, 'weather'.

But plenty of the true believers in the cult of anthropogenic global warming are still keen to claim that armageddon is imminent, and it's all your fault and mine for, well, existing basically.

Global warming, yesterday.

On BBC Radio 4 today, they were covering the British parliament's grilling of the lying scientists who conspired to fabricate data, cover up the truth and twist the results of research.

They then turned to some invited 'expert' to respond. I didn't catch his name. I wish I had because he should be added to the list of lying scumbags banking research grants for peddling this tosh.

He hummed and hawed about his lying colleagues getting busted, then went on to insist that, of course, none of this should impact at all on the need to reduce carbon emissions, the pressing need for carbon taxes, and so on and so forth.

Amazingly, the presenter didn't call him on any of this crap. But that's the nature of religious faith. One cannot question under any circumstances.

Yes, oil is running out and we need to be smarter about how we use it (ban SUVs for a start), and we need to find replacement sources of energy.

But that is no reason to seek to tax the developed world to the point of penury. There's a perfectly simple and indisputable reason for our cold weather. It's called the solar minimum.

When the sun flares up with nuclear force on its surface, it sends waves of additional heat and light our way. These flares are called sunspots, and they occur in cycles. We're at the bottom of the cycle currently, so there are virtually no sunspots and as a result, much less heat for us.

When there were plenty of sunspots a few years back, the world was exceptionally warm, and that's when this global warming crap began getting propagated.

So, since we know their scientific underpinning for AGW (man-made global warming/cooling/change/whatever you're having yourself) is not only junk science but deliberate lies, the only remaining question is why is the cult still propagating this?

Well, what is the result of a carbon tax? It's a penalty on the developed world for being developed. It's a glass ceiling on the prospects of the developing world to continue improving the lives of those living there. In short, it's a charter for reversing development.

In other words, it's more back-to-hobbiton fantasies from the Gaia-brigade, who'd like nothing more than to see mankind reduced to a few hundred thousand people living in an imaginary vegan wonderland without machinery, transport, or anything that might interrupt their fantasy idyll.

It's a cult, and it's time to stop pandering to them. They're more dangerous than any other bunch of crazy faith-based loonies right now, including the Roman Catholic paedo-clerics, the Islamo-fascist suicide bombers or the Judaic imperialists.

These people want to end the world as we know it. In proposing one spoof Armageddon, they hope to bring about a real one.

They need to be stopped. This nonsense has gone too far and for far too long already.

It's time we repudiated their ever-changing anti-human, anti-development lies and stopped letting them take us for sheep that will believe any old rubbish, and happily pay to be returned to the middle ages.

Trevor caught by the Cutting Crew

Fianna Fail were never going to take the axeing of O'Dea lying down.

It didn't take long for them to wheel out some dirt on possibly the cleanest TD of all, Not-so-clever Trevor Sargent.

The government is rocking, right now. The gaps are opening up. Cowen can't keep it together much longer, especially with Dermot Ahern bootboying around the place as he has been.

Trevor's gone, and will eventually be the focus of the Greens again when this regime falls and the Gormley era is consigned to the unrecyclable bin of political failure.

In the meantime? Why not do as I do and crack open some popcorn and a nice beer and watch another government minister forced to quit.

Death by a thousand cuts

With a title like that, you're possibly expecting another economic rant from me.

Nope, it's option two on this occasion - this rancid government.

I wish I didn't feel compelled to pen my outrage on these two topics so often. It's wearying and depressing to return again and again to stare into the abyss and yell back what I see.

God only knows what you lot feel about it.

(Well, actually, Statcounter knows. And he says you're way more interested when I write about dead porn stars, or tattooing in Goa, or music piracy, or Irish whiskey, or the farce that is Ulster-Scots. Anything, in other words, other than the above two conversation-stoppers.)

So I'll try to think of posting about tattooed porn stars pirating Ulster-Scots albums or something similarly gripping later this week.

Remember when John O'Donoghue got forced out of his cosy, parasitic sinecure?

It felt like something had shifted in the universe. A senior politician in Ireland quit? That hadn't happened since forever.

But now that lying lowlife Willie O'Dea is gone too.

And Brian Lenihan, the last intelligent member of cabinet and the only one with any sort of respect outside a cumann singalong, is way more ill than they are publicly letting on.

And hoppity shortarse Martin Cullen is soon set to depart, what with his back finally caving in (likely due to his utter lack of spine.)

That leaves three seats at the top table soon to be empty,and let's not forget that Harney is only in her supersized chair because nobody else in government is taking enough hallucinogens to think running the Department of Health is a good idea of a career move.

And a level down the greasy pole, their margin is wafer thin in the Dail due to two by-elections and the distaste of panic-stricken backbenchers to continue supporting the insupportable.

Never mind the ever-skittish Greens, and the collection of allegedly Independent village idiots and parish pump attendants their every vote is now reliant on.

Finally, this has roused Fine Gael, many years later than it should have, and we have the riveting sight of blustering Enda in the Dail.

Obviously, with their huge poll lead and the almost unimaginable dream of possible one-party rule, they want to deliver the knockout blow as quick as is humanly possible.

After all, who knows when Labour will cop on and disassociate themselves from the unions' ruinous and publicly unpopular campaign to exempt overpaid, underworked public sector workers with job security from sharing the burden of the recession?

But thus far, the blueshirts remain utterly ineffectual, reliant on the Continuity Greens (the ones still technically in the tent, as opposed to McKenna's Real Greens, De Burca's Official Greens or any of the others who've already walked in disgust) to do any real damage.

The only thing that seems likely to prevent this government limping along, dying the death of a thousand cuts as one rat after another speeds for safety, is the incompetence of the incumbents.

God forbid that a government in Ireland changed because the public got disgusted by its corruption and incompetence and demanded its removal.

No, instead we must have, as we always do, some ridiculously irrelevant issue to get collectively mental about for a week, until before you know it, someone's off up the Aras and those fecking posters sprout on the lampposts all over again.

When O'Donoghue resigned, he whined that others in government had done much worse and seen no harm come to them. Why, his baffled mutton head seemed to ask, am I being picked on?

This week, we've seen O'Dea moaning exactly the same tune.

And so it will go, on. Some of them will slip out the backdoor, pleading illness. But those which remain will face a scrutiny that comes many years too late.

None of them will withstand such scrutiny. All of them will feel aggrieved, to have their past behaviour judged by proper standards of probity at last, when for years they quite rightly believed they could get away with anything, because they always did.

Then they'll be gone, with big cheerio cheques in their pockets, and we'll be left with blustering Enda, a prolonged recession, no jobs and a huge deficit.

And it'll happen all over again in another few decades, unless we start jailing people.

We should start with prosecuting O'Dea, who is guilty of perjury. We should go back to Ahern, who cannot explain away his financial shenanigans to the taxman, and prosecute him too.

Until these people are held accountable, they're beyond the law and will act accordingly.

And exactly the same principle applies to the banksters too.

(Oh, look! This post is about the economy after all!)

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.

The NAMA Republic

At a time with approaching half a million on the dole, 25% of mortgage holders in negative equity, the government borrowing nearly a billion every two weeks to stay afloat, and all public sector and PAYE workers facing the third round of cuts in their wages, what does this corrupt and shameless government do?

They bail out their developer pals to the tune of tens of billions we don't have.

Congratulations. If you are an Irish taxpayer, you have just been heisted to the tune of around 35,000 euro. And that will go to bail out Liam Carroll, Sean Dunne and their odious ilk, who gambled and lost on a punt that the property prices they inflated would keep ballooning forever.

They've done this by propping up the corrupt bankers who gave them the preposterous sums in the first place. No room for capitalism here - no chance of watching these banks and their shoddy speculator customers go to the wall.

No, when it's the elites involved, it's time to bail them out with YOUR money.

Don't buy for a minute the nonsense that they need to keep these banks afloat. They do not. There are other, cleaner, banks in this country already. I bank with one, and I urge you to do likewise.

See this for what it is - corporate welfare for the guys in Fianna Fail's Galway tent. The guys who charged you half a million for a thrown together house in the middle of nowhere two years ago. The guys who handed over brown envelopes to the likes of Liam Lawler to get the fields they were built on rezoned.

Do you want to give 35 grand to those people? Do you want to keep on supporting the likes of Rody Molloy's pension, or John O'Donoghue's half a grand taxi jaunts across Heathrow airport, or the likes of Sean Fitzpatrick's holiday home in Marbella?

Do you?

If you do, sit on your hands and say nothing. Do nothing. They'll rob your money with impugnity and laugh at your foolishness.

But if you object to this, the greatest theft in Irish history since the Brits invaded and took the entire island, then you need to take action now.

Sorry about that. You will need to turn off 'Fair City' and actually DO SOMETHING.

Go on the NO TO NAMA march this Saturday if you can in Dublin. Better still, get in your TD's face. You know the fellow - jowly red face from too many free lunches at your expense. Go to his clinic, call his office, and roar down the phone at the prick for voting in favour of your being robbed.

Remember what they want from you. Your compliance. Your fear. Your resignation. Fuck that. Demand their resignation instead.

You could start by voting down the anti-democratic Lisbon Treaty. They badly need you to pass that. It's a great start. Then when they're hurting, demand a general election. And keep demanding until the scum are out of government. On the hustings, ask for written assurances from every candidate that they will back legislation to reverse NAMA, no matter what.

Don't take mealy-mouthed BS like 'We had to', 'systemic importance', 'going forward', or any of that oul blather. Get an assurance in writing that they will reverse NAMA or else resign yourself to writing them a big fat cheque for 35 grand.

Or watch this and learn what they're doing to you and your country:

Elections 09 - Parsing the Prelude

As even the bookies are now offering only 1-2 odds on a general election this year, it seems we have entered dead government walking territory.

Hence, these local and European elections aren't just a referendum on the government's performance, they are a prelude to the main event of a general election.

As I write, the three Dublin seats have been filled, with sitting MEPs Eoin Ryan and Mary Lou McDonald making way for Socialist leader Joe Higgins. In a sense, that tells half the story of these entire elections: a slump in support for the government parties, Sinn Fein disappointment and the rise of protest Independents.

We saw the power of support for protest independents on Saturday at the Dublin Central by-election too, where Maureen O'Sullivan, the 'Gregory' candidate, managed to parlay her friendship with the late Tony Gregory into a Dail seat.

And the government slump has seen the Greens hardest hit, cut to the very bone for dancing with the Fianna Fail devil. Their organisation is now reduced to a handful of councillors, their MEP candidate lost her deposit and came in behind Independent Green Patricia McKenna, and now no Green Dail seat can be considered safe.

Fianna Fail themselves must look hard for positives. The backwoods of Westmeath and Roscommon offer a starting point. They actually improved their representation in those areas. And given the trend among some nervous FF-ers to go independent in order to ensure election to local authorities, Fianna Fail will find their numbers boosted as the likes of Tony Fox return to the fold. So this is not quite the tsunami that it initially looks.

There is further upside for Fianna Fail in the return of some dozen former PDs to local councils as independents. The PDs may be gone as a party, but as the cart which led the FF horse for over a decade, the working relations of PDs with Fianna Fail remain strong and ideologies remain compatible. FF are therefore boosted by their presence too.

Fine Gael's Christmases have all come at once. Historic is actually the word for it. George Lee elected first count in a by-election, 3 Dublin South TDs for the first time since the early 80s, the biggest party in the state for the first time ever.

No wonder Enda Kenny spent much of yesterday evening in the RDS grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

But the downside is that even if FG can maintain momentum into a general election, their simple lack of political nous means that they will not maximise their representation in Leinster House.

Tomorrow, Enda Kenny will overshadow the Dail debate on the Ryan report into clerical abuse by tabling a motion of no confidence. This is exactly the sort of politico-nerd behaviour the public despair of in the FG leader, and it is why Fine Gael should still consider thanking Enda for his great work so far and promoting Bruton to leadership in advance of a general election. But they won't.

The biggest winners of all appear, paradoxically, to be Labour. I say paradoxically, because one might have assumed it was a poor election for them, what with losing both Dublin by-elections and having a stiff race in the Ireland South European constituency.

But their representation across the country means that they, rather than the now-stalled Sinn Fein, are the main left challenge pretty much everywhere. If they had only fielded more candidates, they'd have maximised their representation even more. Labour for the first time in a generation have a national base to build on. And with a soft Fianna Fail vote there for the taking, Labour may well feel they can make it a three horse race in future.

What does this mean for any possible general election? Well, if the bookies are right and we see one in the next six months, it is fairly certain that Enda Kenny will be Taoiseach of a FG-Labour coalition.

The Greens can expect to be annihilated in their current form, while former Greens like McKenna and Maher could end up being the eco-representatives in Dail Eireann.

Sinn Fein appear to have reached their glass ceiling of 10%. Mary Lou will get a seat next time out, but they won't grow their vote until they outgrow the dodgy Northern leadership that too many Southerners find toxic.

The heart will be out of Fianna Fail campaigners for another election. They were anonymous on the ground this time and will be even more so in a general election. This is an opportunity for Fianna Fail to rid itself of much dead wood.

Perhaps they will be especially smart and de-select some of their sitting TD cohort in advance. Why bother running what the electorate wants shot of? Run the young candidate instead, give them a base from which to build. But FF are ultimately a party of gombeens shafting each other, as Mary Fitzpatrick could tell you, so don't expect this to happen. It's too sensible for them.

When will we see this election? Very soon. The Green leadership is panicked, trapped in power with their party and their voters deserting them. They're actively looking for the exit.

And Brian Lenihan is promising another hairshirt budget to punish the electorate for voting against Fianna Fail. That is likely to be the catalyst to bring people onto the streets to demand the removal of this government, which clearly now has no mandate left.

Ireland's elderly respond to Medical Card withdrawal

Ireland's Over-70s are responding the the FF-PD-Hobbit coalition's decision to take away their medical cards in this week's budget:

Global warming presents cool animal deathmatch

Aren't you just fed up with hobbits and hippies going on about global warming?

Isn't there a large part of you that loves driving cars with big engines, flying off to Europe for the weekend and heating your home?

And don't you secretly yearn for the day when the globe actually does warm a bit so that Ireland doesn't seem like it's lost in a permanent monsoon mist all the time?

Well, feel guilty no longer. If it were not for the global warming phenomenon, we wouldn't be having cool animal death matches like this one.

Be honest - who wouldn't pay good money to see a shark fighting a polar bear?

Apparently the bears are heavier with longer reach, but the sharks are older and faster.

In the blue corner, sporting the fin and razor-sharp rows of meat-shredding teeth...

In the red corner, weighing in at one tonne...

Let them eat their Greens

Okay, so first the global warming advocates tell us we need to cut down fossil fuels because of carbon emissions.

Then Green politicians start demanding more biofuel use to replace the oil and petrol that's running out.

Then, because foodstuffs are being diverted to biofuel production, grain prices soar, other food prices follow, and 100 million people end up starving, according to a top secret World Bank report that got leaked to the Guardian newspaper.

I have a potential solution to the problem. Reverse the production of biofuels immediately. And in the interim, while the world's starving await the next harvest, let them eat their Greens.

When will these back-to-the-middle-ages, yoghurt-knitting hobbits stop concocting junk science to justify their Luddism?

And when will the rest of us stop listening to them? When one billion are starving due to greenwash? Two billion?

Death by a thousand cuts

History will not record that Louth Fianna Fail councillor Tommy Murphy dealt Bertie the first cut.

Nor will history record that Progressive Democrat senator and leader candidate Fiona O'Malley dealt Bertie that first cut.

Despite the belated scramble by the abject Green Party leader, Minister for Environment John Gormley to slide a knife into Ahern, history will not record that he dealt the Taoiseach the first blow.

No, the first of the thousand cuts that kill Bertie's Taoiseachship came from Minister for Health, Mary Harney.

Let me be clear. I do not like Mary Harney or her policies in the Department of Health. She has presided, literally, over a repudiation of responsibility that verges on criminal and has undoubtedly contributed to circumstances in the Irish health service which have cost people their lives.

But I will acknowledge that she has integrity. She left Fianna Fail because of its endemic corruption and has remained outside since. Many will query whether that made a big difference, since she so cleverly positioned her tiny party in such a place that it propped up successive Fianna Fail governments.

I would suggest it made a difference to her. Fianna Fail used her as a mudguard in regard to the health service. She knows this, and knew it when Bertie re-appointed her to the position recently.

There are easier jobs she could do, no doubt. Especially following the decimation of her party last year, and her having the leadership foisted upon her after McDowell had so rudely demanded she relinquish it.

But her integrity ensured that she remained at her post. More's the pity, I would say. There are few other health ministers who would have pursued the privatisation of our health service with such blinkered vision and such disastrous results.

But just as her integrity can have negative consequences, so it can occasionally be positive for the nation also.

Such as today.

Her conscience jogged by Fiona O'Malley, Harney finally spoke out, finally removed the knife from the belt and slammed it into the back of Bertie.

Apres ca, le deluge.

Let the bloodletting begin.

Principles? What principles?

The Green Party were once thought to be too 'flakey' for government. Their insistence on principled stands on issues that mattered to them meant that prior to the present, no one would consider them as coalition partners.

They ran in the recent election on a series of principled stands, and their leader vowed not to enter government with Fianna Fail after the election.

As a result, they garnered many votes from Fine Gael and Labour voters who were intent on seeing Fianna Fail removed from office.

But after ten days of negotiations, during which they were mightily screwed by the Fianna Fail negotiating team, the Greens settled to go into government with them.

What's worse is that they sold out every one of their principled stands in order to gain access to government. What's worse again is that the 500 or so Green Party members who gathered in Dublin yesterday endorsed the deal.

Let's look at the deal:

Hospital co-location (ie giving land owned by the state surrounding state hospitals to Mary Harney's developer pals to build private hospitals on.)

The Greens were bitterly opposed to this, we were told, and were also opposed to Harney continuing as health minister. In their deal with Fianna Fail, the Greens have managed to negotiate that co-location goes ahead and the leader of the two-seat party remains at the cabinet table as health minister!

US rendition flights through Shannon.

The Greens were bitterly opposed to this country continuing to permit US forces to use Shannon as a stopover and refuelling centre for flights involving the kidnap of people, their subsequent torture in third party states, and their transit to illegal incarceration without trial at Guantanamo Bay. In their deal with Fianna Fail, they managed to negotiate that the flights will continue!

Corporate donations.

The Greens wanted to clean up Irish political parties and put a final end to the culture of brown paper envelopes that has plagued political life in this country. They wanted to introduce a ban on corporate donations and overhaul the funding of political parties.

In their negotiations with Fianna Fail, they managed to gain none of these things, thereby permitting their partners in government to continue with their Galway race tent mode of funding. Well done!

The M3.

The Greens were bitterly opposed to the development of the M3 as currently envisaged, for the simple reason that it would carve a massive motorway straight through the hill of Tara, Ireland's oldest and most important neolithic site, and one of the most important anywhere in Europe, thereby destroying forever any treasures or excavation that could be done there. The Greens also wanted to review all current roadbuilding plans in favour of looking into better public transport options.

In their negotiations with Fianna Fail, they managed to ensure that all current roadbuilding plans, including the M3, will go ahead. Great work!

Basically, in their lust for power at all costs, the Greens have sold out each and every one of their principles. One wonders whether they actually negotiated during those ten days at all, or merely choked as they swallowed every refusal that Fianna Fail put to them.

Their sell-out will be remembered, perhaps not by the handful of members who endorsed this appalling deal, but by their thousands of voters who will now see the Greens as the latest prop of Fianna Fail, now that the PDs have been all but dispensed with by the electorate.

Greens sign suicide note

Well, the Greens have been bought off by the Prince of Darkness and will now enter government with Fianna Fail.

They will replace the previous small party, the PDs, who were decimated by the electorate following their dalliance in government with Fianna Fail.

The Greens may just have signed their own suicide note.

Certainly it must now mean the end of Clever Trevor Sargent's leadership. Only a few months ago, he said he would resign the leadership if the party goes into coalition with Fianna Fáil after the next Election.

However, Mr Sargent also said that he would make himself available to serve as a Minister in such a coalition.

So don't expect him to stay out of the ministerial merc on principles.

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!)

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.