The nasty party? - Village Magazine

June  3

EDITORIAL

Issue 56

June 2017

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

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

EDITOR





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

The nasty

party?

ORA OWEN whose appeal is otherwise limited

but who seems to know a lot about Fine Gael,

of which she was once deputy leader, includ-

ing perhaps what it represents, says Leo

Varadkar came to her constituency as a

17-year-old and that he was “he was appallingly right-

wing and very aggressive”. He was also overweight and

seems to have adopted the blazer look favoured by the

young fogie. It is easy to imagine him as the caricature

of a Tory. Lucinda Creighton has said she wasn’t exactly

enamoured of him when she ﬁrst met him around that

time: “I felt he was a bit obnoxious”, she has said.

So what changed with Leo?

Nothing (except perhaps an inﬂated bonhomie).

Being ideological in Ireland is impossible for historical

and cultural reasons so the press can’t call a rightwinger

a rightwinger. But he is.

Here’s something he ventilated during his recent cam-

paign for the leadership of Fine Gael. “I’m not sure what

values Minister Coveney is putting across. The only value

seems to be that we should try to be kind to everyone.

And that’s not what I mean by political values. When I

talk about political values I mean the things that actually

are Fine Gael’s political values – like equality of oppor-

tunity, and like enterprise and reward. These aren’t

things I’ve invented, these are in our Constitution”. He

added other values but for him these were incontrovert

ible, prime and pre-eminent.

It is a recipe to make Fine Gael the nasty party, long

after Theresa May’s half-hearted analysis sent Britain’s

Tory party in search of a bit of nice. Its membership, a

majority of whose members favoured the Just Society

touting Simon Coveney, should brace themselves.

Imagine being a half-Indian gay 38-year-old in the

prime of your life and at the top of your career and decid-

ing what you want to do is target the most disadvantaged

in society, those most discriminated against in the most

tangible ways, economically and socially.

Imagine feeling that you want to spell out a message

that the most scandalous misappropriations are by the

welfare classes not the bankster classes. Imagine being

Minister for Social Protection, representing the classes

that have nothing to get up for in the morning and run

ning a campaign that promotes those who get up early

in the morning.

Varadkar appears to have been assimilated. The

doctor with the King’s Hospital education has no instinct

for the disadvantaged or the oppressed. There is

insufﬁcient space here to outline what this appears to

mean for his views on social issues such as abortion,

mental health and racism. There is enough about his

views on economics and redistribution. David Langwall-

ner and Ben Harper make the case in this month’s Village

that his economics is that of the markets: Neoliberalism.

Certainly he is the apostle of equality of opportunity

rather than substantive equality – of outcome.

He has noted with the derisiveness of the College

debater, “We could have much more equality and be

poorer”.

Indeed he says: “My difﬁculty with the whole right-left

construct is that I don’t think it describes modern poli-

tics, or the modern choices that people face in the

world,” he says. “But I don’t want to be running away

from a label. If I was to describe myself in terms of a

political philosophy, I’d cast myself as a social and eco-

nomic liberal, which is typically what people describe as

being left-of-centre on social issues and right-of-centre

on economic issues. It’s not that I’m afraid to be tagged

with the label of right-wing, or even centre-right, I just

don’t believe it properly describes either the choice that

we face politically, or what I’m trying to say”.

But Varadkar is no Macron and there is no need for a

shift to the right here. Ireland has among the lowest tax

regimes in Europe, among the fastest growth rates,

among the poorest public services. France is the oppo-

site in every respect. Furthermore Ireland has taken a

paralysing dose of austerity over the last decade; France

eschewed it. When the circumstances are different we

must apply different measures.

Ireland has taken its turn to the right. It does not need

a Thatcher with a broad, cosmopolitan grin to take it fur-

ther still towards ‘economic freedom’.

4 June 

EDITORIAL

  



NEWS

  

  

 Frank Connolly

  



Frank Connolly

  

 Frank Connolly

  BIT(CH)UARY  

POLITICS

  



 Luke O’Reilly

  

 Colm Wallace

  

hve Féilim Ó hAdhmaill

OPINION

  



David Langwallner and Ben Harper

  



 Michael Smith

  

 George Monbiot

MEDIA

  

 David Waldron

  

 Gerard Cunningham

  London Times

Gerard Cunningham

  

 Cormac Deane

CULTURE

  THE FIELD DAY ARTICLE



 Richard Howard

  

 Mic Moroney

ENVIRONMENT

  

 Frank Armstrong

  

 Emma Gilleece

  



 John Gibbons

INTERNATIONAL

  

 Anthony Coughlan

 COVER STORY



much Michael Smith

  

 Joseph de Búrca

  

 Joseph de Búrca

  

 Michael Smith

  

CONTENTS









