Writing on the right - Village Magazine

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CCORDING to the latest opinion polls,

over % of the population believe

there should be a new political party.

Poll ratings for Independents have

been consistently around %.

The political system of two right-wing parties

representing the same interests, taking turns at

government, propped up by Labour or another

diligent stooge, is coming under attack. The low

turnout, at %, in the Meath East by-election is

the latest indication of this, suggesting an appe-

tite for fresh, radical thinking. For ‘Fianna Gael’

Meath East will prove just a blip. For the wealthy

owners of the media, this is an appalling vista.

Rupert Murdoch is a media mogul only. Denis

O’Brien is a media mogul, with substantial other

commercial interests, which beneﬁt from a

friendly government in power. They have inter-

ests, in media, and beyond.

Low corporation tax, kid-glove treatment of

tax exiles and outsourcing of government con-

tracts are all baubles expected by our voracious

big-business interests – it would be a shame to

break up that party. So the system allows the

hired hands of the media to sit in the Dáil press

gallery, with free oﬃces and car-parking, a sub-

sidised restaurant, and access to the government,

as long as they play the

game. And play the

game they do!

The uniformity of

journalistic opinion

and approach would

make a Stalinist dicta-

tor blush.

And so when Róisin

Shorthall deployed the

uninspired terms “rag-

bag” and “motley crew”

to undermine the raft

of United Left Alliance

and independent lefts

that were elected in , exposing Labour’s

betrayal, the media happily obliged and adopted

this slant.

When the Campaign against the Household

Tax gathered momentum, the media contrived

a travel-expenses controversy, feigning outrage

that TDs were spending their allowances travel-

ling the country to build the campaign. Where was

the examination of those (non-Independent) TDs

who claimed the same amounts and yet said they

only operated in their constituency? Where was

the praise for not being a parish pump politician,

for taking our national mandate seriously and

sticking to our election promises?

This is not just lazy journalism. Newspapers

have always played a propaganda role reﬂecting

the ideology of their owners. They make little

eﬀort to, even occasionally, assess actions that

are fully intended to cross this ideology, on TDs’

own ideological terms. Or even to research ide-

ologies with which they are not fully comfortable,

or acquainted.

If you are diﬀerent and challenge the system,

then you are a legitimate target. Nowhere was this

more apparent than the leaking of information

of my arrest on suspicion of drink driving ear-

lier in the year. That this information appeared

publicly at a time when I had raised questions

about the quashing of penalty points by high-

ranking Gardai was not a coincidence. It was an

attempt at intimidation using the press to send

out a message to anyone who dares to question

the status quo.

As Ireland’s Digital Champion, Lord, (formerly

ﬁlm director David) Puttnam said in response

to the Leveson inquiry, which unearthed what

he called a “toxic triangle of media, politicians

and the police”, “once those relationships are cor-

rupted the game is up for the rest of us”.

When Independent TD, Mick Wallace, stated

that his company had under-declared VAT and

that the settlement he subsequently reached and

was honouring with Revenue could not be con-

tinued as the banks appointed a receiver on the

company, he became a “tax cheat”.

Clearly he should not have under-declared the

VAT and he accepted that it was wrong. But there

are many TDs, former and serving, who have seri-

ous issues to answer in terms of their business

activities yet they are not deﬁned, comprehen-

sively and permanently, as “tax cheats”. Paraded

on the front page of Independent Newspapers for

weeks on end, he was rarely featured without a

picture of me, his “close friend”. This mix of sensa-

tionalism and jaded innuendo exposed a lowering

of media standards and a wider agenda to dis-

credit the idea of an alternative being possible.

When the media talk about the clothes that

people wear in the Dáil, and ignore the serious

issues they raise, it is because they are afraid that

those ‘respectable’ politicians in tailored suits

who have served this country so well might ﬁnd

that their days are numbered,. That maybe those

ordinary people who are paying the price of aus-

terity and see their living standards devastated

might actually start voting for alternative candi-

dates, despite all the media’s best eﬀorts.

It is not far-fetched: after all, Beppe Grillo won

over % of the Italian vote while refusing to

engage with the mainstream media.

The mainstream media’s venom reﬂects the

fact that, like the political establishment, they

are losing their grip on the hearts and mind of the

public. The heyday of the media baron, just like

the heyday of Civil War politics, is past.

Clare Daly is United Left Alliance TD for

Dublin North

media

clare daly

Writing on the right

At all costs, the media avoid the issues

If you are

different and

challenge

the system,

then you are

a legitimate

target

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