It’s not really relevant to the resignation of George Lee, but I noted yesterday the enthusiasm with which Fine Gael mounted attacks on two ministers. The party seems to be far better at that sort of time-wasting unimportant activity than at thinking about economic (or any other) policy. I don’t vote for any of the parties in the current government or opposition, but I think it would be nice to have an intelligent opposition (I suppose an intelligent government would be too much to ask for).

Declaration of interest: Willie O’Dea once came to canvass, wearing a long coat. He opened the gate and let my dog out. I remonstrated. Willie, coat tails flapping, ran down the road after the dog and brought him back. I thanked him but I wondered about his choice of career.

bjg

Most posts I have seen on this site for any topic.

This suggests his brand has increased in value and that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

How to capitalize on this? If only he was interested in an independent approach…. oh yes, a bit of a maverick, yet honourable enough not to compromise into an existing vested interest, like FG.

Political parties are “A conspiracy to establish dominance in public affairs, manned by the dull, talentless and craven who know that bribery of voters friends and colleagues is the route to power.”

PMPD
As G Lee had talent and was popular he was a threat to FG more than to FF! There will be no change at FF, so it is the stickies or FG. Or a new party……

BJ Goggin
“Indeed. But what I’ve gathered from the kerfuffle is that neither the government nor the main opposition party has any mechanisms for (and perhaps no interest in) doing any serious work on economic policy-making.”
Unless there is money to be made by their friends. It is a kleptocracy!

Brian O’ Hanlon
Good posts!

The Dail was disillusioning for him and I suppose George Lee was not cut out for the “Yerra Yerra Killorglin needs an international airport” culture.

However I have misgivings of his being able to waltz back to RTÉ and €150 000 a year after saying that his departure was for good.

Would you take anything he said seriously after this episode?

Indeed. But what I’ve gathered from the kerfuffle is that neither the government nor the main opposition party has any mechanisms for (and perhaps no interest in) doing any serious work on economic policy-making.

bjg

While I knew that George Lee felt strongly about what was going on in the economy, I was still amazed when he decided to run for the Dail and I am even more amazed that he resigned.

It is easy to criticise him and/or Fine Geal, but one quickly ends up in personal attacks, which I have no desire to get into. The whole thing leaves a lot of questions to which we probably won’t get the full answers.

However, one thing is certain, other ‘celebrities’ and indeed those who have an established career outside of politics are a lot less likely to be candidates for the next election - that is a great shame (I have no desire nor would I be entitled to run).

Whatever one might think about the views of ‘celebrity economists’, and I can say that I do not agree with everything they say or the way they say it, there is no doubt that the Dail would benefit from more expertise in a range of areas.

This has without doubt been a bruising experience for both George Lee and FG, but there are much bigger questions.

What are the incentives to go into politics and what are the costs?? What impact does a backbencher or an opposition TD really have? ….

I have no doubt we will return to these issues in the future.

Finally, I think this blog in particular has been a great vehicle to critically and publicly analyse all kinds of economic issues, decisions and recomendations including those by ‘celebrity economists’.

My final contribution!

It’s interesting how the academic economists steer clear of controversy involving so-called celebrity economists!!

Thanks for those contributions above, it was interesting to get your perspectives on this matter.

I penned something quickly, over at the blog this evening, in order to respond to some of the latest comments above.

http://designcomment.blogspot.com/2010/02/zombie-politics.html

@ Michael Hennigan,

Have at a look at Lawerence Lessig’s book, Code some time, regarding the internet and the law.

I think he labelled his latest edition Code 2.0, because he filled it out with new sections from interaction with others on wikipedia.

Web authors, what can you do.

BOH.

I think we could call your above post…. “The confession of Oliver Vandt”

I have a new name for you…. Terminator. Because you never stop…ever.

Good to hear you have a well paying job, but I still believe you need a holiday. Make sure you get one this summer at the least.

“He beatifies GL and in support uses an RTÉ colleague’s endorsement of Lee to bolster his case!”
I didn’t beatify Lee - read my posts. But are you beatifying Richard Bruton? McWilliams is not on the staff of RTE, I would assume, but he knows George Lee well and worked with him. Now, you’re going to say McWilliams is an anti-FG troll. Read his article closely. You will see that one of the key ways Lee could have helped FG is in selling their good bank plan. Instead Richard Bruton tried and (deliberately?) failed. Bruton utterly failed. His plan was hardly discussed. Bruton could have worked with Lee to immense effect, but he didn’t. In a way, tacit collusion with the rest of the establishment is the more honourable motive for Bruton. Otherwise, he must be mean, vindictive, dishonourable and a political failure. Actually, it may be both. Bruton’s delirium on the day after Lee’s resignation showed his true face.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/david-mcwilliams/david-mcwilliams-office-politics-snuffed-out-fine-gaels-brightest-star-2055598.html

Take off your blue tinted glasses Mr Hennigan. This is a huge loss to those who want real change in Ireland. It may be a huge loss to FG but that is only if FG want real change. After George Lee I believe that they don’t.

a long long long time ago, i told ALL of you that The Artist Formerly Known as E65bn was clinically insane, but no, no, no, NONE of you would listen to me. I trust you all believe me now…

You wrote:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you post so much I wonder do you have a normal job?”
No, I’m a part of the Irish establishment, so I am secretive, selfish, collusive, corrupt and vicious. Being warped I also believe that all my critics are equally blackly motivated.

So, if I had a poorly paying job, or worse still - like 430,000 others - no job, my views, unlike say Brian Lenihan of the disastrous bank guarantee, carry no weight. In spite of having wrecked the country we must listen to him uncritically because he is one of our betters.
“You dislike the way this country is run so much that I wonder how can you stomach living here at all?”
After the economic collapse and the banking collapse many people are coming to the same conclusion. After previous collapses many came to it and emigrated. Today, even if they’d like to stay they are being forced out by the establishment. 60,000 left up to April 2009. More will follow, probably a huge number when the US and UK economies pick up.
“Do you live in Ireland?”
Born and long-time resident - that’s important to the Irish establishment, when a crisis hits. Before the crisis non-Irish born newcomers are to be celebrated. After the crisis, the establishment turn on them (see FG Mayor of Limerick).
“Are you trying to undermine the country from the outside?”
As stated above, being warped the Irish establishment believe that all their critics are equally blackly motivated.
“Do you seriously believe the world recession is the fault of FF and the Church?”
Trolling.
“Have you lived in any other country, apart from Ireland? Ireland has it’s problems but so does every other country. There are other countries which have worse human rights records and corruption rates than Ireland.”
Worse human rights records? My God. Why do you consider Irish people inferior? Surely we deserve the highest standards of governance in the world.

“I am starting to think you are just anti establishment.”
I am certainly anti our establishment. Frank Fahey was FF’s second most prominent NAMA spokesman. What does that say?

“It does not matter what party is in Govt, even if it was Jim Henderson’s Muppets, you would still be slating them.”
If FG are as bad as FF/PDs/GP then not if either are in government, no.

“Seriously E65, E43, Politicsdotaiyee, Oliver you are starting to embarress yourself. You need to get a grip man / woman (delete as appropriate).”
And your message to Mary Coughlan?

“Maybe we should all club together and get you on a holiday? Any takers?”
I hope you are FF as that sounds like a bribe! But after George Lee, you’re as likely to be FG.

Agree completely about the disjunction between expectations and reality. But for me, the lesson is, not to grind down the expectations - easy as that might be, but to enhance the authority of the Oireachtas so that our public representatives have a more purposeful existence. Who knows, we might even attract a better calibre of public representative and see the enactment of more rational economic policies.

The internet age has taken every single institution that you can think of and turned it inside out.

This seems so 1999!

Creative destruction has been around much longer than the web.

Self-interest, common interest, a system of laws, equitable justice and accountability to the people - - these issues transcend changes in technology.

Despite the legacy of FF, it’s easy to see how a portion of the electorate, currently disenchanted, could again be beguiled as some of the reaction to GL’s bombshell, in accepting his version of events without question and without assuming there was any self-interest on his part, highlights again how normally rational people can suspend reason.

@ Sporthog

This OV is a classic troll.

He beatifies GL and in support uses an RTÉ colleague’s endorsement of Lee to bolster his case!

I really don’t know what to make of you……

You’re like the Duracell Bunny, you just keep going and going….

Don’t take this the wrong way, but you post so much I wonder do you have a normal job?

You dislike the way this country is run so much that I wonder how can you stomach living here at all? Do you live in Ireland? Are you trying to undermine the country from the outside? Do you seriously believe the world recession is the fault of FF and the Church?

Have you lived in any other country, apart from Ireland? Ireland has it’s problems but so does every other country. There are other countries which have worse human rights records and corruption rates than Ireland.

I am starting to think you are just anti establishment. It does not matter what party is in Govt, even if it was Jim Henderson’s Muppets, you would still be slating them.

Seriously E65, E43, Politicsdotaiyee, Oliver you are starting to embarress yourself. You need to get a grip man / woman (delete as appropriate).

Maybe we should all club together and get you on a holiday? Any takers?

ah, but GL was the great white hope who was going to lead us to the promised land! I’m paraphrasing Lenihan somewhat there, and it was a heavily schadenfruede-filled and OTT statement from him, but FG did clearly oversell both FG to GL, as well as GL to the voting public.

Never before has expectations management, on all sides (including the public themselves) been so clearly out of step with the far more boring reality of day-to-day politics in Dail Eireann…

When George Lee entered the Dail FG’s policy-making exercise was well developed, its political strategy - and the key personnel charged with executing it - was well-defined (irrespective of any external views on its effectiveness) and positions on Oireachtas Committees had been allocated. Within the existing arrangements - both within FG and the Dail - there was relatively for George to do expect learn the ropes and use his undoubted communication skills to help FG get its message across.

Any TD who isn’t a minister is simply wandering in a desert. We can’t complain about the calibre of TDs - or the disenchantment of those who might have some calibre - if we give them nothing purposeful to do - except, perhaps, act as agents for their constituents in their dealings with the bureaucracy.

The following link to a Committee session:http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=ERJ20100119.xml&Node=H2#H2
on the relatively important issue of economic regulation which pits a cross-section of TDs against some senior representatives of the permanent government is both entertaining and enlightening.

FG are as ethically questionable as the FAI.
FG are as incompetent as the FAI.
FG are as cliqueish as the FAI.
But Mick McCarthy was the employee of the FAI, whereas Enda Kenny used to be the leader. Now he’s reduced to FG’s manager - who’s just got the dreaded vote of confidence.

However, unlike Mick McCarthy, Kenny/Bruton:
Hardly fielded Lee, the Roy Keane of Irish politics, even in crucial matches, EVEN THOUGH HE WANTED TO PLAY.
Unlike Mick McCarthy who made Roy Keane captain, FG froze him out.
Reading David McWilliams, who worked with him, it’s clear George Lee is nowhere near as difficult as Roy Keane, and Enda Kenny as a future Taoiseach and Bruton as a future Minister for Finance ought to have been much better in managing him. What Kenny/Bruton and FG did was MUCH, MUCH WORSE than Mick McCarthy in Saipan.

The FG leadership DROVE Lee out. Why wouldn’t they? FG are just the less successful (duller/posher/more angrily reactionary) wing of the establishment that has run and repeatedly ruined this country for 88 years.

The George Lee Song

Thanks for that reference.

I had used Google searching for evidence of George Lee’s prescience but had been unsuccessful. Your reference to “Boom” makes clear that GL had given a clear warning in 2006 of the credit-rooted dangers then facing the economy.

George Lee fought the canon law - and the canon law won. In Ireland it always does.

If you really heard what I had to think, you wouldn’t like it one single iota.

Namely, that because George Lee and the media were beginning to see right through, of Dail Eireann’s inability to ‘fix the economy’, the ideal thing to do, to buy some more time and keep the government intact, was to throw George Lee a bone, and pretend he was going to have a part to play. That is why the opposition party in Dail Eireann came looking for George, and rightly led him down the garden path. It worked, beautifully. Especially, this play by Enda Kenny to convince George, he was doing something really special for his own family. What is so beautiful now, is now that George has copped them, they can say he wasn’t up to the task of politics.

It is a kind of ‘Tallaght Strategy’ were Fine Gael agree to gag the media, and in exchange, Fianna Fail step aside and allow them play government for a while, further down the road. After 30 no. years as a politician for deputy Bruton, and deputy Kenny is hanging around there since 1975 (my entire lifespan to date) - it is not as if Kenny and Bruton are strangers around Dail Eireann. Rather they are like as Morgan Freeman’s character said in Shawshank Redemption of that old guy who pushed the cart full of books and keep a crow in his cell.

But being that harsh to those 2 no. fine public servants, I will try to place my comments into a much larger context altogether. We have to stop sucker punching one another.

The new internet age that we are living through (and George Lee needs to learn some manners also, in this regard) is like a virus. The internet age has taken every single institution that you can think of and turned it inside out. David McWilliams published an article in last weekend’s Sunday Business Post about the recent web conference in Trinity college, which he attended. The fellow who founded Craig’s List spoke there, and his web concept has completely sucked the classified business out of traditional media. Yet Craig’s List only employs 30 no. people.

David McWilliams called in the wonderful real world of Narnia. If you ever read Yochai Benkler’s book, The Wealth of Nations (required reading for every single economist here, and yeah the title is very brave) you will hear Benkler describe the battle that is playing out in the world at the moment. Between new and old media. This extends right to politics also. Where the internet is actually beginning to affect politics. The strategy to date, has been one of where old media tries to cling onto its ground, and reinforces copyright and other laws to give itself breathing space. So that it becomes a crime to draw a cartoon of Mickey Mouse on your copy book in school almost, because you are infringing on old media’s copyright.

These are the times we live in. Tom Dunne on Newstalk 106, said only the other day, the latest statistic is that over 90% of music downloaded on the web, is illegally downloaded. It is in this context you have to view all of what I said above. You have to listen to someone such as Nicholas G. Carr, who wrote The Big Switch and Does IT Matter to understand, the pressure traditional journalism has come under. Will there be any money left in that business model, for real investigative journalism any more? Sure, a lot of cobwebs need to be swept away. Sure, procedures do need to change. But the first ones to strike will be career politicians, career journalists, whose very existence is under threat. And the political mentors etc like Eoghan Harris, Vincent Browne, Sam Symth who criticised politicians, but that in turn gave them a good living.

We have to look at this internet age, and realise, we have to strike some sort of balance. We cannot afford this thing to over-correct either way. It will be tough I think, to keep it all in balance. I just wanted to add that, because I have been so rude to politicians above in comparing them to New York families etc. I hope in due time, George Lee as well, will be able to find some peace with the system, some happy balance. But we have to stop sucker punching one another. BOH.

“Bruton was in Leinster House and was free to speak but kept silent. Lee was in RTE but took the risk and the backlash.”

So we’re praising journalists for reporting the news now? Talk about setting the bar low…

George was more aligned with Enda Kenny, however it is clear that Enda’s days are coming to a close. Hence when Enda goes, George Lee loses his main supporter in FG. So it was obvious George jumped ship to get back into RTE as there was no point in hanging around in FG.

While I accept George Lee may not have published much academic work in the past, he was still better than many of the other codgers in Leinster house who called themselves politicans.

FG have undoubtedly caused themselves much harm, which is what they are best at over the last 30 years.

The only winners in this are the media, they must be raking it in.

@ FG incinerator story…..

was just going to mention it…spot on…

p.s why wrap it up here…..

That sums them up.

Agreed, James.

Last orders now all! I have just put up my last two on the bar. Drink that! BOH.

This issue is at the very heart of minister John Gormley and Poolbeg, and George Lee and the economy. Because there are so few private members bills taken very seriously, it ends up on The Week in Politics with a big ‘co-muff-ul’ as to whether minister Gormley mentioned the Poolbeg incinerator in the program for government or not. I.e. 2 no. TDs from different parties in the same constituencies playing for local political points scoring.

In fact, it is also right at the heart of Fine Gael’s and other opposition parties, and back-benchers problems. Apart from going to funerals, there seems to be no other way to harness that talent which the electorate has put into Dail Eireann. For instance, the president of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland was interviewed on Pat Kenny radio today, and said, there is so much work which needs to be done by the architectural profession in Ireland, with regards to future planning - but they are at a standstill at the moment.

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_patkenny.xml

Surely, there is some ’spare capacity’ of talent available on the back benches in Dail Eireann to supervise even minimal planning and development exercises?

BOH.