The Troika is here

You spend a long time waiting for one and then 3 comes along is a usual jibe in Dublin to bus drivers.  You can now add new political parties to that.  After the establishment of Renua Ireland and the Alliance of Independents, we now have the Social Democrats. 

Their establishment is the latest attempt by Independent TD’s to prize away support from the Independent block of votes as you get closer to the General Election.  The troika of founding TD’s Stephen Donnelly, Roisin Shortall and Catherine Murphy are able people with a good track record. 

A well managed presentation built around the name social democrats dominated headlines. It’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into the initial launch.   While the aspirations need to be backed up with policies, there is little that would separate Social Democrats from most Labour members or voters.  Many Fine Gael people claim a social democratic allegiance as they look to the Just Society of Declan Costello and Garret Fitzgerald.  Some Fianna Fail people see themselves as social democratic too.  So nobody has ownership of the term social democrat.

The possible base is middle class, home owners, who are employed.  Such voters might be normally supportive of Labour and in many cases are public servants.  But when the new party says its core value is to have an efficient and accessible public service, that may just set off a bell or two in the minds of some public servants, who’ve weathered a storm in the last 7 years as to what exactly the social democrats mean by that. 

Stephen Donnelly was on radio later talking about social democracy.  As he said himself he’s not a political scientist.  That’s true, in fact Stephen worked in the World Bank.  The term Social Democrat still has a ring of the Gang of 4 in the 1980’s who split from Labour in the UK and guaranteed Thatcher whooping majorities to bring about the deregulated economy that did so much damage in later years.   Much of the globalisation agenda was in fact championed by the World Bank at this time, although to be fair to Stephen, it was quite some time before he started work there.

Of course believing in social democracy and being a social democrat are not mutually inclusive.  The concept of social democracy is about social control over the money flow, investing in social infrastructure, organisation of the economy around the needs of communities using Keynesian economics.  I didn’t see as much of what I believe Social democracy to be as I expected.

 What Social Democrats in fact highlight are possible solutions for those in difficulty with their mortgage and the need for an enterprise culture.  Yes they’re close to Labour when it comes to children under 6, tackling the housing crisis which Alan Kelly is now targeting extra money, transparency in decision making and a lot more.

But let’s wait and see the policies they roll out to attain the objectives that are core to the party. Today it was just broad strokes.  The party has a job to organise candidates, policy and a base.  The party has to decide who’ll lead in what areas.  A good start but where will it lead?    

The right to union recognition

There’s often a simplistic view of an industrial dispute.  There is a clear winner and clear loser, either Management or the workforce claim victory. But there is sometimes another outcome. There are occasions when ultimately nobody wins.  Often when that happens personal relationships are damaged and in a small workforce, that means that morale can be low for a very long time.  That can damage the workplace long into the future.

That’s what concerns me about the dispute in FDYS in Wexford.  In Wexford Town it provides crèche facilities and cares for young children.  For reasons best known to the board they are refusing to negotiate with their workers as they have joined the trade union SIPTU.

That’s despite the reality that collective bargaining will be law and workers will have the right to be represented by a union.  That’s what is so annoying about the dispute, it’s unnecessary.  My fear is for the organisation and the really important and good work it does in Wexford.  Today on a wet Saturday in the Bull Ring, FDYS workers took their case to the streets where they asked shoppers to sign a petition of support.  Despite the bad weather, they got a very favourable response.  One worker told me that she was 20 years in FDYS.  As another said to me, if there are problems about recognition or adhering to agreements, let’s talk about it, we’re reasonable people and we know FDYS can be reasonable too.

With a track record like that, this dispute can be resolved more quickly than many others.  Why wait any longer to do what will have to be done now?

Just who's taking who for a ride?

Celebrating?  I’d hold off a while before I know what there is to celebrate.  The deal that Greeks voted on was withdrawn last week by the EU negotiators.  A Yes vote would have meant an immediate General Election and the financial insecurity of nobody to negotiate on behalf of Greece with the EU.  A No vote means that there is no money in the banks tomorrow nor the day after that and the black economy is taking off like a rocket.  Neither eventuality will bring in the money needed by the Greek government to run the country.  Simply the question is about the unsustainable nature of Greeks historic debt. 

Soon a No vote may likely also mean that the Greek Government will meet bills as they arise by issuing IOUs which will eventually become tradable and may form the basis of a new currency, possibly a revised drachma.

But here’s where the big problem may start.  Currencies are tradable against one another.  Greece is very different to Ireland as Greece has a sizeable internal economy with less international trade as a percentage of GDP.  It earns a lot of foreign revenue from tourism.  Any new currency will drop in value by the day.  This will drive inflation upwards and make the country uncompetitive.  Sunseekers can get their tan elsewhere if prices rise. Greece’s enormous debt to its EU partners can’t hop on board and high tail it out of town.  It’s attached to a creditor nations set of accounts and it must be accounted for as it affects the interest rate paid for government bonds to fund short term loans.

In other words if it is written off or down, who is going to compensate a creditor nation and how can that possibly be done?  And here’s the rub, while we’re in for about €500M all told, other nations are up to their necks in it.   

I’d be very nervous of what may happen to Greece.  Let’s be honest about it, would you live their life?  What we suffered during the slump was in the half penny place compared to Greece.  In the last few days the cute nod was been given to the Greeks by the IMF and Wolfgang Schlaube that made it easy to vote no.  Already the country can hardly afford medicine nor to allow more than €50 to be deducted daily from a bank, that’s if you can find a bank ATM that works. 

Perhaps the Germans have calculated that Greece may be let go from the Euro but kept in NATO and the EU?   Moreover the right wing nationalist party supporting Syriza backed the wrong horse on this referendum.  So Syriza may be left relying on Golden Dawn as they did in this week’s referendum to continue in office.

The Irish backdrop to this is the forthcoming General Election and the arrival of Syriza’s BFF Pearse Doherty and Paul Murphy into town to get in on the PR.  Try tell Pearse that Larkin, once talking about nationalism, said that you cannot eat a flag.

Sinn Fein and AAA’s logic is simple.  The Troika should go and take their money with them.  The magic money tree will provide.  But in Greece Syriza are happy to charge for water and tax those who own property and don’t plan to change that.  They also accept that wealthy people will simply shift cash by the click of a mouse to another jurisdiction so aren’t breaking their neck to tax the rich.   Some aren’t too keen to have this pointed out.  Slogans are easy and simple to understand, so too are celebrations.  How likely is it that the majority of Greeks got to read and understand even the executive summary of both documents that were before the people today?  But that’s democracy.

But reality is more complex.  The referendum was not about changing the figures, it was about getting the nation behind its strategy.  The Greeks now will table their new proposals and including them this time on the right attachment. We’re no nearer the light switch. Let’s keep the celebrations until we’re all out of the dark.