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?