Moot Question of the Week

. . . is who will I be voting for in the forthcoming Meath by-election, which takes place next Friday.

It’s been interesting to assess the various parties’ level of commitment to this election, at least on the basis of their readiness to pound the streets, canvass, and present their policies to the electorate. The Fianna Fail candidate has been noticeable most of all by his absence in my neck of the woods, even though his photograph was on the front page of the national press yesterday with the Taoiseach. I heard a rumour last week that Bertie made an appearance at Mass in Laytown Church the Sunday before last; there’s no point chasing after the votes of blow-in atheists like me, so I suppose there's no reason why I should expect to encounter him when he's off glad-handing amongst his natural constituency. The FF’s leaflet appeared in our porch overnight, which suggests that their canvassers deliberately slunk around the estate in the darkness without knocking on any doors so as not to be doorstepped by locals giving out about the appalling state of the infrastructure in this part of the country, where the builders (i.e. his mates) have been given free rein to build houses on any spare plot of land without any consideration of drainage, sewerage, traffic disruption, schools and access to other amenities like hospitals and libraries. Fuckers.

A Fine Gael canvasser popped round last night and conveyed the jovial impression of someone who was embarrassed by his candidate (although the FGs have 2 of the 5 seats) and was hoping that the fact that he (the candidate) is the brother of local Meath Gaelic Football hero Gerry McEntee would count for something. That seemed to be the main selling point on the leaflet, anyhow.

The Labour candidate actually made the effort to appear in person on the railway platform on Tuesday morning to meet commuters as they headed off to work, though he was accompanied by henchmen who seemed to be delighting in bullying all the schoolgirls to take leaflets home to their parents. Labour’s bumph was hardly more substantial than the FGs and FFs, which is surprising, because there are substantial issues that Labour could play on in this area to lather the FFs, and the train station is a great place to meet natural Labour voters: Users of public transport, working couples just starting families and new to the area, plebs like me who have moved down from Dublin. I suspect there’s a decent ‘Anyone but FF vote’ here, but it’s going to be split if Labour doesn’t pursue it more vigorously.

I didn’t see the Green Party candidate, but the literature was decent enough and quite comprehensive. It managed to isolate and recognize what look like the topics of concern in the East Meath area: the stuff cited above and concern over the Navan by-pass, which is a Green issue. The one issue that pisses me off and prevents me voting Green, if I was to vote, is their nonsensical policy on incinerators. It seems to be taken as read that incinerators are a bad thing, and both the Greens and Sinn Fein have been using this as an issue to beat FF with (Sinn Fein use the NIMBYism it arouses in houseowners concerned about house prices as a wedge issue to develop inroads into the middle-class vote). All the science I’ve seen (and I work with environmental scientists), along with the expertise of my brother-in-law, who used to be a county engineer, tells me that incinerators are not the dirty, cancer-causing monstrosities that the fear-mongers keep saying. You’ll find them all over France and Germany, and they’re much less of an environmental risk than landfills.

Anyway, last Saturday morning I dropped my better half off to the hairdressers and came home to find two Sinn Fein canvassers waiting on the doorstep. The moment they heard my English accent, I suspect they gave up any thought of winning my vote, particularly if they could identify it as Brummie. Nonetheless, they were courteous and charming, and I asked them for their leaflets and all the details about their candidate and promised to read them. Out of all of the campaign literature, Sinn Fein’s was by a long shot the best (forgive the pun). It outlined all the relevant policies for the area and offered a decent profile of the candidate, who had previously been a councillor in Navan, I think. And I confess that all the Shinners I’ve known through work have been nice lads and, in terms of their worldview, closer to mine than the mainstream parties. Nevertheless, I won’t be voting for them because, all said and done, they're a home for thugs and fascists. Despite their apparent socialism, there’s still an element of militarism and authoritarianism attached to the party that comes as baggage. If they do a good job of driving drug dealers out of working-class areas, it's because they've got access to guns too (and, incidentally, it's an indictment of the socialist movement that the Shinners have been able to use the drug/crime problem as a way into working-class areas in the South). You might call their activities a form of pragmatism, but it makes me think of Mussolini and the "politics of the street."

As for the PDs, their candidate came round during the last election to say hello; she gave me the impression of modelling herself after Mary Harney, which can’t be a good thing, and this time I haven’t even seen any literature yet, just posters of the woman everywhere, along with a flashing sign along the Julianstown Road telling us that Mary Harney needs Sirena (that’s the candidate’s name, not a drug for ADHD).

So that’s the current state of play. None of my friends or fellow commuters seem particularly exercised by the election, and the only amusement I’ve derived from events so far has been at the expense of the Shinners: There’s a nice poster of Gerry Adams down by the train station, carrying the slogan “Sinn Fein – Building an Ireland of Equals.” I’m sorely tempted to pop down during the night and scrawl on it, “Or Your Money Back.”*





*At the risk of spoiling the joke, for the benefit of readers overseas, I should explain that this is a reference to the IRA's supposed involvement in the recent Northern Bank Robbery.