The Simpsons in an episode showed the candidates in the 1996 US presidential election being replaced by aliens disguised as Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, showed one of replacement candidates doing an alien's stab at a soundbite, saying "we must go forward not backward, upward not downward, and forever spinning, spinning, spinning" at which point the candidates began spinning like a top (having previously been seen holding hands!).

That episode and its soundbite always reminds me of Eamon Gilmore. I have a lot of respect for Gilmore, but I find his soundbites frequently hilarious in the wrong way. He creates hyped up sounbites that turn out either to be entirely meaningless or stating the bleeding obvious. One of his first soundbites when he became leader (unfortunately I cannot remember the precise quoting at this stage) was about moving forward in time, which as time can only move forward, was stating the patently obvious. It produced one of those 'what the hell is he on about?' reactions.

He was at it again in last weekend's conference, coming up with more 'stating the bleeding obvious' soundbites, with one of his big soundbites for the conference 'we are neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael. We are the Labour Party'!!! So his big point is that the Labour Party is the Labour Party! The party that is not Fianna Fáil is . . . eh . . . not Fianna Fáil. The party that is not Fine Gael is . . . um . . . not Fine Gael!

He could have said 'we are a separate party with separate beliefs to other parties. We offer Ireland a different vision, different goals and different agendas. We believe in x, y, z etc.' But instead not for the first time he retreated to simplistic superficial clichés. 'If Obama's big soundbite had been simply 'I am a Democrat, not a Republican' most people would have rolled their eyes to heaven and said 'd'oh. We kinda realise that. Tell us something we don't know.' Gilmore spent the entire conference pretty much dodging specifics, saying that nationalisation of the banks is 'an option', which everyone knows! But is it his preferred option? He won't say. He wants 'a change of government' but won't give any details of what that new government would be. Like his soundbites the entire conference seemed to be a case of 'we want something different, but we won't really say what.' The strangely meaningless Labour approach right now was summed up when in the Dáil debate on the bank guarantee they supported the decision, then voted againsty it, and now stress that they were right to vote against it without saying why they did or what the alternative is. It is all very weird.

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

I like your faith, tonys, but what about the last five years ?

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

But what if the best of their ability is not adequate and there is someone else more able who could do a better job?

Papal Knight wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

But what if the best of their ability is not adequate and there is someone else more able who could do a better job?

Or the best of their ability isn't appropriate at the time ?

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

I like your faith, tonys, but what about the last five years ?

The world wide credit crunch which is our really difficult problem was not foreseeable, yes, we could have been better placed for “any eventually”, but would it have made a lot of difference?

Look at the Germans, no property bubble, no sudden hole in the national finances, but their heavy industry & therefore their economy is in deep dodo because of the world wide financial situation.

As I say I am confident that whatever can be done will be done and done in as fair a way as is possible.

Papal Knight wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

But what if the best of their ability is not adequate and there is someone else more able who could do a better job?

Do pay special attention to the bold print.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

But what if the best of their ability is not adequate and there is someone else more able who could do a better job?

Or the best of their ability isn't appropriate at the time ?

If you want miracles, it’s not politicians you need. No one can give more than to the best of their ability.

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

But what if the best of their ability is not adequate and there is someone else more able who could do a better job?

Do pay special attention to the bold print.

You missed the point. I meant - what if those in government are not up to the job, in terms of their ability not being adequate, and that someone else in politics is. Surely the national interest would call on those not up to the job once they realise it to leave office and allow others to try, rather than cling on if they realise they are out of their depth.

Papal Knight wrote:

tonys wrote:

Papal Knight wrote:

tonys wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

As someone who would have liked it to be otherwise, I found Labour old, tired and out of touch.

There is not a paid politician in the country now who is remotely in touch with the hundreds of thousands of the population who are being kept awake at night worrying about how they are going to live next year.

I think you’re wrong there.
One thing I would be absolutely confident of, pretty well no matter who is in Government, they will act to the best of their ability & belief and whatever can be done, will be done.

But what if the best of their ability is not adequate and there is someone else more able who could do a better job?

Do pay special attention to the bold print.

You missed the point. I meant - what if those in government are not up to the job, in terms of their ability not being adequate, and that someone else in politics is. Surely the national interest would call on those not up to the job once they realise it to leave office and allow others to try, rather than cling on if they realise they are out of their depth.

Doesn’t arise if they believe in the actions they are taking, if they don’t, they shouldn’t be there at all.
In any event politicians don’t get to decide who is in Government, the electorate do, politicians just work with their decision.

from Gilmore's speech as printed in the Irish Times this morning -
_______________________________________________________

No, Fianna Fáil does not have the answer now.

And neither does Fine Gael.

Scapegoating public sector workers will not put a single unemployed person back to work. And making the cuts even deeper will only prolong the recession.

Now is the time to create something new and better.

Now is the time to build a new economy. Where prosperity and growth can go hand in hand with a fair society. Where protecting the environment is not seen as a drag on growth, but a generator of new jobs.
________________________________________________________

I think he has a fair point in that cutting Public Sector this that and the other won't boost our economic position and that something pro-active needs to be done instead. Not that trimming the public sector fat shouldn't be done, but he has a point in focusing on it.

He deals with practicalities - we can compare the FG set of practicalities later. He talks about insulating houses and buying Eircom using the National Pension Reserve Fund money. We could do worse but there is nothing else in his speech besides building the necessary extensions on to schools. At least it's not recorded in the version here, if he said it at the conference.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1201/1227910421921.html

A bit sparse on detail but I reckon he might have a point about the broadband.