Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis - An Irish Wake?

toxic avenger wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Like this ?

Yeah, kind of, but with worse teeth and one eyebrow...

?

coc wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

"There is a future to be fought for and I will take effective immediately the average industrial wage for the rest of my tenure as taoiseach on this island. Tagaigí liom a chairde go léir "

Are you joking?

unfortunately yes

A very poor speech by the context of what was needed. It was cliché-driven, forced, awkward and far too long. Speeches are supposed to finish at 8.55 to give two minutes to allow context to be portrayed (adoring crowds, hug from spouse, etc) plus a wrap up by the RTÉ presenter. He didn't shut up until 9pm leading RTÉ to cut from the programme almost the second he stopped talking.

Cowen had an RTÉ producer there giving his timing cues, alongside his own people. It is always done. No-one wants the embarrassment that happened once to Jack Lynch, who went on and on and on so long that at 9.10 RTÉ had to leave the taoiseach while he was still talking, to show the news. RTÉ can tolerate a couple of minutes of an overrun, but there is a limit - Lynch had already thrown their programme schedule out of sync and they had no idea when he was going to shut up, so they pulled the plug. (FF were nuclear with anger.) Since then leaders on all sides time their speeches carefully so that they finish at 8.55 and no later. If they haven't got through it all they dump the rest and finish. (Actually what they do is have the last 2 minutes marked in their script. When it comes to 8.53 they stop whatever they are saying and go to the last page and read, while the teleprompter rushes to catch up. The last page is timed to last exactly 2 minutes.)

So it really beggars belief that Cowen managed to muck up the timing. Did no-one in his team time the run-though? Did they not do a simple word count? (You presume 100 words per minute so if you are delivering a 20 minute speech - starting at 8.35 and finishing at 8.55 - the speech will run to 2000 words, no more and no less.)

If the Taoiseach cannot even deliver a speech and get it right, if the man cannot manage to work out how to get a speech delivered in 20 minutes, is it any wonder so few of us have any belief in his ability lead the country? Delivering a speech should be the easy bit of the job, but he managed to screw that up, and no doubt had people in RTÉ anxiously checking watches and wondering "oh fuck. What do we do if this idiot runs on past 9? Do we pull the plug?" and sending frantic messages "tell him to finish up. We are almost out of time".

toxic avenger wrote:

Those people behind Davin-Power on RTE News, they scared the sh1te out of me. They wouldn't stop... STARING... What was that about? It was like the Father Ted 'Lovely Girls' audience, but scary and silent....

Yeah. You end up wondering what kind of amaterishness is in FF these days that they didn't get out the proverbial cattle prod to keep the party hacks away from crowding around DDP. Surely they realised it would freak out TV viewers and make then ard fheis look like the night of the living dead!

FF are usually very good at presenting their image on tv - schoolchildren, successful sports teams and so on as window dressing. The whole thing tonight looked a bit like the ploughing match. That might have been to do with RTE and the venue.

Did he use a teleprompter?

johnfás wrote:

Did he use a teleprompter?

I presume he would have. He would also have an RTE giving him cues as to how he left he had. His professional staff should have been there timing it, deciding if he was running late what to cut, etc. In Dick Spring's time, there was a story of one conference where in the old style teleprompters the text was on paper and while he was standing with the crowd applauding something he had said, the speech was whizzing by at high speed, with he having to pretend that everything was normal while hoping to Christ the whizzing text would stop somewhere before he had to speak again so that he would know what to say next. (It did.)

So his people should have been editing the text if they had to shorten it. He would have been getting time signals to indicate how long left so that he would know whether to speed up or slow down, etc. If necessary he could have jumped to the speech in front of him if no-one was editing the teleprompter. The whole thing was a mess.)

Frankly tonight's ard fheis was so amateurish. Dempsey was appalling and hopeless. Cowen was awkward and rushed, they got the timing of the speech wrong, and then turned DDP's report into a mess by having a strange bunch of staring people stand around him. It was cringe-inducing.

Ah now Papal. That's unfair. The motely crew of urchins and ne'er do wells assembled for DDP's piece to camera was inspired comedy. It seems Royston Vasey is a hotbed of FF supporters.

Quote :

Any doubts Cowen isnt the man for the job washed away by a Obama type Speech.
After watching Brian Cowen tonight, nobody can have any doubts that Brian isnt the man for the job.

In a presidential type speech that even Obama would have been proud off, Brian led the way and silenced the doubters on his credentials to be the only man in Ireland to have the skills and qualities to lead Ireland into a new dawn out of this GLOBAL recession.

I actually shed a tear in the hall, when hearing the words that Brian spoke, and it reminded me of the fighting spirit of 1916, and how Brian will be remembered in History with as much fondness and gratitude as Pearce,Collins etc.

Brian Cowen is the only many who can save Ireland from the problems spread to every economy in the world.

and just to prove that that post isn't in any sense ironic:

Quote :

Im shocked and outraged that some people on this thread have such little faith in FF and Brian Cowen.

We have all enjoyed 12 years of wealth beyond our wildest dreams. And when the world economy fails people forget the past 12 years and attack the government.

We all knew at the last election the world was in a downturn and yet we the people voted back the government that provided us with 12 years of amazing growth.

Do you really think any other political party could pull a few billion out of their hats? No doubt Sinn feinn would suggest a Northern bank raid, Labour would make everyone on the dole a public sector worker, and FG would struggle to know who their leader would be.

We all know the World is having a global downturn, and we all understand the banks have robbed us blind, but Brian is the man to sort this out and he has the backing of EU leaders and the ECB.

It will be hard and it will be tough, but under FF and Brian we will enjoy more growth and wealth yet again.

It was a great pleasure to see the EU flag flying proudly behind Brian alongside the Irish ensuring the future of Ireland within the heart of the European states.

That last sentence nearly makes me europhobic.

Haven't had a look at the speech myself yet, but it must have been good if this is the best or worst you lot can come up with.

You're one of that lot now too tonys, and you lurve it. That's why you keep coming back for more, again and again and again.

tonys wrote:

Haven't had a look at the speech myself yet, but it must have been good if this is the best or worst you lot can come up with.

Good God. Things must be bad when even Tony couldn't be bothered watching a FF leader's speech!

tonys wrote:

Haven't had a look at the speech myself yet, but it must have been good if this is the best or worst you lot can come up with.

I'm sure it was a perfectly good speech, but speeches won't get us out of the current hole, and FF's record of actions is not prepossessing. Still, we'll see how we go.

johnfás wrote:

You're one of that lot now too tonys, and you lurve it. That's why you keep coming back for more, again and again and again.

You badly misinterpret my motivations.

I couldn't think of any motives other than enjoyment which would justify sitting at a computer gone midnight on a Saturday evening typing about political issues with people you don't know.

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

Haven't had a look at the speech myself yet, but it must have been good if this is the best or worst you lot can come up with.

I'm sure it was a perfectly good speech, but speeches won't get us out of the current hole, and FF's record of actions is not prepossessing. Still, we'll see how we go.

Good communication of the right message will be an important factor in "getting us out of the current hole" and FF's record of action may not be "prepossessing" to those used to getting everything right first time or to those with the use of a third eye, but nonetheless, FF's record of action is, in an Irish political context, as good as it gets.

It was BTW in my opinion a more than perfectly good speech.

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

Haven't had a look at the speech myself yet, but it must have been good if this is the best or worst you lot can come up with.

I'm sure it was a perfectly good speech, but speeches won't get us out of the current hole, and FF's record of actions is not prepossessing. Still, we'll see how we go.

Good communication of the right message will be an important factor in "getting us out of the current hole" and FF's record of action may not be "prepossessing" to those used to getting everything right first time or to those with the use of a third eye, but nonetheless, FF's record of action is, in an Irish political context, as good as it gets.

Certainly getting everyone "on message" is a necessary prerequisite - and crisis shows up people's qualities better than booms. Still, FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

Only once, under a FG/Lab. Government '82 -'87, and we're not looking at it now.

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

Only once, under a FG/Lab. Government '82 -'87, and we're not looking at it now.

You're right - I was thinking of it as being end Eighties under CJ. My bad. On the other hand, I don't rate the economic performance of any Irish government before the early 90's.

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

Only once, under a FG/Lab. Government '82 -'87, and we're not looking at it now.

You're right - I was thinking of it as being end Eighties under CJ. My bad. On the other hand, I don't rate the economic performance of any Irish government before the early 90's.

Not even Séan Lemass' embrace of the liberal policies outlined by TK Whitaker, an embrace to which Ireland owed a period of comparative prosperity in the 1960s and 70s?

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

Only once, under a FG/Lab. Government '82 -'87, and we're not looking at it now.

You're right - I was thinking of it as being end Eighties under CJ. My bad. On the other hand, I don't rate the economic performance of any Irish government before the early 90's.

Not even Séan Lemass' embrace of the liberal policies outlined by TK Whitaker, an embrace to which Ireland owed a period of comparative prosperity in the 1960s and 70s?

Wasn't it Dev who embraced Whitaker's recommendations first?

toxic avenger wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

Only once, under a FG/Lab. Government '82 -'87, and we're not looking at it now.

You're right - I was thinking of it as being end Eighties under CJ. My bad. On the other hand, I don't rate the economic performance of any Irish government before the early 90's.

Not even Séan Lemass' embrace of the liberal policies outlined by TK Whitaker, an embrace to which Ireland owed a period of comparative prosperity in the 1960s and 70s?

Wasn't it Dev who embraced Whitaker's recommendations first?

Not that I can recall.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

tonys wrote:

ibis wrote:

FF's record in crises has been pretty miserable as well.

A matter of opinion.

How many times have we been looking at the IMF as a possible solution? Under which governments?

Only once, under a FG/Lab. Government '82 -'87, and we're not looking at it now.

You're right - I was thinking of it as being end Eighties under CJ. My bad. On the other hand, I don't rate the economic performance of any Irish government before the early 90's.

Not even Séan Lemass' embrace of the liberal policies outlined by TK Whitaker, an embrace to which Ireland owed a period of comparative prosperity in the 1960s and 70s?

Wasn't it Dev who embraced Whitaker's recommendations first?

Not that I can recall.

It was a Fine Gael Minister for Finance, Sweetman, who appointed Whittaker as Secretary and commissioned him to do a complete review of Irish state policy and why it failed. Whittaker was highly critical of the de Valera policy of protectionism over the previous 20 years, much of which had been orchestrated by Lemass in cabinet. By the time the report came out the Second Inter-Party Government was out of power and de Valera was back. He paid lipservice to the report but it was not until Lemass became taoiseach that the previous policy of protectionism, which had done so much damage, was finally binned. So in effect three people deserve credit - Sweetman for throwing caution to the wind and appointing a brilliant young civil servant to the top post with instructions to review the failures of Irish policy, Whittaker who produced a fantastic analysis, and Lemass who to his credit did a u-turn on previous policies he was largely the author of and binned protectionism.