Vincent Browne wrote, today:

“….Just think of a society where every one was paid the same wage. Is it likely that many of us would do anything different from what we do at present? Isn’t it likely we would do more socially useful work than we do now? Isn’t it likely that if we were all paid the same, very few of us would care about fine houses and large mortgages, about fine restaurants and fine wines, about umpteen foreign holidays …That our expectations and delights would be of a more modest nature but no less delightful….”

We’ll ignore the absurd economics of his suggestion. They are not worthy of a response. One thinks of Orwell’s line, that ‘One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that; no ordinary man could be such a fool’. Instead we’ll concentrate on the fact that, funny enough, Vincent neglects to mention his reputed €300,000+ annual salary for his dire TV3 programme, or his sinecures from The Irish Times, The Sunday Business Post or his own loss making venture, Village, which we can only presume brings him up to at least the €380,000+ range, which in Browne’s parlance would be “over 10 times the average industrial wage”.

Nor does he mention his own “fine house”, a fine home in Dublin 4, no less. Or his Clongowes education.

Excuse me, while I go vomit…

Global biofuel production tripled between 2000 and 2007, but still accounts for less than 3 percent of the global transportation fuel supply, yet that tiny percentage has already had a significant and grossly disproportionate impact on global food prices.

Much enthusiasm by the Green Party (Trevor Sargent et al) for biofuels, it creates jobs along with being environmentally friendly, yada yada yada. Fine Gael too believe that biofuels should be an essential part of our energy mix. It would help us meet Kyoto targets and support jobs in rural communities. All to be applauded. Such is the consensus in Irish politics. The European Union too has recently issued a directive calling for biofuels to meet 5.75% of transportation fuel needs by 2010. The message is clear: Biofules/wind/solar good. Everything else bad.

But all this talk is in a single-issue (The Environment) vacuum that disregards the effect it has on food prices. Most Irish people have a level of disposable income that makes them far removed from real poverty and with Peter Mandelson appearing to be pursuing a cheap food policy at the current WTO negotiations, there is not likely to be any risk of famine in the EU in the future!

But biofuel production, even the limited amount we already have, has a very real impact in the marketplace for food products. Yesterdays Guardian front page highlighted a global food crisis which has seen staple food price rises of up to 80% in some countries and Simon Jenkins points out Biofuels threaten food supplies, rainforest and climate - yet political leaders push them in the name of the environment. The grain required to fill the petrol tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person per year. Assuming the petrol tank is refilled every two weeks, the amount of grain required would feed a hungry African village for a year. (Source: BBC) In all of this, bare in mind that the actual carbon saving from bio-fuels can vary but research appears to suggest it ranges from none to minimal. As the Iowa caucuses prove, once you go down this route, from a political point of view, there is no going back. Maybe we should think of these issues before we jump head first into the latest environmental sacred cow. It should bring up the great taboo in Irish energy policy: Nuclear, which is far from a panacea, but should at least be considered as an option, although unlikely given that an Act of the Oireachtas has made it illegal; despite the fact we already consume British made nuclear energy and are likely to consume more in the future.

There was a thread on politics.ie a few weeks ago floating the idea of a FG/Labour merger. Here’s my thoughts on the matter.

I’d be indifferent, my heart would tell me to go with the idea, my head would tell me to stick with the status quo.

Things to note in favour.

FF are popular, no doubt, but their vote has fluctuated here and there, and are continuously in power because of a divided opposition, whom it can play against one another (note Bertie’s kite flying on FF-Labour scenarios in last weeks Sunday Independent. Now that’s the nature of PR, it lends itself to the creation of small parties, but it has certainly worked in FFs favour. So a bigger, united opposition party could attempt to match FF (and it is clearly not matched at the moment, something pundits fail to note when they talk of the “strength” and “professionalism” of the FF political/media machine). Before a single vote is cast FF have an advantage, such is the nature of incumbency, hefty financial support and having the government/civil service apparatus at your disposal.

Secondly voters in each party seem to have a high regard for one another, despite the occasional back-and-forth banter from users on this site. There has always been a high transfer rate, with or without a pact.

On an issue-by-issue basis there is substantially no difference between them. If anything it is just a difference in emphasis and rhetoric. FG may occasionally portray the latest gangland shooting in hyperbolic tones, but better to highlight crime than to downplay it. Labour too occasionally make its nods to whatever the latest Leftist cause célèbre is at a given time, be it Shannon or Shell or whatever.

Thirdly, each is strong in different areas. Labour in particular has strength in Dublin that is admirable. Ditto FG in Munster, Connacht-Ulster.

It would lead to a more varied, and talented frontbench.

Arguments Against

Much like the whimsical Alliance for the Left idea, it is a wholly unrealistic idea, thought about by bored hacks here, and not by anyone in any position of power in the Dáíl or in the respective parties. Given the current Labour habit of blaming a shift from them to FF in the general election on FG, it most certainly wouldn’t be a popular idea in the Parliamentary Party. It’s a flight of fancy, nothing more.

It might throw a lifeline to the PDs, though I can’t imagine anything will save that ship now.

Most importantly, there is no evidence that they attract people from the same voting pool as such. Each attracts votes from varied enough social classes and the like but their voters aren’t motivated by any closeness, loyalty or otherwise to each other. So FG might lose a wee rump to the PDs and possibly FF, but the real losers would be Labour. Given FG are polling 2.5-3 times as much as Labour, it would be perceived as a takeover. Labours key challenges to it’s support base would be greatly exacerbated by a merger. There is certainly and épater le bourgeois in the Labour Party and they would lose soft, middle class, trendy Guardian readers in places like Dublin South East to the Greens, and would lose a working class base in some communities in Dublin and elsewhere to Sinn Féin and possibly some other micro parties (such is the fetish for schisms in some Left circles). So I think they’d be down a few percent from their current combined total.

All in all, I think at present, I’d concur with the ’sum of the parts is greater than the whole’ theory and FG and Labour should stay separate.

What would be ideal is a more co-ordinated opposition in everything to try and counter FF, Dáil manoeuvres, candidate selection, resources, everything. But given the Greens are in government, SF would likely be hostile, and the Labour Party has a stated preference for an “independent” stance in the hope of an FF-Labour government, even the notion of greater cooperation is unrealistic.

I’ll tell you one context this could be a viable, perhaps a Hobsons choice option. That context is a United Ireland, something that may well happen in my lifetime, but who knows where we’ll be or the lie of the land at that time.

Here is Epic by Kavanagh, known to a generation or two of Leaving Certificate students. A fantastic poem capturing the unnerving fascination with land in rural Ireland, and as Frank McNally recently opined in The Irishman’s Diary in The Irish Times, a poem that has more than a little relevance to the current bitter disagreement between Pat Kenny and his neighbour…

Epic, by Patrick Kavanagh

I have lived in important places,

times When great events were decided,

who owned That half a rood of rock,

a no-man’s land Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting “Damn your soul”

And old McCabe stripped to the waist,

seen Step the plot defying blue cast-steel

— “Here is the march along these iron stones”.

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which

Was more important? I inclined

To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin

Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.

He said: I made the Iliad from such

A local row. Gods make their own importance.

I’ll start with a confession: I must say I’m not that enamoured towards blogging. I’ve never been overly technically literate and I view “techies” with a mixture of curiosity and mild disdain. But I like reading, television, have an interest in politics and current affairs and I thought this would be an interesting place to put my collected thoughts (not that these would amount to much!) on both weighty topics and whatever I happen to be thinking about, and moreover, to do so sotto voce. There is no doubt there is an element of narcissism to blogging so I will preface mine with a very salient fact: my opinion isn’t any more valid or worthy of publication than any one else’s. Sin é.