tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21661313.post3366869805004976099..comments2024-01-23T10:52:07.009+00:00Comments on Hunting Monsters: Ireland's Berlusconi?ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09958839106380353855noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21661313.post-27778584876431057512008-07-20T14:28:00.000+01:002008-07-20T14:28:00.000+01:00SF don't fit my model - they are very much a party...SF don't fit my model - they are very much a party, rather than a vehicle for a populist leader.<BR/><BR/>On balance, I am happier sticking with the idea that people are idiots as a way of explaining why they vote against EU treaties negotiated by the government they elected.Ian Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06417791811153636286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21661313.post-71224749584842865242008-06-19T22:13:00.000+01:002008-06-19T22:13:00.000+01:00you would have to think that No voters must be som...<I>you would have to think that No voters must be somewhat dissatisfied with a political establishment that has solidly endorsed Lisbon. Ireland is, however, parliamentary democracy, and it was only last year that the Irish electorate voted in the people they now so distrust.</I><BR/><BR/>I think you're overplaying the contradiction here. It's perfectly sensible for the Irish electorate to trust the government to run Ireland, where the people can hold their feet to the fire as necessary (thanks to the highly constituency-based system you describe). But that trust needn't extend to the institutional decisions they make about how to run the EU. All the decisions about the treaty are taken at some remove from the electorate and it's legitimate for the electorate to feel they have less influence, through the political establishment, on those decisions than they do about, say, new bus routes.<BR/><BR/>I like my interpretation better, too, because it implies that the Irish people do know what they're doing when they vote, which is I think borne out by history; governments here don't in general change because of the unpopularity of individual TDs, they change because of the unpopularity of the government.<BR/><BR/>In your assessment of who's best placed to ride the populist tiger (if there is one) you seem to have left out Sinn Fein. That would have been unthinkable before the last election, which just shows how things change. I think the eclipse of Sinn Fein shows just how little appetite there really is for populism in Ireland.William Whytehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09395568891364573008noreply@blogger.com