O’Conall Street

It is Irish NewsDay O’Conall Street.

THE ECONOMY STUPID

Five weeks into the greatest financial crisis of our time, its impact is now being seen in the political sphere as well as in the financial community.

The crisis has thrown Fianna Fail into a head on collision with many in the Republic. You cannot take medical cards away from the over 70s in a State that already has a less then perfect public healthcare system and expect to emerge unscathed.

In Great Britain the crisis has given Gordon Brown a much needed lifeline in a sea of tumbling polls. Across the Atlantic an African American is now a short step away from the White House because he knows when the chips are down people vote with their pockets. I am only going to say it once – It’s The Economy Stupid!

Obama’s lead in the polls is directly related to his handling of this crisis. He has kept his head when McCain and all around him were loosing theirs. His policies are redistributive aimed and sharing the wealth of America a little more widely and putting healthcare back on the policy agenda, but his relationship with business is strong. You can claim to have the ear of our job creators when Warren Buffet lines up behind you.  

I was always unhappy that Sinn Fein opted against taking an economic ministry when they took over leadership of the nationalist community in the Executive. It seemed strange that they would pass up the opportunity to influence our economic policy when so many of the North’s finest entrepreneurs are Irish and very proud to be so.

Ignoring a significant constituency is never smart in politics. Not only do you risk isolating people you may well need in the future but you also cut off an important source of advice and expertise. It is the absence of this advice, many believe has lead the republican movement into a political cul-de-sac shouldering the blame for crisis in government. 

Last week some 200 business leaders gathered in Queen’s University to debate the economy. This was a very mixed bunch with many younger entrepreneurs in attendance - a true reflection of the new North. You would think this is a group our local politicians would be interested in engaging. As it happens there was not a single one present, and only one turned up for the Northern Ireland Economic Conference, none for the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network’s AGM. Their statements over the past month highlight their lack of interest in economic affairs.

Don’t take my word for it. Have a look at the Sinn Fein website and you will see a collection of press releases condemning the ‘corporate’ behaviour of organisations like Invest Northern Ireland – you would think the body charged with bringing business here should behave corporately like the IDA does in the South – but apparently not.

The gathering in Queen’s took a series of snap polls using some nifty handheld voting devices. Four out of five of those present thought our devolved government is failing the economy. For the record only on MLA attended last months Northern Ireland Economic Conference. That’s one hell of an indictment of the SF-DUP led executive that only a year ago said it was putting the economy at the heart of its Programme for Government.

Bottom line is that business no longer trusts our regional government on the economy and believes the Executive is actively damaging prospects at this crucial time.

It is rumoured that Sinn Fein want an election to push the issue of devolving policing and a justice. Maybe so but like in the aftermath September 11 when the world’s view of terrorism changed, today ordinary people in Northern Ireland and across the globe are looking for politicians who will put jobs and the economy centre stage. That’s why Obama may well end up in the White House and it is why ordinary people are so cheesed of with the SF-DUP coalition.

Time to get back to work lads and do the job we are all paying you to do.

 

This week’s New Statesman has a great supplement called Politics and the Internet Age. You can download it for free here.

Hard to pick one article for mention but I thought Sholto Byrnes piece about this year’s Malaysian elections was relevant and well worthy of reproduction.

In March this year Malaysia’s governing coalition was struck a blow so staggering that it swiftly became universally referred to as “the political tsunami”. The Barisan Nasional (BN) government received its worst ever result in the general election of that month, and the opposition was left in control of five of the country’s 13 states.

Humiliatingly for the BN, they included the economic powerhouse states of Penang and Selangor, and the federal territory around the capital, Kuala Lumpur. The government has been in crisis ever since. Above the allegations of cronyism, corruption, mismanagement and racial and religious issues that are the common currency of politics in
Malaysia, one factor stood out: in the internet age, the government could no longer maintain total control of the media.

Four weeks before the election the Information Minister, Zainuddin Maidin, had declared “blogs don’t worry me”. After he lost his seat, he was just one of many who had time to reflect that the world of cyber communication and text messaging, so intangible compared to that of the print media which the government had kept on a short leash – the mass-market daily newspapers such as the New Straits Times and the Star – had rendered the old strategies useless.

Websites such as malaysiakini and Malaysia Today have largely been able to evade the censorship (or self-censorship) of the print media, as when the country decided to invest in a multimedia super corridor near the capital in the mid-90s, it realised that it would not be internationally competitive if information on the web was seen to be restricted.

Today, around 60 per cent of the country’s population has access to the internet – a degree of penetration that is one of the highest in Asia, and comparable to many Western European states. While the government enjoyed high approval ratings, it could afford to ignore those irritants in the blogosphere whose reporting was less respectful
than their print counterparts. When food and petrol prices shot up, however, tolerance of the lifestyle enjoyed by ministers and their friends quickly decreased. Where was all the country’s wealth going? Did justice come at a price too high for the ordinary people who were suffering?

The approved lines continued to issue forth in the mainstream media. Platitudes about unity and the dangers of discussing certain difficult subjects (anything much to do with race or religion) were lauded by BN-friendly commentators. But it was no longer enough. There was no monopoly on “the truth” any more. Rumours and counter-rumours spread via websites and blogs, text messages and DVDs. And out of it all different “truths”, ones
which persuaded many to look more favourably on the opposition parties, began to be distilled.

Just days before the polls, one senior government politician was still insisting that “elections are about votes, not hits”. The opposition coalition thought otherwise; one component party recruited a popular blogger, Jeff Ooi, to run its ecampaign.

When the results came through, the ruling coalition’s foolishness in ignoring the new media became clear. In power since independence in 1957, the BN is now the weakest it has ever been. Like a mortally-wounded beast, it is thrashing out even as it fails. The outspoken editor of the Malaysia Today news portal, Raja Petra Kamarudin,
has recently been imprisoned for his attacks on the government. That this was done under the Internal Security Act, a remnant of British rule that allows for indefinite detention without trial, has provoked further anger. The outcry over this,and the calls for change, grow ever stronger.

And they grow strongest of all on the new media that the BN failed to understand and which may eventually be seen to have led to its downfall. Malaysia’s political tsunami was nothing less than an internet revolution.

I cannot understand what Sinn Fein hopes to achieve by having a counter protest to the British Army home coming parade in Belfast on November 2nd. Irrespective of your views on whether or not it is a positive thing to have the British Army parade through Belfast City Centre, they are doing so following a debate at city council and by invitation of the council.

At a time when ordinary people are asking very serious questions about SF’s commitment to the power sharing institutions and commentators and directly questioning their ability to govern, many will wonder what their true motivations in holding this event are.

Meanwhile O’Conall Street has been exploring multiculturalism on our island this week with our own multicultural communications guru, Rakhee Vithlani. MCC is a specialist offering within Weber Shandwick and has been pioneering best practice in this emerging field of communications.

The visit triggered a debate in the office about how multiculturalism has been reflected in Irish art. To be honest we failed miserably to get the discussion going - shame on us all.

The Commitments did come up however. Something about the Irish being the blacks of Europe, Dubliners being the blacks of Ireland and the Northsiders being the blacks of Dublin. So be black and be proud.

CNN’s post debate viewers poll gives it to Obama by 58% to 31%. 

The analysts all agree that McCain was hugely improved but that Obama won on the night. Noam Sheiber writing in New Republic this morning sums it up:

Obama wasn’t close to his best tonight. He was much less crisp and coherent than last week, and generally looked a little fried. Like several of my colleagues, I thought his critique of McCain’s health care plan was especially convoluted. All he needed to say was that lots of people would lose employer-based coverage under McCain’s plan, and that McCain’s $5,000 tax credit wouldn’t offset the $12,000 their current plans are worth. Instead Obama threw in a digression about taxing health benefits, which, while true, had nothing to do with the thrust of his response.

Obama also missed a few easy comebacks, as when McCain bristled at Rep. John Lewis’s recent comments, which included a (slightly) over-the-top allusion to George Wallace. Obama should have immediately rejected the Wallace analogy; instead, he riffed about how most voters think McCain’s running a more negative campaign. Again, that’s true enough. But it lacked the emotional punch of a pithy disavowal (which only came after McCain doubled-back to Lewis’s comments).

Having said that, Obama was coherent enough when he had to be. His response to the Ayers charge–including a recitation of all the Republicans who served with him and Ayers on that infamous board–should defuse the issue once and for all. And, as was the case last week, tonight left little doubt that he plans to cut taxes for 95 percent of workers. 

Full debate below:

Three words sum up today’s budget - on yer bike.

One of the few scraps the South’s Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan was able to offer was a small scheme to encourage more people to cycle to work. The rest was pay more get less. 

Saying he would bring order to public finances Minister Lenihan announced that an income levy of 1% on all incomes up to €1,925 a week - just over €100,000 a year - would be introduced. The levy will be 2% above that level.

This levy will allow all income earners to contribute in a proportionate manner to the restoration of order and stability to the public finances,’ he said, adding that it would be kept under review.

Mr Lenihan also said that Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State would be giving up 10% of their current pay. He also said he was conducting a review of the National Pensions Reserve Fund.

The Minister said he expected the economy to shrink by 1.5% next year, as measured by GNP, with GDP contracting by 0.75%. He said unemployment would rise to 7.3% but inflation would ease to 2.5%.

He said there would be a Budget deficit of 6.5% of GDP next year, well above the EU limit of 3%. The Minister said this was the maximum reduction that could be achieved this year, but it was his intention to lower this further.

Current spending will rise by 1.8%, with a current deficit of just over €4.7 billion and a capital deficit of €8.7 billion.

As the man says - not good!

The press tells us this morning that good comprehensive schools in England are attracting more smart kids than grammar schools. The Sutton Trust has published a report which will be widely poured over here as we await some word from our ‘failing’ minister, Caitriona Ruane. 

According to the BBC :

Grammar schools take relatively fewer bright, poor pupils than schools that do not select by ability, a study says.

Research for the Sutton Trust suggests state schools in England take twice the rate of smart, poor pupils compared to grammar schools.

The report also suggests that state faith schools take fewer poorer pupils compared to other state secondaries.

The government said the mandatory admissions code introduced last year outlawed unfair admission practices.

The researchers based at Durham University analysed the pupil characteristics of every child who began secondary school in England in 2001.

They found that about 2% of grammar school pupils were from low income families - on free school meals, compared to 12% of pupils at non-grammar schools.

This is largely because those attending grammar schools have to pass an academic test and only one in 20 pupils among the top performing pupils are on free school meals, they said.

However, in grammar schools only 2% of the top achievers were on free school meals, compared to 5.5% for non-grammar schools.

They also compared the rate of pupils on free school meals at a school with that of the areas from which they drew their pupils.

And a large number of non-academically selective state schools were found to be more socially selective than grammar schools.

Over half of the state schools deemed most socially selective by the researchers were those that pick pupils on the basis of faith

Some 50 non-grammars appeared to be more academically selective than the least selective grammar school.

“How can it be that a non-selective school can have a 30 percentage point difference between the free school meals rate in the area from which it draws its intake and the rate for the pupils it actually enrols in the school,” the report asked.

Half of these highly selective schools were in control of their admissions policies and half selected pupils on the basis of a faith, it added.

Even though they were not ostensibly academically selective, the report said some schools could pick some pupils by “aptitude” for a certain subject such as music, some were effectively “selecting by home postcode” when they became over-subscribed and many were faith schools.

‘Creaming off’

Report author Dr Robert Coe said there was no evidence schools were deliberately selecting smarter pupils.

But he added: “There are incentives within the system for schools to take the nice pupils rather than the nasty pupils if you want to put it that way. We have to blame the league tables.”

Faith schools, however, insist they tend to take a higher proportion of pupils from poor backgrounds.

The report also looked at the impact the academic selection of grammar schools had on other schools that the grammar pupils could have gone to.

In areas where there are large numbers of grammar schools, such as Kent, Medway, Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire, many schools lose more than a fifth of their potential bright pupils to grammars.

Overall it found 35% of non-selective schools lose between 1 and 20% of the pupils they might have had to grammar schools. A further 32% lose between 0 and 1%.

This may partly be due to the larger area from which many grammar schools draw their pupils.

Admissions code

Many fill the available places with the pupils who score the highest marks in the entrance examination, paying no regard to where they live.

Nationally, some 20% of grammar school pupils come from outside the local authority of the school. But for some local authorities the figure is as high as 75%.

Dr Lee Elliot Major, director of research at the Sutton Trust, said the figures suggested that grammars were not enrolling as many academically able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds as they could do.

“More spotlight needs to be focused on ensuring grammars do all they can to reach out to all potential pupils.”

Chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association Robert McCartney rejected suggestions grammars were not taking enough poor, bright pupils.

He said: “You can only get into a grammar school if you subject yourself to an entrance test. Among deprived areas there is a dearth of parents pushing their children’s educational aspirations.”

A Department for Children, Schools and Family spokesman said it did not support academic selection at 11 and that parents could vote to abolish it in their area.

“For non-selective schools, the mandatory School Admissions Code gives children a fair and equal chance of getting into a school of their choice, regardless of background.

“It means all admission policies must be fair, clear and objective. We want parents to choose schools not schools to choose parents – and the large majority of schools have fair admissions.”

Last week I decided to ask Downing Street to accept a petition calling on the Prime Minister to take steps to actively support mutual and building societies. Ironically on the day when the British banking system has been effectively nationalised, I have been told by Number 10 that my petition has been accepted.

You can sign it here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Building-Soc/

The petition reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to develop policy which supports Mutual Societies and Building Societies and puts people, not profit at the heart of finance.

A building society is a mutual organisation. This means that instead of having shareholders, it has members who collectively own the business and are also its customers. The main examples of this type of organisation in the UK are co-operative societies, mutual insurance companies and building societies.

Members have the right to vote for directors regardless of how much or how little money they have with the society.

Each building society invests its profit back into the society’s business. Unlike banks, mutuals do not pay dividends.

In other words - your money works for you, not the City.

This enables the building society to offer competitive rates of interest on both savings and mortgages. It sets the rates it pays savers at just less than the rate charged to borrowers.This margin gives the society a profit. Many analysists believe this offers customers a much better deal.

Given a crisis of confidence is at the heart of the current crisis, we are calling on the Prime Minister to actively support a trustworthy system of building and mutual societies which can support home owners and encourage a viable property market.

Please sign the petition if you agree with it and encourage your colleagues, friends and family to do so also.

It’s 40 years since the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association highlighted the abject discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Two young producers who are not old enough to have witnessed the momentous events of 68 have chronicled the events of the time in a documentary just shown on BBC One.

An O’Conall St thanks to Trevor Birney and Ruth O’Reilly for a story well told.

Another Thursday, another surreal debate on Hearts and Minds, talk about fiddling while Rome burns.

This time it was Conor Murphy’s turn to explain how meeting would damage partnership and how tackling the real issues of concern to ordinary people undermines equality.

We were discussing Sinn Fein’s bizarre approach to government on O’Conall Street today. Given we could not get our head around their position or their definition of partnership and equality we thought we might offer up our own solution to the current impasse.

Simple.

Lets have a ‘Facebook Executive’. No meetings, no face to face contact, no process blockades just effective open government. And what better way for the Executive to respond to the current economic crisis.

The other nine Ministers would have to join Margaret Ritchie on Facebook. They set up a closed group and get on with posting papers on the ‘wall’ and then use the discussion board for real debate. Surveymonkey.comcould be employed any time a vote was needed. Nothing complicated or requiring any personal contact just a simple click and the Fuel Poverty Strategy would be agreed for civil servants in Omagh and Ballymena to deliver.

The Assembly could get on Facebook too with some public pages for us ordinary mortals to take a peak at the work.

As for the North South Ministerial Council, I am sure now that Facebook is setting up shop in Dublin they might be able to think of a new network called ‘island of Irish’ or something like that to get the two cabinets talking.

The great unwashed could set up groups calling for anything from an Executive Meeting to free prescriptions for pets. And those really committed to this value for money democracy could blog on the side and launch petitions to the First and Deputy First Ministers.

Now for the real good news. No more standing in the wind waiting to get into the Assembly to witness no business. No more personal protection officers lurking about with bulging jackets. No fleet of ministerial cars pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and for those young mothers at the Executive table some real work - life balance.

I could not lay a figure on the current cost of running the Assembly but do know the bill during the last period of suspension was a staggering £110millon.

A Facebook group is free.

So McCain turned up and the debate did in fact live up to the undoubted abilities of both candidates.

CNN gave the floor to the bloggers after and below is their debate on the debate.

For my money Obama crushed McCain on the economy and held his own on foreign policy, McCain’s trump card. There is a base-ball rule that says the runner always gets the benefit of the doubt in a toss up at first base. Obama has been running ahead all week so he gets the debate. All he needs to do is keep running.