Us and Them

This is the transcript of Joseph O'Connor's radio diary, broadcast yesterday on Drivetime on RTE Radio One. (Yes, I've been brushing up on my touch typing!)

Funny old people the British, aren’t they? Honestly we have nothing in common with them. They have a surly and uncommunicative prime minister from whom the public did not vote; a disastrous recent history of financial scandal involving politicians and their astronomical expenses; a mighty serious recession necessitating a bailout of their banks. And what do you think they’re doing now, the mad rascals; only having an election, that’s what! Honestly, the British sense of humour! God between us, but isn’t it great that this eccentric idea hasn’t caught on over here.

Where would we be if we had to have a Taoiseach for whom we actually voted? An open debate on the vitally important issues leading to public approval at the polling stations, a government with a moral mandate to rule us. No, that kind of thing can be dangerous to a democracy. It’s much better to have the kind of system we have in Ireland, for as everyone knows it’s so deeply representative.

Yes, thousands of green party voters up and down the land voted for a Fianna Fail-led government with Mary Harney as health minister, propped up by Jackie Healy-Ray and a number of other independents who the political arm of Provisional Crystal Swing. As for NAMA - as we know, we have all been asked for our view, or we will be, or we might be, or we won’t be and I don’t see what could possibly be clearer or fairer than that. It’s what Pearse and Connolly died for.

In Britain, the Opposition is lead by a number of dynamic young men who are full of fresh and invigorating ideas for the future. But that won’t be happening here obviously. David Cameron of the Conservatives thinks government is too big, the National Health Service too inefficient and people really ought to do more for themselves. Although, as the writer Jeremy Hardy recently pointed out, doing your own heart transplant operation might be dicey. Mr Cameron attended Eton school and comes with a fair bit of baggage, most of it Louis Vuitton. Several of his shadow cabinet are also old Etonians, as is the Conservative Party Mayor of London, Mr Boris Johnston. And if you could imagine a country run by the D’Unbelievables but in cummerbunds, you would have a fair idea of the Tory future.

Then we have the Liberal Democrats - who are radical, but very nice. The kind of people who would like to storm the gates of Buckingham Palace, but offer to pay for the damage afterwards. David Cameron has been caught in the contradiction of trying to cosy up to them while remaining true to his roots. He began his campaign by preaching love, tolerance and unity; more recently he has come out strongly against scroungers of public money, the unemployed, social misfits and foreigners - the Royal Family in other words.

Finally we have the Labour Party, the only political entity on earth capable of actually stabbing itself in the back. As Social Democrats they believe in taking from the very rich to subsidize the very poor - an entirely ludicrous policy leading to economic collapse as we know. Here in Ireland we have socialism, but only for banks. We believe that when you raid the pension funds of people who have worked hard all their lives so that Irish bank executives can have the kind of retirement Lady Gaga would think excessive, you are actually rewarding the raw talent and intelligent business practices that have made modern Ireland the happy place it is today.

Yes, we can be proud of our many achievements. We may be a small country undergoing economic catastrophe, but we have Seamus Heaney, Gabriel Byrne, the beautiful cliffs of Moher, and the third highest paid prime minister in the world. That will bloody well show the Brits won’t it? Brian Cowen gets paid the same amount for ruling four million of us, that Gordon Brown gets paid for ruling sixty million of them. But when you think about it, we are a terrible unruly bunch altogether, so Biffo does fifteen times the work.

And tell me, can you name one British politician who has ever surrendered a lavish pension, as some of our own angels are doing this week? No, you can’t. It never happens in Britain. That’s because they don’t give serving politicians a pension in the first place, the tightwads. Bizarrely, over beyond, if Prime Minister Brown fails to win the election on May 6th, he will have to make do with his Member of Parliament salary, unaided by any astronomical payout the British people might give him just to soften the blow of their rejection. Yes, in Britain they cling to the daft idea that you shouldn’t have a pension until you retire; that a hundred grand a year is kinda enough for their leaders, and that unvouched expenses for politicians aren’t a great idea.

When will they ever learn, the silly moos! You don’t get talent like an Irish politician just anywhere after all, and if Padraig Flynn found it difficult running three houses on a salary of a hundred and twenty grand, we can only sympathise with some of his colleagues in their impossible task of running four homes on a quarter of a million. Sure they’re heroes really, God be good to them all - you’d think we could at least be grateful.

Joe O'Connor