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The PD’s are F**Ked
Read more about: Progressive Democrats 
I used to be a big fan of the PD’s. I mean what was not to like. They had fiscally sound politics and a liberal outlook on the world. Yet under McDowell they have dived bombed in respectability. With the latest campaign against the Greens and the slogan of the party. The party is on a one way ticket to the history books.
The latest attacks on the Green Party are the sign of a party devoid of ideas. It really says alot about the state of Irish politics when the PD’s the supposed Right wing party are vying for votes against a left wing party and not what would be seen as the traditional target Fine Gael. But that is a story for another day. They distributed a leaflet to homes in South Dublin outlining certain Green polices. Which you know sounds fair enough. And by fair enough I mean when you are in the position where you have given up trying to get the electorate to vote for you rather get them to vote against everyone else.
But if you are going to do that at least get the other parties policies right. Sure loads of people think of the Green party are in favour of increasing corporation tax and that is probably a good thing if you are a PD. But what you don’t do is highlight the fact, giving the party a great opportunity to get on radio calling you a lier amongst other things. (Which stations are only too happy to facilitate as we all love a good shouting match) and in the process of which they get to tell the electorate that they don’t in fact favour increasing corporation tax. Suddenly people ignorance that was helping you is now gone.
Other points made by this leaflet are highlighted over on politics.ie and many are wrong. Although the fluorine one is not wide off the mark.(How can you chose if your water is fluoridated or not. It is done by the council for everyone.) and they are not big fans of MMR vaccines either. But most of the policies highlighted were made indeed some like the Bank levy were PD policy.
Even if what they said was all true. It shows everything that is wrong with the PD’s. They should not need to heckling the other parties to win votes they should be out there selling their policies. Saying what they are going to do. They need to be different. They are focusing on Stamp duty. But so is everyone else. It is not a unique selling point or even radical. No one know the details of each parties stamp duty policies. All they know is that something will be done about it if they get into power. So people are deciding on that issue. If theyreally wanted to be radical focus on VAT. The greatest stealth tax of them all.
But the PD’s have lost their edge. Look at their slogan. “Don’t throw it away”. As the saying goes eaten bread is soon forgotten. People take what we have for granted. If the PD’s may not like but it is a fact. They don’t want to hear about the past they want to hear about the future about what they are going to do in the future. And the PD’s are just nothing doing that, they are not saying vote for us, they are saying don’t vote for them. And unless you are Jacques Chirac and the them is Le Pen no one is going to vote for you. As the “slump coalition” are not nazi’s.
McDowell once said that the PD’s need to be radical or redundant. Considering that they are now far from radical what does that mean? The PD’s biggest mistake was giving McDowell the leadership he will have it destroyed before the likes of Liz O’Donnell can fix it.
They’ve been writing PD obituaries for 20 yrs now. They certainly were in 2002. It’s wishful thinking though and anyway, a centre-right party is a necessary and logical counterbalance to the parties of the Left, which always seem to be proliferating in this country. A vote for the PDs is the only way to prevent permanent govt of the Left in this country. As a PD voter I reject your views on this.
Not a single constituency poll so far has indicated a lost PD seat. Parlon is set to hold on as is Grealish judging by the polls in Laois-Offaly and Galway West.
Pretty fickle of you to ditch a party when its down Simon.
Ian I do not support any political party. I have my out look on politics. And which ever party gets near it will be the party that I back. If the PD’s were down but still producing policies of merit and not degrading them selves I would support them. Why should I support a party that is avoiding the issues I want covered? Or a party that does not had the balls to stick soely to its own policies. Instead having to scaremonger on someone elses policy.
I think the day any party fights an election without trying to undermine the policies of the other parties, is the day that party will be well and truly f**ked.
How many centre-right parties does one country need? FF and FG are probably best described as centre-right. As for the Left, well you’ve got Labour, who aren’t exactly likely to turn us into Cuba. The Greens aren’t really members of what you could call the Left. And the Socialist party will live and die with Joe Higgins.
The PDs started off as a bunch of anti-Haughey FFers, and then morphed into a vaguely libertarian pro-capitalist party that derived its support mostly from ex-commerce and law students who have unread copies of Ann Rynd on well-polished bookshelves.
In short the PD party sucks monkey balls and I hope it dies of AIDs.
“I think the day any party fights an election without trying to undermine the policies of the other parties, is the day that party will be well and truly f**ked.”
Yes, but it’s traditional to try and undermine polices which the other party actually holds, rather than making stuff up and then trying to undermine that.
Niall FF and FG – having presided over decades of statism in which industries were nationalised in this country to the detriment of competition, consumer choice and the cost of living, together with rigid adherence – until the advent of the PDs – to an economic model that regarded profit as a dirty word and the private-sector as the spawn of Satan – shows by any objective observation that neither is rightwing but rather they are centrist-parties with certain Socialistic distrusts of the private-sector and privatisation that owe much to leftwing ideology. Only govts with the PDs have introduced privatisation and tax-cuts. It is the tail that largely wags the dog under our system.
Brian, given the PD’s lineage, they are equally responsible for ‘decades of statism’. Had the PDs not been part of the government over the past decade or so, then policies would not have been all that different. Good time Charlie was far more influential in implementing the pro-business policies that helped the country. In fact, because of the nature of the last government, PD policies were only implemented when Fianna Fail supported them anyway. The FFers have very little hostility toward the private sector left in them.
Brian,
I hope it is not irrelevant to pull the mask off the fact that with the PD ethos in sway this country has built more putting greens than primary classrooms. Does the party bother to propose policies on educating children? We are told we need more cafe bars when the real challenge is not a good local cappuccino…. its good local treatment for cancer. The PDs suckled the Rip-Off Republic and have done a fine job of turning this into the Republic of Grabwhachakhan.
We had innate charm, wit and a community sense… now we have chart topping decadence.
Begone.