Here’s a quick banner for you to post on your website. Let’s do all we can to ensure that we don’t all lose our jobs, end up on €100 per month of Social Welfare, pay over €200 per train trip to Dublin, start collecting butter vouchers and begging the banks not to take our homes away from us. A vote for Fine Gael isn’t a vote for Enda, it’s a vote for the miserable days of the 1980s.
Much like a shotgun wedding is done on the spur of the moment, Bertie Ahern, the leader of the 29th Dáil has now dissolved the parliamentary body.
Elections are expected to take place on the 24th of May, and I’m already drafting my holiday request form for this.
diarmy
Websites are now considered to be more important than most other business marketing tools. Websites are a deeply personal element in marketing - as very often, they are visited after work. So what have our political parties been up to with their websites.
Fianna Fáil (4/5)
Clearly the best of all the sites, Fianna Fáil’s website is clear and to the point. Up until a few weeks ago, it was a mess, and today it’s a fantastic standards-aware site with loads of interesting information. The videos are very much out of date, but the presentation wins hands down.
Fine Gael (3/5)
While this site gets the point across, it’s hideous in design and very much out of date. It’s pretty boring and poorly laid out. Navigation is a nightmare, as are the graphics.
Labour (2/5)
Labour’s website is much like its leader’s speeches. Long winded, full of hype but with no real fact. Politics impersonating presentation is the message here, and it’s a beast of a site to navigate.
Sinn Féin (2/5)
The only site to use a non-neutral background, Sinn Féin’s site comes across as harsh and unforgiving. It’s bold choice of colour makes it difficult to find a flow of content, and its façade is complicated - to say the least.
Green Party (1/5)
Much like its politics and mandates, the Green Party website is sparse and long-winded. It’s a definite non-runner for usability with far too much clutter on screen.
Progressive Democrats (2/5)
Although they’re facing a total wipeout in this year’s General Election, the PDs seem to have spent money on this site. Although it’s boring and lackluster, it’s somewhat easy on the eye. However the use of graphics to highlight sections is poorly represented. A definite no-no. The site is the only with the most complicated naming convention, forcing the user to spell out ‘P R O G R E S S I V E D E M O C R A T S’ .ie
diarmy
Here’s my list for the ideal cabinet in a Fianna Fáil majority government (after the election, like!)
Taoiseach
Bertie Ahern
Táiniste, Education & Science
Mary Hanafin
Finance
Brian Cowen
Foreign Minister
Sean Haughey
Enterprise & Employment
Dermot Ahern
Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs
Mary Coughlan
Agriculture & Food
Frank Fahey
Justice, Equality & Law Reform
Willie O’Dea
Arts, Sports & Tourism
John O’Donoghue
Communications
Noel Treacy
Environment, Heritage & Local Government
Micheál Martin
Health, Children & The Elderly
Brian Lenihan Jr.
Social & Family Affairs
Conor Lenihan
Defence
Pat “The Cope” Gallagher
Enda Kenny went on television on Saturday night and spoke to the hundreds of supporters in front of him and to a handful of supporters watching at home. For many skeptics and neutrals, this was the moment at which the swaying voters could be won or lost. Kenny, in his trademark simple-man appearance, mounted the platform to the sound of ‘The Black Eyed Peas - Let’s Get it Started’ in an attempt to match the incoming Taoiseach’s parade last weekend. Kenny, dressed in a suit and tie, began his speech by slowly teasing out the meaning of the ridiculous slogan hanging behind him - A Contract for a Better Ireland (or something).
But throughout the 30-minute speech, I couldn’t stop laughing at the poor rhetoric, the bad and awkward pauses for applause, the poor cinematography (when compared to the crispness of the Fianna Fáil coverage) and the general lack of tightness of the broadcast. Kenny himself came across as an unsure and bumbling fool who quite honestly is now so full of belief in his own mission that the fear of God was present on the faces of his would-be cabinet.
Throughout the broadcast, shots of the packed CityWest auditorium flooded the screens of those watching at home and cameramen desperately filtered through this audience trying to find a few young people to show on screen. They had their work cut out for them! The front rows were packed by the party faithful and the fee-paying attendees were shoved to the rear, well out of sight of the poorly rehearsed spectacle on stage.
Fine Gael had a hard act to follow. Last week’s Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis was the only of the party political shows that uttered anything in the way of concrete ambitions. Tax cuts, health spending, justice and all of the hot potatoes were mentioned by Bertie Ahern with facts, figures and timetables to boot. Kenny on the other hand stopped short of giving vehement promises and deadlines and talked in a round-about way in terms of Fine Gael’s plans.
The reality of how little threat Fine Gael is to Fianna Fáil became evident when Kenny mentioned the possible alignment with the Labour Party mid-speech. This was a poor turn of phrase as many now believe the Labour Party, headed by Pat Rabbitte, may in face prefer to be in coalition with Fianna Fáil - as both parties are better matched in their politics. Kenny’s willful display of passion was poor throughout and at the end I thought he’d collapse for the want of breathing from his loud roaring at the electorate.
The sad fact however is that Kenny, like Bertie, is the face of his party. However, unlike Bertie, Kenny makes sure his shadow-ministers are constantly in the presses. These are the very people who brought this country to its knees in the early 1980s and have since proven to be extremely useless as opposition figures.
So overall, Kenny proved last night that he does indeed seem to be up for the fight - but something tells me that his gusto and determination will all but have disappeared before polling day as he is now beginning to bore the electorate in what must be the longest ever election campaign. Nothing for the past three months has been heard from Fianna Fáil about the future of Ireland, with the exception of last weekend. This is because they’re busy running the country while Fine Gael has been busy making a lot of smoke from a tiny fire. Eventually, the winds of change will blow out this fire, and Ireland can continue to progress through the next few difficult years with a government built by the founders of the state and the true leaders of our economic successes as we become a mature and experienced society.
Even Kenny’s wife doesn’t want him to become Taoiseach as she said herself on ‘The Political Party’ show on TV3 this evening. And neither does Ireland!
diarmy
