How your party can respond to the big General Election 2016 campaign issues.
All the possibilities at your fingertips.
(Delete as appropriate)
Dan Boyle (above) writes:
When elected our party will…
1. On the Economy:
a) Keep the recovery going
b) Bring an end to Austerity
c) Achieve a fair society
2. On Taxation we will bring an end to the hated:
a) Universal Social Charge
b) Local Property Tax
c) )Water Charges
d) Carbon Tax
e) Corporation Tax
3. On Law and Order/Peace and Security/Restorative Justice we will:
a) Close more Garda stations
b) End the Special Criminal Court
c) Establish a Citizens Militia trained to use bullhorns and armed with appropriate protest slogans.
4. On The Environment we will make Ireland fossil fuel free from:
a) 2030
b) 2050
c) 2100
d) Burn Baby Burn
5. On Health we will:
a) Continue to blame the HSE
b) Make trollies more comfortable
c) Make illness illegal
d) Do what we did in the six counties
6. On Transport we will:
a) Roll our more bypasses and motorways in the constituencies of Government Ministers
b) Blacken the windows of all buses to save users the embarrassment of others thinking they have no cars
C) Have Ryanair operate the Government Jet
7. On Education we will:
a) Give every citizen a degree
b) Issue every student with a laptop. Broadband will follow during the lifetime of the following government.
c) Make sure everyone gets teached properly
8. On Political Reform we will:
a) Do nothing
b) Think about it
c) Do something cosmetic
d) Are you mad?
9. On Europe we will:
a) Agree with the UK
b) Agree with Germany
c) Agree with Greece
10. On Immigration we will:
a) Welcome all as we’ve been welcomed elsewhere
b) Take some in but leave them in limbo once they’re here
c) Say they’re all here to take our jobs and rip off our welfare system
11. On Childcare we will:
a) Have your babies for you
b) Institute one year paid paternity leave to be paid at the rate of Jobseeker’s Allowance
c) Make Child Benefit payable to the fifth and any subsequent child only
12. On Social Welfare we will:
a) Root out all fraud, except tax fraud, or any activity undertaken by Tipperary based TDs
b) Standardise all payments to Romanian rates
c) Call anyone in need a scrounger
13. On the Eighth Amendment we will:
a) Do nothing
b) Repeal
c) Replace
d) Oh holy Mother of God
14. On Arts and Culture we say
a) There’s too much of it
b) There’s not enough of it
c) We have just enough of it
d) You’d miss Charlie Haughey
15. On Drugs we say:
a) Legalise
b) Lock up anyone who uses any substance, except alcohol or tobacco of course
c) Yes please
d) No thank you
16. On Government Formation it can be:
a) Anyone but Fine Gael
b) Anyone but Sinn Féin
c) Anyone but Fianna Fáil
d) Let Michael O’Leary run the country
*Disclaimer – Don’t expect any of this to be followed up on
Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle
3 c) “Down with that sorta thing!”
15 b) We do that already
Enjoyed that… sad that it’s so close to the truth
Was thinking the same
First I thought wow this is funny
Then it wasn’t funny any more
I think there is a small typo in point 6A. Should be ‘out’ instead of ‘our’. Feel free to delete this comment after you’ve read it.
Dan, where is the one on “Corruption”? DOB Ohrwurm is the dish of the day in this joint.
17. On Car Tax we will:
a) Base road tax on emissions, MPG and weight
b) Continue to use the idiotic system introduced by the greens
c) Use vehicles from the Flintstones
d) Where we’re going, we don’t need roads
Changed and undermined by Phil Hogan but keep banging that drum
Well are you going to fix it if, on the off chance, you get back in?
Fingers pointing gets no one anywhere and changes nothing.
And glass houses there Dan re. banging drums.
Ooh Phil Hogan did it, don’t blame me.
There’s a recurring theme to your preachings Dan, accept responsibility for nothing and blame everyone else for legislation introduced and voted into law by the Green Party.
Tell me, how much carbon has the carbon tax saved and how many people found their energy bills unaffordable as a result of carbon tax?
On a broader scale: what’s the point of expensive elections, TDs & ministers wages, pensions, if the country is run by senior public servants, who are not accountable to ministerial carousel? Politicians admit it, public accounts committee admit it (them I fond of) and yet here we are, going through this costly carnival again.
Love thou country, political class, not your comfort. Or go off generating income in private sector.
18…on Political Patronage Eamon Ryanua will:
a) reward inner circle members with Government Board appointments.
b) reward lippy embarrassing member who has promised to leave the country for the duration with Seanad seat.
c) pay expenses of Shane Féin who has allowed most embarrassing ex-member run under his umbrella.
d) hibernate for the duration and hope not to be disturbed by late night phone calls.
You can do be
tter than Busted. Your not being bitter enough.
You can do better than that Busted. You’re not being bitter enough. Needed to correct that.
Are you speaking in personal capacity or party’s behalf? People are bitter for good reasons. It’s unseemly to make a quip about it. Eamon Ryan should be worried about your wit exercises in public and pre-election. Donna Cooney won’t thank you either.
19. On flooding, we will provide:
a) Bags, but no sand
b) Sand, but no bags
c) Boat excursions for ministers
Sorry Dan, but yer tainted with ff slime, like labour are covered in blushirt excreta
Hey dav, hope you’re well. Would you ever be willing to compromise on any of your principles in order to effect just some of your policies as opposed to none?
Let’s all grab an abacus and count how many seats the Greens were awarded for compromising their principles….
none! but they did get some green policies in. which they would not have if they had not compromised and got into government.
It’s a toughie, do you want to stick by your principles and stay on the fringes, or compromise and at least effect some of your policies, even to your on detriment.
One is more selfless than the other you could argue, it isn’t easy being a junior coalition partner. Then maybe they’re just doing it for the pensions!
Oh they got some Green policies in alright and stuck by Fianna Fail to the bitter end destroying their credentials and laying waste to their party leaving the outgoing Dail with no Greens representatives. Not even on the opposition benches getting at least a chance to agitate against the FG/LAB coalition from an environmental point of view.
Such practical thinking and nuance won’t be tolerated here! Just wait until Moyest sees this!
Or imagine of Boyler was realistic instead of living in the past as a Green Party whipping boy for the FF elite…
My ideas
http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?17024-Changing-Ireland-A-New-Policy#.VrxrofmLSUk
Suggest you put these in a nice leaflet and go door to door fluffy
The Green party are hypocrites.
It’s hypocritical to launch your election campaign on board a bus with an old diesel engine that produces a heap of toxins that’s been driven around the City with no destination in mind.
It’s hypocritical to give people a financial bribe to switch from a low polluting petrol car to a toxin producing diesel car.
I await your smart arse retort Dan.
“diesel fuel burned in vehicles could be responsible for around one in four of all air pollution deaths, said Frank Kelly, professor of environmental health at King’s College, London.”
It’s hypocritical to erect posters that will only be used once and can’t be recycled.
It’s hypocritical for Ciaran Cuffe to claim that from 2007 to 2011 ” he changed our planning laws to put people first and stop developer-led rezoning.”
It’s hypocritical for the Green Party to ignore the fact that 20% of Irish greenhouse gases are produced by farming.
It’s hypocritial to get into politics to fix a political system because you’re participating in the broken political system.
Pure-hearted, but not very effective.
Hi Dan,
You are correct, but if point you’re making is that all political parties over-promise at election time, then you are correct. I don’t think they are going to stop the presses on that one.
And since all parties over-promise, I’d imagine you’d include the Green Party in that list?
But no, you say, you can trust the Green Party?
I would agree with you again Dan, but what happened when you went into government with FF? You didn’t fulfill all your election promises there, did you?
No, you say, but you have to compromise when you enter coalition government. You never get everything you want.
Again, fair enough. So, I guess you could say, that the manifestos and posters are really about what the party would like to do if they were uninhibited by their coalition partners, by money, or by a public that doesn’t want to pay for it?
In which case, you post, which a little funny, is sort of full of crap.