In Eunte Verae

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis

Friday March 11, 2005 16:50

by Sean Crudden

sean.crudden at iol dot ie

Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth.

087 9739945

Any Sign of a Change?

"In eunte Verae" (if I remember correctly from my schooldays) is a Latin tag which means "With the coming of Spring." The weather has been kind and growth is in the air. But what I hunger for is political growth. Will the Progressive Democrats national conference bring change or will it be, politically, another lost opportunity - another stale affair?

The Primrose - Harbinger of Spring

With the coming of spring young men’s hearts, we are told, turn to love. At this time of the year my thoughts and plans turn towards The Progressive Democrats’ National Conference which is scheduled this year to take place on 8/9 April in The Silver Springs Hotel on the outskirts of Cork City.

Last years conference in Killarney was stage-managed to give maximum exposure to party candidates in the local elections. As was easy to predict at the time this ploy helped the candidates very little as the results of the local elections bear out and it ruined the conference for me as a political event. Years ago there used to be plenty of motions and participation in the debates involving many of the keener rank-and-file members. In more recent years the agenda has become slimmer and more streamlined and even for a pilgrim like me the only thing I can usually contribute to the conference in latter years is a slightly sullen pair of ears.

When things are not going the way one likes them to go one usually looks round for someone to blame. My diagnosis is that the leadership is stale and it has profited the party little in the past 12 or 14 years. As a reasonably active party member I get the impression that there is a small circle of people (I don’t know any of them) at national level who are plotting out the course of party policy and party strategy. For example, everyone knows that I do not like the way my party has deliberately and cynically set out to demonise and damage Sinn Féin. Perhaps I am in a minority of one in the party but, whether I am or not, there is no channel through which I can effectively call for more mature reflection within our party about the national question and the present peace process. There is someone higher up calling the shots and I cannot lay a finger on them. I feel there is the same dimension (or lack of dimension) to appointments and routine political decision making.

Where is another leader to come from? During the Meath by-election I met and canvassed a little for Sirena Campbell and to me she has the qualities of savvy and human understanding that I would like to see in my leader (for a change). I think that a younger brain might break open this sealed think-tank that I am talking about at the centre of the party and the current received wisdom that seems to permeate the party like an unspoken gospel and which I find repulsive. The party has its own characteristic way of isolating and cold-shouldering people and some of the best talent in the party locally (here in Louth) and nationally was lost (driven out?) in this way. And I don’t think that any of this should be understood as springing from ideological difference or motives of political purity. Could it be motivated by purposes of self-preservation and self-protection in an ancien regime which has long ago passed its sell-by date but which strives to live on like some ugly dinosaur preying on the good-will of simple-minded party faithful like me and using its position in the driving seat of government to abort and destroy at origin more progressive and democratic ideas which are springing up in the most unlikely places in this green and pleasant land?

Sirena Campbell