Didn’t one of the commenters on the Charlie Bird post say that RTE were kepping his seat warm? Bad week for the uncoverers of the Nationwide scandal.

Grr. Wordpress lost a big comment I wrote on this. In a nutshell, a TD’s life is not about forging policy. Results of an Oireachtas survey released last week show how it’s the mundane constituency work that dominates a TDs time, not forming policy or legislation.

I get the impression that the idea of being a TD was more appealing to George Lee than the day to day reality of being one.

Talk about throwing your toys out of a pram. Just listened to his interview on RTE and he comes across as a spolit child who didnt get his way. Unless he was a Fianna Fail mole as he’s just done the one thing thats either gonna bring Fianna Fail back or gets rid of Inda. As was said on the radio now thats hes back at RTE he could always fill the vacancy in Washington cos otherwise he cant really do anything else within the current affairs department. He should have listen to Uncle Gaybo

All very predictable really – I just hope they make him pay for the by-election.

More interesting is that it has taken Lady Anto O’Reilly’s Indo almost an hour to report the story on its Website and that’s just the PA copy.

Could he be the first politician to resign to spend more time with his ego?

Actually thinking the ‘newsdump’ angle, George’s resignation on the grounds that he didnt feel the economy was getting enough focus is ironic given that him quitting will overshadow the revelation that the IMF dont think NAMA will improve bank lending, contrary to what FF have been saying to justify it.

Joe @ 12 – that thought did strike when I was reading the story in the paper while listening to GeorgeLeeExTD do his “woe is me” act

JD @ 13 – I hear you but the point is that a 10 year old child would have been able to tell George before he was ever elected what was going to happen. As for the next election, I just hope FF take SF and do to them what they’ve done to the PDs and Greens.

He has done the nation some service in the past nine months. Not in a political sense but by refraining from rehashing other economists ideas and pretending they’re his own.

Unlike other commentators on the matter I think it really says a whole lot more about Fine Gael than it does about George. Many people aspire to political careers because they believe they can effect change. The reality is entirely different and it only takes a short while before your principles are compromised and you become as useless as the rest of them. This is particularly true in a large party where the party whip is imposed and any independent thinking is not only frowned upon but is usually met with the removal of said party whip. Poor old George was most likely lured in with the promise of contributing to Fine Gael policy only to find out that they don’t really have any to contribute to. I can’t say I blame him for leaving. He’d have the same problem no matter what party he joined. They’re all pretty shit in most respects.

Jim @ 14 – Of course you are right about that. I just meant that he had the balls to say so now, knowing that he will be the butt of many jokes for a long time to come.

At the same time, I was certainly more surprised by the decision to run last summer than I am by his resignation now.

(i) He was at the peak of his powers in RTE and had a genuine platform there to argue for change from the outside. Would NAMA & the budget have gotten the easy rides they did get if Lee had of been on the telly everynight explaining in simple terms why these were bad / unequal deals?

(ii) He was going to be in a third FG TD in a constituency that already had two of their higher profile representatives already in situ. It smacked badly of being a short-term stunt with little sense of where it fitted into long-term strategy.

JD – I think it shows naivity more than balls. George Lee is someone who has covered Irish current affairs for years – he, of all people, should have realised what he was getting into. He was leaving a national platform to become, as you put it, the second spare in the constituency and way down the pecking order in the Dail. What may come out in the wash, though, is what deal Enda Kenny and the FG bigwigs did with GeorgeLeeExTD and if that deal had a timeline attached.

By the way, any response yet from the FG press office to this bombshell?

nice to see all the smart ass whiners above coming out for yet another ‘told you so’ moment. if only ireland had a few less talkers and a few more doers, maybe the country wouldn’t so screwed up – get back to your pints! p.s. george lee clearly should stand as an independent in upcoming byelection if he wants to be heard.

Cathal – surely he could just have quit the party and not the Dail and held on to his seat? Or is it more that he’s running away from the parish pump, chicken and chips dinner existence of the average TD?

I would be of a similar mind to Matt @ 16

Sing along now:

“I know so many people who think they can do it alone
They isolate their heads and stay in their saftey zones

Now what can you tell them
And what can you say that won’t make them defensive

Hang on to your ego
Hang on, but I know that you’re gonna lose the fight”

Ivor – I think George probably saw himself as a Martin Bell MP type figure cleaning up the Dail.

Was discussing that with someone after the story broke, IIRC, Bell ended up hugely frustrated with the whole system and his inability to get speaking time etc as an independent.

Like every time someone suggests co-opting Michael O’Leary or whomever into the Dail, the reality is that they are going to end up on backbenches with the Noel O’Flynns and the rest as nobody wants to cede power or change the archaic system.

There is a huge case to be made for the PR/list system that would allow very able people like George Lee to go in a just legislate and not be stuck in the mire that is old –school parish pump politics.

It would be nice if his adventure in politics accomplished something and wasn’t just a segueway, so to speak.

Fine Gael celebrity candidate in “making a balls of it” shocker.

at least he did marginally better than Graham Geraghty….

OC @ 31 – I didn’t see the L in there for a minute and thought it said something less tasteful but more appropriate about Irish politics.

If anything comes of this let us hope that it convinces George Hook NOT to run for the newly electable Mayor Of Dublin job.

I admire George Lee for his decision. He doesn’t want to be a career politician. Instead, he sees the country in the grip of a huge downturn and thought he could do something about it. If George was hired in the private sector, his experience, knowledge and can-do attitude would be encouraged and capitalised on. Instead of this, he was relegated to waiting his turn, serving his time (like an apprentice) all the while people are losing their jobs and the national debt is getting higher and higher.

I dont understand why people think Lee should have been automatically promoted. He was given the chair of an economic policy committee within the party within months of his first time election.

Bruton has the qualifications to be the finance spokesperson but unlike George, he has the experience. It’s not as if one was vastly more qualified than the other.

He just wanted to be influential.

Hold on dealga, he just wanted to be influential? Again, you have to ask if that’s the case, what the fuck was he thinking running in a constituency for a party where he was number three in the pecking order? Did he not think that there were people in that party who also wanted to be “influential” and had already put in many long hours working to be “influential”?

Journalists should not be more influential than elected representatives.

Obviously GeorgeLee thought the same which is why he ran for election (and won). The fact is that he quickly found out that it wasn’t simply a case of turning up and being influential. He had to put the work in. But once again, did he not realise this last March/April when he was approached by FG? Surely he wasn’t so naive to be sweet-talked into giving up his position to be an opposition party back-bencher?

It would be nice to believe that people from outside politics who have been successful to some degree and who think they could contribute wouldn’t all have to ’serve their time’ before being let talk to the big boys.

What, like Bill Cullen or Declan Ganley or Denis O’Brien? Surely getting involved in politics should be more than just a whim taken by someone who thinks they have something to contribute but don’t want to do the heavy lifting? Yes, I’m sure there are tons of people who’d love to be involved in politics without having to “serve their time”. There are also people who’d love to do any amount of jobs without having to “serve their time”. But you have to “serve your time” for a reason. George Lee wanted a shortcut and when it wasn’t forthcoming. he welched.

Well I wouldn’t personally pick two of those three but if they were elected then why not?

Totally – why not – BUT they would have to be elected and realise what they’re signing up for. George knew exactly what he was getting into – or should have known – so is rightly getting it in the neck for throwing a strop a few months in.

We probably all work for companies where people have sulked because those in charge have promoted less experienced but, in their view, more talented people over the long termers.

But to expect a promotion after 9 months?? Surely not even the most super-talented, go-get-’em ego wouldn’t expect that??

Do people like that deserve to be the people who get to be decision makers simply because they’re there longer, their dads did it or they campaign to have the local hospital be a mini Johns Hopkins.

And there’s the rub. Every single one of us would agree with you there, but the problem remains that the political system we have here is why we keep electing teachers and solicitors. it’s the system which needs changing but as we know, those who benefit most from a system are highly unlikely to have the balls or desire to change a system. And that won’t change just because we elect George Lee – especially when George Lee runs chicken after 9 months.

Turn it around – if Enda wasn’t going to let him do that then he basically used GLXTD to gain a seat and now it has blown up in his face.

And there’s the problem. Look at the amount of analysis which was done in the lead-up to that by-election which sais the same thing – this was just a ploy, Celebrity TD etc etc.

Yet GLXTD didn’t see this and instead had visions of leading great economic debates in the House, getting the country out of the mess it was in, jousting on the finer points of CFDs with Mattie McGrath…. OK, OK, scratch that one.

For GLXTD not to realise this says more about him than FG or Inda Kenny. After all, FG and IK are in the business of winning seats and throwing FF out of power and to them, this was just another stroke. Don’t worry, though, the fun ain’t over yet…..

is this not a music blog?

I remember reading this article by Vincent Browne when George Lee announced his candidacy for FG. I remember wondering if it would turn out to be prophetic…

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0506/1224245988740.html

Well, isn’t that a surprise. I knew this was on the cards when I heard him saying, at Xmas, on RTE Radio 1, that his old job was there if he ever needed it.

What a great little station RTE is – hold jobs open for two ’stars’ – Mark Little and George Lee – while they indulge themselves at none of the risk anybody else would take, and then accommodate the narcissism of Charlie Bird by relocating him whereever he wants – just because he wants, at our expense.

With Bird and Lee back, how long before Little follows?

conor @ 50 – wow, VB on the money

Giolleasboig @ 51 – He had more influence when he was in RTE. Which I feel he now realises only too well

Chuck E – remember that RTE is the civil service, after all. Jobs 4 Life (as long as you’re on staff, have been there for 5 years or more and are not relying on some shitty short-term contract)

And don’t expect to see Maccer on any election posts – he’s far too smart to do a George Lee

And here I was thinking that the big news story of Monday was the Saints no longer being ‘Aints – who dat indeed!

And then George throws his toys out of his pram.

So, let me get this correct – and I am open to correction – as a member of the RTE staff, we were (as tax payers and purchasers of TV licences), paying for his salary.

He took a 12 month leave of absence to “play” at being at TD – which, as tax payers, we also paid for (but, shocker, he took a pay cut to do this! ooh the sacrifice!).

Now, he’s flounced off into the sunset after 19 weeks in the Dail and his job (or a job similar in ranking or whatever the deal is when you take unpaid leave from a State body) has been kept open for him and he can resume same, I assume at the same pay level, which will, again, be paid for by tax payers and also TV licence purchasers.

If I was one of the many thousand people of Dublin South who voted for him, I’d be well cheesed off. If I was one of the others in the constituency who didn’t vote for him, I’d be well cheesed off because, again, I am under represented in the Dail AND we all get to pay for another by-election. Wow, thanks.

As my Memphis buddy would say, bite me George Lee.

@nerraw

“Diving into a pool of change after 20 years in TV news, drone, drone…”

http://twitter.com/marklittlenews/

.. courtesy of the Civil Service (RTE) providing a life guard at the side.

Oh go and f*ck off, will you, please?