Political insights from the outsiders

RADIO REVIEW:THE ELECTION may have taken centre stage, but, if the airwaves are anything to go by, more and more people see politics as a sideshow.

As one Clones resident opined to the reporter Cian McCormack on

Morning Ireland

(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), “Politicians are totally irrelevant.” The disaffected respondent was not some youthful slacker but a middle-aged man who, for the first time in his life, was not going to vote. The only thing that would change his mind was if a new, “sensible” party emerged, whose members would take a smaller TD’s salary, pay their own expenses and work for the people. Otherwise, he said, he was finished with politicians. “I’m having nothing more to do with them.”

It was the most glaring example of the disenchantment encountered by McCormack as he sampled the mood in the nation's towns, but it crystallised a paradoxical theme that recurred throughout the week. Public suspicion of the political classes is matched by an appetite for a shake-up of the old party system, as David McWilliams's appearance on Monday's edition of Tubridy(2FM, weekdays) testified. The celebrity economist was speaking to Ryan Tubridy about the short-lived idea to run a slate of like-minded independent candidates bent on radical change; though McWilliams said he had never contemplated running for office, he would have acted as the organisation's economic adviser. The idea had petered out, McWilliams said, because the electoral time frame was too tight to prepare properly.

Tubridy, however, wondered whether McWilliams and his putative partners had failed to seize the moment presented by the restive national atmosphere. “I think people are that angry,” Tubridy said, adding that he was “surprised and a bit disappointed that nothing happened”.

He was not the only one to think so. Texts from listeners accused McWilliams of cold feet, but he disagreed. This election was only the start of a process of change, he said, and he was still going to give economic advice – for free, he repeatedly stressed – to any independent candidates who requested it. Given McWilliams’s media ubiquity, such advice might not seem like the most precious commodity, but rather than “sniff and sneer”, as his critics did, he felt it was better to offer his time to “the little guy”. Tubridy hummed doubtfully all the while, characterising the whole affair as a missed opportunity, “less Boston Tea Party than Dublin dinner party”.

McWilliams was not the only would-be maverick who felt his agenda could be better served by avoiding the electoral fray. Having previously failed in his run for the European parliament, the Libertas founder Declan Ganley ruled himself out of contention this time. "Sitting on backbenches, I don't think that's the best I can do for my country," he told Matt Cooper on The Last Word(Today FM, weekdays). Instead, Ganley signed up as a regular pundit on the show, offering a supposedly right-wing take on the campaign. But, as one listener noted, much of what was said could have come from the left. Ganley called for the international bailout to be renegotiated: it was unrealistic and immoral to expect the Irish to repay private bank debts that had been repackaged as public debt. According to Ganley, such a proposal was in keeping with his free-market principles. "What we saw was social welfare for banks," he said; even the markets expected the bondholders to "eat their losses".

The US journalist Michael Lewis, who wrote a pessimistic article about Ireland for the current issue of Vanity Fair, echoed these sentiments during his interview with Marian Finucane(RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday). Lewis, who detailed the US financial collapse of 2008 in his book The Big Short,said Ireland's troubles had the same root cause – a "flood of incontinent credit" – but the situation was made worse by substituting private debt with public debt. It was "baloney" that the government had no choice but to guarantee bank debts to bondholders: the current situation was "capitalism for everyone except the capitalists".

It was, as Finucane said, heartbreaking stuff for listeners. Lewis offered little by way of consolation, other than saying Ireland needed a government “able to play chicken” over the bailout deal. Unless a default was worked out, the country would be “pulverised” by debt.

If politicians don’t want to become irrelevant, maybe they should listen to the radio more.

Radio moment of the week

The most important virtue in politics is loyalty, Brian Cowen once said, so he would have been gratified by Wednesday's edition of Today With Pat Kenny(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays). Interviewed by Valerie Cox, delegates at the Fianna Fáil selection convention in Cowen's Laois-Offaly constituency offered unstinting support to the outgoing Taoiseach.

“It was sad to see Brian bow out, but all good things must come to an end,” said one party member.

“Brian Cowen was the best Taoiseach that this country ever had,” said another. “It was a huge disappointment that the media hounded him so much.”

Loyalty is one thing, but even Cowen might draw the line at delusion.