Miriam Lord: SockDems ready to shake up old politics

They started the dig in a suburban kitchen in Dublin. It was a tough, painstaking project. It went on for months. They drank a lot of coffee, but the coffee was very good. The sociable democrats talked a lot. As they were working within a tiny footprint, it had to be a tight-knit group.

“So, it was a small number of people who came together and volunteered their time to bring this to this stage,” said Róisín Shortall, one of the team leaders and owner of the kitchen.

The group searched tirelessly for something they believed never existed in Irish politics but had to be out there, somewhere. Finally, in a coffee-fuelled breakthrough, they discovered it: the Missing Link. And guess what? They were it. Three missing links, to be precise, bridging the evolutionary gap between Ireland’s familiar political primates and a more evolved species of electoral animal: Shortall, Catherine Murphy and Stephen Donnelly.

Once they made their discovery, the trio agreed there was only one thing to do. And it was party time.

From there, it was a short journey to the Wood Quay venue in the bowels of Dublin City Council’s headquarters in the heart of old Dublin and the launch of the Social Democrats, Ireland’s latest arrival on the political party scene. The SockDems reckon they can be the conduit between the tired, closed old ways of running a country and a vibrant, open and new way of conducting our national business.

The choice of venue was clever – intentional or otherwise. The conference space is a modern, multi-media facility built around the exposed remains of Dublin’s original city walls, built around 1100AD.

For their inaugural outing, the SockDems leadership troika stood on a platform before a backdrop rising from the early Viking remains into a 21st-century roof space. They were the bridge, a link, from the old to the new.

Comparisons were immediately drawn between them and the recently launched Renua, their rivals in the Reimagining Ireland’s Political Landscape race. Renua wants to supply the vital link which may be needed to carry the present Government back to power. Not that Róisín et al are thinking of that. “We’re not in that space yet.”

Yesterday, the Social Democrats took the honours in the opening lap – although at this early stage it’s more a case of contrasting style over substance. Both parties have yet to put meat on the bones of their great aspirations.

Their respective launches suggest the arrival of an important new class of backroom apparatchik to go with the usual groups of strategists, advisers and handlers – the party stylist. Both events were “styled” with varying degrees of success.

Renua’s launch was very much a vehicle for their leader and front woman Lucinda Creighton. The SockDems, on the other hand, fielded three marketable national figures as their main attraction.

While Creighton might be seen as Continuity Fine Gael, the troika of Murphy, Shortall and Donnelly could be considered a blend of Labour Max cut with a dash of Provisional PD. Compared to the smooth, businesslike unveiling of the Social Democrats, Renua’s gaffe-prone debut seemed overworked and gimmicky.

What, no logo? Not even a meaningful little squiggle, or a multi-coloured birdy motif? A SockDem spokeswoman pointed to their uncluttered calling card: the name in clean type, white on a purple background. “This is modern branding.” That’s us told.

The three leaders spoke, roughly for the same amount of time, outlining their Vision thing. They “want to make Ireland a better and fairer place”. They want a party which fosters “openness, equality and progress”.

As for Social Democracy, it equals “good quality public services, equitable taxation, inclusive open democracy and vibrant, diverse economy”. They want to see a relaxation of the whip system. Hard to argue with any of that, but it’s hardly new, but the three have identified the public’s dissatisfaction and impatience with the existing political order.

Politics “need to be in step with the Irish people, not huffing and puffing to keep up with them”, noted Donnelly, using the recent Yes victory in the same-sex marriage referendum as an example of how politicians were behind the voters in their thinking.

The system as it stands works for the traditional parties, said Murphy. It militates against outsiders who want to make changes. Those who are already established have pulled up the ladder. “Today we are reaching up and grabbing a rung and pulling it back down – down to the people.” That ladder will need to be strong. As the general election approaches, an awful lot of Independent politicians are battling to get on it.

It was a very confident start by the party “threeders” who intend to lead by consensus until after the election and then they’ll revisit the question of a leader. By then they hope to have a bigger parliamentary party, but they have to find some candidates first.

They say they haven’t approached anyone yet but the room was packed with supporters and the founding mothers and father put out an attractive message to aspiring runners. There’s the minor matter of producing hard figures to back up the vision, but there’s time enough for that. As is the fashion these days, the SockDems will base their policy on the Nordic Social Democratic model.

As they embraced their Scandi-crat ideal in the birthplace of Dublin city, with the old walls on view, how easy things might have been had we not run the Vikings from the country in the first place. Although this may not be entirely true.

Later in the morning, in Leinster House, a long-haired flaxen-locked warrior went on the rampage, pillaging the reputation of Nama as he went with a raft of explosive allegations against the State’s assets agency. He has yet to supply hard facts to justify his spree.

Anyway, we blame Brian Boru.