Corruption of permanent power

YOUR editorial (August 25) on the unacceptability of a one-party state is apt and deserves consideration.

Any attempt to raise this important issue usually runs the risk of being labelled anti-Fianna Fáil.

It is, however, a fundamentally important issue when any one party dominates politics for nearly a quarter of a century.

To maintain one group of people continuously in power, no matter who they are, is the antithesis of democracy. The basic fact of political life everywhere is that power corrupts.

That applies to all irrespective of party. Insider elites can never be paragons of rectitude.

The example of the unionists in the North shows us what happens when people feel themselves to be untouchable.

The problem is not solved, as your editorial seems to indicate, by parties other than Fianna Fáil becoming “effective national politicians”.

That accepts Government propaganda during the election that the opposition is not fit to rule. Our former imperial masters used to make the same point.

You, as a sophisticated student of politics, should not have swallowed this line. On the contrary, you should be challenging it. Otherwise what hope is there for the rest of us?

Are we all to be put at the mercy of Government spindoctors? They use vast amounts of taxpayers’ money day after day to churn out propaganda favourable to those in power.

This virtually excludes the opposition from the media since they cannot match Government resources.

Similarly we are all at the mercy of a small number of media outlets which support the Government line and consistently ignore or ridicule the opposition?

Journalists should hold those in power to account not because they are Fianna Fáil but because they are the government and have been in power for too long.

Anthony Leavy

1 Shielmartin Drive

Sutton

Dublin 13