Truth, lies, Twitter wiener and impotent Irish politicians

TRUTH and politics make strange bedfellows at the best of times.

Unfortunately, this is the worst of times, and trans-Atlantic events show us to be rather out of step with our Anglo-American cousins when it comes to facing-up to reality.

In the US the wonderfully named Congressman Anthony Weiner is in hot water for sending pictures of his, ahem, weiner via Twitter, and in Britain Tory Peer John Taylor joined a growing list of parliamentarians to end up in jail for fiddling their expenses.

So, Weiner lies about tweeting the offending picture and is all but washed-up, Taylor lies about his travel distances and is banged-up, while in dear old Ireland, a minister actually tells the truth about the probable need for a second emergency bailout and he is strung-up by his, shall we say, less open cabinet colleagues.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan moved on from the unhappy slapping meted out to Leo Varadkar, to go much further and effectively try to stop all talk of any possible new bailout in the national parliament, insisting: “If credible people keep saying it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,”

That remark is as dumb as Fianna Fáil’s 2008 claim the media was creating the recession, and comes perilously close to that administration’s warning to reporters against asking “dangerous” questions regarding its sudden — and typically chaotic — U-turn on the nationalisation of Anglo in 2009.

In reality, there should no “dangerous” questions, or subjects, in a democracy. The truth may well be uncomfortable, but it should always be strived for, otherwise we inhabit the kind of sham democracy headed by the likes of Vladimir Putin.

Mr Noonan’s sharp rebuke came as he clumsily paved the way for yet another climb-down by the new Government, this time regarding the cut in Ireland’s interest rate on the massive emergency bailout loans the Fianna Fáil administration saddled generations of Irish people with.

Suddenly, the cut wouldn’t save us the €400m a year as previously stated, and while that much banded about figure was not actually a lie, it was just an “exaggeration” according to Mr Noonan — and who better to know about “exaggerations” as Fine Gael was shouting loudest about how much cash it could drag back from the EU once it got elected and had a little chat with its centre-right buddies running Europe.

But the French have pronounced a thundering “Non!” — shattering Fine Gael’s naive fantasy politics and restoring the status quo-ante of good old, hard hearted European real-politic.

We can have the base rate cut — but only just over half the amount Dublin expected — but Ireland must raise its generous 12.5% corporation tax in return.

And can you really blame France? Their taxpayers are footing the bill for the shameful financial vandalism of our political-banker class, and yet we still want to steal jobs from them?

For the Parisian political elite this is a matter of honour and trust between fraternal nations. France is such a stand-up country after all — so why don’t we just play them at their own game, push up the headline corporation tax, pocket the base rate cut, then charge big companies just 8.4% in levies via a matrix of get-out clauses — just like the two-faced French do?

It certainly makes more sense than the current thrust of the European policy of the FG/Labour Government which seems to consist of rattling our begging bowl and hoping for the best as we suffer the humiliation of realising Fine Gael and Labour weren’t telling the truth when they promised to burn the bondholders because they knew our EU masters would never allow it.

Ironically, the only fiscal weapon Ireland has to scare Brussels with is the threat of default and the massive contagion that would send as an electric E coli-style pulse across the eurozone. But, as Mr Noonan has tried to ban any talk of a new bailout, let alone a default, even in our own parliament, it is hardly likely to carry any currency as a threat on the continent. Instead, we stumble on, humbled by our own hubris, much like Congressman Weiner in fact.

Amazingly, he still thinks he has a future in US politics, despite his pictorial Twitter litter, blatant lies that his account had been hacked into, and subsequent car crash, confessional press conference which was complete with tears, statements of adoration for his wife and admissions he had sent lewd images of himself to at least six other women.

Bizarrely, while even usually “anything goes” media outlets like The Guardian decided not to publish the crassest Weiner Twitter photo, which the normally po-faced American press has delighted in dubbing “the bulge”, RTÉ’s One O’Clock News had no such taste issues and flashed the image across the screen last Tuesday lunchtime (the whole story then disappeared from subsequent broadcasts).

While Weiner’s may be a sin of (misplaced) vanity, Lord Taylor of Warwick’s (now Lord Taylor of B-Wing’s) was one of greed as he was given a 12 month sentence for fiddling his subsistence and travel allowances to the tune of a rather modest €12,000.

They do things differently in Britain, Taylor being the latest in a string of members of what was dubbed “The Rotten Parliament” to get sent down.

Of course, Irish taxpayers can just thank God none of our Oireachtas members would ever dream of fiddling their expenses. The very idea!

Which brings us back to the uneasy correlation between political lies and truth.

Maybe we can avoid default, or “restructuring”, or whatever sugar-coated name it’s eventually given, but considering the truly momentous level of debt Brian Cowen signed the nation up to on the night of the bank guarantee, I doubt it.

Which means honest debate in the national parliament about what a second bailout, or default, would actually mean should be encouraged, not slapped down — otherwise the field is left wide open to be dominated by that peculiarly Irish brand of loud mouth, the “celebrity” economist (why can’t we just have celebrity chiefs like normal countries?).

Our impotent politicians are unable to do the one thing that would rescue this country from the decade long economic misery that stretches before us — devaluing the currency.

Instead, they have settled for devaluing the currency of truth.

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