Green Party is going native

This article "Green Party is Going Native" is worth revisiting. It's from TimesOnline of August 3rd, 2008 when the Green Party had been in power less that one year.

It's amazing how prophetic parts of the article are.

I've quoted some of the more interesting sections below.

"Green party senator Dan Boyle is the political equivalent of a gas-guzzling SUV. An ostentatious status-symbol, ludicrously over-equipped for the mundane functions he’s usually required to perform, he is cherished by the Green leadership for his ability to go “off-road” from the narrow track to which senior party members are confined by coalition government.

Boyle’s latest joyride was his call for the Standards In Public Office Commission (SIPO) to be given the powers to clean up Irish politics. Welcoming proposed changes to legislation governing politicians and political parties outlined in the watchdog’s sixth annual report, he stressed the urgent need for new rules to regulate funding for political parties.

Existing controls on political funding are worse than useless, creating a façade of regulation behind which politicians continue to allow private money to wield untold influence. Parties and candidates spent €11.08m in total on last year’s general election but, as the commission points out, less than €1.7m of this was declared as donations.

The unaccounted-for €10m proves that parties and politicians can raise huge sums but avoid declaring them by asking donors to break up their donations into multiple contributions beneath the reporting thresholds (€5,078.95 for a party, €634.87 for a candidate).

Urging immediate implementation of the report’s recommendations, Boyle condemned “business-funded political parties” and their resistance to reform. “Creating a democratic and transparent political system is a central Green party policy,” he declared.

Is it, indeed? The only problem with Boyle’s statement is that it’s entirely at odds with the behaviour of the Greens in government. After barely a year in power, the Greens have gone native and become a reliably craven alibi for Fianna Fail, the slipperiest of all the “business-funded political parties” and, not surprisingly, the most resistant to reform."

And still we wait for the ban on corporate donations. And we also wait for the promised political reform.

The article continues ... "In a laughable attempt to argue that the Greens in government are already advancing sweeping political reform, Boyle cited Gormley’s “postering” initiative. This is the wheeze whereby the environment minister is examining the “pollution and littering” caused by election posters. It’s as if a crusading cop who’d promised to bring order to the streets had decided to start by alphabetising police-station mugshots.

Ironically, nothing undermines confidence in the Greens’ capacity to clean up politics more comprehensively than Boyle himself. Not for the first time, the esteemed senator is evidently being deployed by the party leadership as an anointed keeper of the flame, licensed to say things in public which Green ministers are unable or unwilling to say.

This is an old and disreputable junior-coalition-partner trick, used most frequently by the Progressive Democrats during the days when the party still boasted a membership that exceeded single figures.
Boyle may be flattered to be seen by his party as a “people-carrier” but he should remember it’s the Greens themselves who insist that such lumbering dinosaurs are a luxury we can no longer afford."

I'm constantly amazed how prophetic some of the articles written about the Green Party over the last 2 or 3 years are.