Irish Coalition needs a political story that matches their actual efforts

Brendan Keenan has clearly been cogitating on our quaint northern mess we call politics, and it takes him back to stories, narrative and selling your own (albeit austerity locked) virtues: The story which the Coalition set out to tell – most of which it inherited from the previous government – is no longer true. The facts have changed. Keynes observed that when this happens you must change your mind. But you must also change your story. The original story called …

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From the dismal north to the dismal fiscal deficit of the south…

And if you thought the news from Northern Ireland was depressingly dismal, it’s budget day in the Republic… What is most distressing about the current situation is that policymakers and some economists appear to echo the Dickens character Micawber in ‘David Copperfield’ that “something will turn up,” which is the benefit of a recovery in the economies of Ireland’s trading partners. However, given the severity of the recession, the end to easy credit and the extent of the public debt …

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