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IT SEEMS A long time ago that Lucinda Creighton ended months of speculation by launching a new party with the promise of new politics, governing in the sunshine and a new way of doing things in Ireland.
Renua Ireland’s launch was met which much scepticism, particularly as there wasn’t ‘the big name’ many observers felt it needed to get off the ground.
Instead, we were left with financial guru Eddie Hobbs and the unanswered question of whether he was going to run for the party. He’s definitely not, he confirmed today.
In the six months since its launch Renua has been recruiting members, setting up constituency organisations, selecting election candidates, raising money – although possibly not much – and has also competed in its first by-election, where Patrick McKee acquitted himself admirably.
But the party is facing a number of problems right now.
One of them is finding enough candidates to run in the general election. Renua has selected just 11 of the at least 40 candidates it wants to run in every Dáil constituency and is well-behind the mainstream political parties.
Creighton’s call for Enda Kenny to immediately go to the country is somewhat puzzling when one senior party future admitted today that Renua is not ready for a general election.
When we put this to Lucinda, she was dismissive, insisting:
We’ll be ready, don’t worry about us.
But the simple fact of the matter is that Renua would be scrambing to get names on tickets if the election was called tomorrow. To some extent Creighton’s bravado sums-up another of Renua’s problems.
Efforts to scrutinise the party and its policies are met with broad and sweeping statements about how that’s ‘the old way of doing things’ and typical of an establishment of begrudgers in Leinster House and the media.
When Fianna Fáil’s legal advisor Jim O’Callaghan pointed to flaws in Renua’s proposal to make all of the attorney general’s advice to government public, Creighton reverted to criticising his views as being typical of the establishment way of doing things.
All that said we can’t accuse Renua of not having policies. They smartly took advantage of the August silly season to put out a rash of policy papers that garnered the level of media coverage they wouldn’t normally have got.
The trouble is that all the policies in the world haven’t yet established a coherent message that easily defines Renua’s identity and what its about. Labelling the party as Fine Gael-lite isn’t, at this moment, an inaccurate assessment.
Even with the policy-less Social Democrats we at least know they are committed to an economic model not unlike that in some Nordic countries. That’s a big idea that Renua lacks.
Today, Renua held a think-in ahead of the return of the Dáil later this month. Unlike other parties this was entirely open to the media to report on, a welcome development for those who hung around beyond the opening speeches.
There were wide-ranging discussions on the economy, rural Ireland, homelessness, water and health. But they were all too typical of what you might hear at a summer school.
There’s lots of talk about a better way of doing things and big ideas are put forward without any roadmap for how they are actually implemented.
In his address to the assembled crowd former Libertas leader Declan Ganley – who likes Renua but isn’t running for the party – said:
I love start-ups, this is a start-up with a bold vision and idea… I hope it will succeed in upsetting the status quo.
In Creighton’s words, this start-up is looking at “shaking up the political system, rattling a few cages and hopefully winning a signifiant number of seats at the next election”.
She also described her party as “the epitome” of ambition. There’s no doubt about that but fulfilling it will be a challenge that, on the evidence of the polls, the party has not yet managed to do.
For their own sake, Creighton and Renua should be hoping the election is a few months off yet.
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How can something so new be so stale?
Lack of ideas. Lack of clear direction. Lack of leadership. Lack of charisma. Lack of intelligence.
That picture is wonderfully revealing. Classic mutually repelling body language. They clearly hate each other but are yoked together to a cause which neither of them believe in and which nobody understands.
1st photo, Lucinda, Hobb’s and 2 sleepers behind them. ……That gombeen Ganley must be speaking…..LOL.
They will have to come up with credible and positive policies, to stand any chance in the GE…..They should get votes from AAA and the independants.
AAA won’t transfer to them in a mad fit surely?
Do you also read the tea leaves, or are your insights in body language more Daily Mail?
How is it Dubs elect blow in culchies, could you imagine culchies electing blow in Dubs. Never.
No, I’m really good at over-analysing body language, One True Voice
I thought that the study of body language has a base in science. Silly me.
I’m trying to over analyse your profile picture. Is that a sliding door or an open window you are posing infront of? It is critical in my analysis as to whether you might be a Sagittarius or perhaps a suppressed serial killer. Answer carefully.
I think you’ve just proved his poinr, he’s clearly a serial killer
I think it’s a shop window, and to me that’s a sign I’m a repressed thief, not a killer thank christ
You lot lost out to Girls Aloud in one of Simon Cowell’s yokes. So whissst.
You’d do well to find someone who wouldn’t place Lucinda in their Top 10 Most Disliked Politicians in Ireland.
I’m indifferent to her as I think they’ll have a minimal effect on anything
Mary Lou on the other hand I can’t stand because sadly her shower will have a great effect.
Sleepwalking ourselves into disaster.
After Six Months – I would say – just about to apply to rejoin her Blueshirt Masters in FG ?
It seems that her ambitions to be Ireland’s Angela are completely dead in the water ?
She’s a naughty naughty girl. Giggity
What kind of disaster would that be Paul …. Nothing that FF/FG/Labour haven’t put us thru already … Let’s face it those 3 have been a disaster for every one bar the wealthiest in society .
Yeah, you can tell she wants to be taken back into the womb, but on her own terms
Power hungry,if I had 100 votes she’d remain hungry.And not a great idea calling for a g.e considering they’ve only half a party and even less policies.
More importantly I saw Eddie Hobbs eating a 99 in west cork in August. A large one.
The IRA in power – that’s scary.
Please don’t go off topic Paul. We were discussing eddie’s 99.
Did he have a flake? I like to think he had a flake
He did have a flake. However he actually bought a real cadburys flake and added it to his plain large 99. Better quality chocolate, but at what price? €1.15 extra.
That’s real class, to grandly add your own cadburys flake, in spite of myself I’m impressed
Sorry.
Put the official Rape party in charge. Ah yeah that’s a good one !
Dick Cheany’s question is a bit stupid, I don’t this woman’s profile has ever been high enough to be ranked in the top 10 of hated politicians. Hated by the average thejournal posted perhaps, but then the average thejournal poster is a different beast.
Hugh, I know you love them but this is way too many Renua articles.
Where does Renua stand? Same as they always stand…….for nothing.
Fine Gaels legion of mary branch are fooling nobody. They were invented to bring the grey catholic vote back into the fold after the government legislated for the ‘X’ case.
They’re fooling nobody.
Yet there is no whip on this type of social issue. Members are free to vote as they wish.
They’ll sit on the fence until the election is over & see what they can gain from the Labour Party demise. By not revealing their statious they are leaving their door firmly open for talks with any party in the next elections.
Is it me or is the guy in the picture to the right sleeping? What a bloody joke of a political “party”.
Lucinda looks truly seductive in that photo. A few pint bottles of Bulmers later, you’d never know what would happen.
Who?
snap!
They are on the road to nowhere fast.
They’re on the road to1952.
Anyone heard from from The Social Democrats?….Of course not. They are doing it properly. They are building a base. Vetting candidates (not McKeeing it) and informing their position on what the electorate needs and wants.
Eddie. Fooking. Hobbs.
I have respect for Lucinda in that she is an incredibly intelligent and driven individual. This whole farce has shown what her political position is. An attempt at a power grab. No attempt at worthwhile change which is what the vast majority long for.
I wish her the best in the future and if i ever get in trouble i would wish she could represent me (if i could afford her) but she and the other members of this “party” do not deserve any support from the people of this country.
Truly. Awful.
Who ? They have done absolutely nothing in this time, still don’t have any policies, & as a result when they eventually do produce something they’ll be rightly pilloried.
Give up now, & stop wasting money.
Renua Ireland Party……….R.I.P.
who?
Second picture down, looking closely I see a lot more of Lucinda than I’ve seen before. Must be nippy in there
I think it’s a red skittle…
It was cold indoors when that second photo was taken.
The vast section of the electorate who rely on the state for a very comfortable and secure living (civil servants, politicians, academics, lawyers etc) have proved to be more than happy to allow low standards in high places, leaving a party like Renua scrambling for traction as they also alienate the massive no water charge voters.
“The vast section of the electorate who rely on the state for a very comfortable and secure living (civil servants, politicians, academics, lawyers etc) ”
Most public servants make less than the average industrial wage.
What industries are the average industrial wage earners working in?
Given that traditional ‘industry’ died out in the 1980s and over the ensuing decades of enlightenment the smart folk are all now working in IT, are we talking about people welding steel parts together in some warehouse in Leitrim, or is ‘industry’ still a valid stereoclass to segregate our economy by?
Will the guy sitting behind Lucinda be in the shake up for a seat?
or a bed?
Jammin – Neither are SF/IRA
Powerabbey…Was that bukkake with a dozen clowns as fun as it looks?
I very much like Renua Ireland’s proposal for a flat tax. It represents fresh thinking, starts a real debate for the first time in decades and represents a genuinely refreshing departure from groupthink in Ireland.
The key for Renua’s credibility will be to not backtrack on their flat tax proposal in the face of the utterly predictable attacks from the left-leaning media in Ireland, and from the establishment political parties. Renua must stick to its radical guns if it is going to be relevant.
The worst three things about Renua are
Eddie Hobbs
Eddie Hobbs
Eddie Hobbs
Hopefully at the edge of a cliff
Charlie – maybe you should return to your treatment.
Where do they stand. In the cold.
Matt Dempsey tells @RENUAIreland think-in that people who abuse alcohol should have money docked from their pay cheque.
Just behind F.G. all the way, I think you call it a shadow?
Lucinda Creighton and Katie Hopkins – separated at birth!
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