Up The Poll

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Have you ever been approached by a polling company looking for your views on anything? It is an important question because these polls can influence legislation all over the place. We have RedC and MRBI asking respondents questions and the answers can determine National events and public thinking.

Though the numbers polled can be as little as five hundred to a thousand the research companies involved claim high levels of accuracy in their findings. However, it is not unknown in a given week for one of them to report one thing and the other to report the direct opposite. How's that for accuracy?

AIMRO (The Association of Irish Market Research Organisations),  advises that for a properly conducted scientific national poll, a minimum sample of 1000 interviews is required and 500 interviews for a published local area poll. They waffle on about the scientific methods they use, the neutral phrasing of questions and the right gender mix in both sex and age of the respondents. There are dark hints that it is pointless to use anyone but their members as well. To which I can only say, they would wouldn't they.

Among their cautions too is a warning of what they call, 'funding bias.' He who pays the piper in other words gets to choose the tune. Interestingly, the Irish Cancer Society and the Irish Heart Foundation regularly pay these people for polls with predictable results too. Apparently we smokers would like the price of a packet of fags raised to €50.00 to ahem, 'encourage' us to quit. Shit like that gets national coverage and is followed by calls to Government to get on with it and raise the price because that's what the public want, even if they don't know it. It's an empty charade and a pack of lies but is used as a justification to persecute smokers.

I have complained elsewhere that none of us got to vote for the initial smoking ban that started the rot. Would you have voted to put aging smokers out on a cold winter's night? You see it depends on the question asked. Nobody asked any questions though it just got rushed through the Dail and one day, "WHOOSH" ……. if you lit a fag in the boozer you could be fined €3,000.

But eight years after the ban was introduced, someone did finally ask the Irish people directly. In September 2012 the Journal.ie did ask when they posed their readers the question, "Ireland’s citizens were not given a vote on the smoking ban that was introduced in 2004 so we want to know: How would you have voted?" Was anyone interested enough to vote? Was it a respectable landslide in favour of the workplace ban on smoking?  Were the medical profession, the ahem, 'charities' and the Government correct when they told us there was overwhelming support for the ban?

Well, nearly five thousand people voted that day in the Journal, (4,888 to be exact) and that response is five times the accepted level for a National Poll. But while that's surprising, what truly shocked was that only thirty-seven per cent of them were in favor of the ban. A whopping fifty-two per cent were dead against it. I was stunned because even I had begun to believe the lies we were spun. We were told then too that smokers formed nearly a third of the population at the time and if so, that poll is back to front. Surely every non-smoker wanted to see the smokers banished. But they didn't apparently. Have a look yourself if you don't believe me.

I will come back to the theme of smoking several times on this new site but this poll on the topic raises the question of democracy more so than the right to smoke. Our Health Minister at the time, Michael Martin, just bullied and bluffed this ban  through and appears to have got away with it. But it is far from over. As a wise old man said to me at the time, the ban is just a politically correct fad and it will pass because people will always be people. One bad major war somewhere and we'll all be down the pub smoking and drinking and worrying if we are going to be bombed to oblivion tomorrow. Meanwhile, the pompous narrow-minded, curtain-sniffers will sit at home that night and just fret about us instead of the war.

" Just you wait 'enry 'iggins!"

 

ADDLED BY TWIT-FACE

Let's Express Posted on by

ADDLED BY TWIT-FACE

I have a background in computers and technology since the mid-eighties and my saving grace learning that stuff at the time was that is was based on logic and common-sense, (or it was on the Mac platform at any rate).

Initially I toured the country trying to convince the newspaper industry of the advantages of Desk-Top Publishing over hot lead. Believe it or not, it was slow going and soul-destroying and the new technology wore a saucy price tag too. The early innovators were just getting their heads around DTP when I was back with Postscript Graphics and Photoshop. Their resistance was monumental. 

But over time they put their toe in the water of graphics and photo-retouching and then I'm back again announcing the new thing. "Internet and URL's is the future lads," I announced excitedly, "and soon you'll be putting that rag of yours out to a waiting world market." A chorus of 'Fuck-off John' came back but I persisted. 

So they dragged their weary backsides online and suddenly I'm back again. "I've had a vision lads and it is moving pictures. I give you, 'Video-Editing,' and this is really where it's at." Groans of "Jesus Mallon!" followed and I hit a brick wall. "OK, we publish at our desks now and we're making more money as a result, our pictures and graphics are winning us awards and we're ahead of our competitors online and increasing circulation massively. But we're not going to make a movie John, no fucking way!" 

So I quit my job and went making movies myself instead. The technology was brilliant but the old ways were changing and how you created awareness of who you were and what you had to offer was changing utterly. As an internet native I first came across Facebook and signed up to see what that was all about. Next came Linkedin and I got one of those too. My WAYN account was next to be opened and then Twitter came along. I stress at this point that I didn't even know what I was supposed to do with all this new shit. I was a confused lurker trying to figure out what I must be missing. 

I had my first mobile phone in 1989 and I can still remember it going off on the Cork Dublin train and passengers standing up to see where the noise was coming from. I was like one of those passengers looking at Twit-Face, as I called it all collectively. Early mobile phone users were on the damned thing always and they used it to ring home and say where they were and what they were doing, (nothing of course). People all around made eye contact with each other before throwing those eyes to heaven. That was me on Facebook. It bored the tits off me.

When all the German supermarkets began opening I had a look at that too. I don't know which one I went to first maybe Lidl or Aldi but very quickly and because of social media, I just called them all 'Addled.'

Governed or Bullied?

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Motor tax is a bit of a racket. In theory, we pay it for the maintenance and upgrading of our road system. A recent addition to this is the imposition of a fine factor inside the motor tax because cars are not flipper-friendly. Apparently, the bigger the engines the more carbons emitted and flipper just hates that.

That's the theory of motor tax Irish style. In reality our road tax is being used to prop up Irish Water, as we heard not too long ago and local authorities are using other funds to look after our roads. EU money built the motorways and the Government sold off stretches to tolling companies for a song. That means more money you must pay to drive. 

Now I used to like cars until I realized they were the single biggest drain on my meagre resources. You pay VAT on the purchase of a car, VAT on the (expensive) fuel to run it, VAT on the bills to keep it on the road and tax for using the road as well. Then there are the myriad of fines for not being perfect all of the time. Car Insurance which is compulsory, also has VAT added and most of us need a car just to get to work and pay income tax. So if you were to lose your job all of a sudden, the car becomes a luxurious liability. 

In the past, you just parked it and perhaps even advertised it for sale. You would have reasoned that you aren't using the damn thing, you are emitting no carbons so you owe nothing to anybody. Your motor is off the road with the battery running down and the tyres going flat. For you, your car is a temporary memory until times get better.

I mentioned bad laws in a recent post and one of these was snuck in during August 2013. Now motorists  who forget or fail to declare their car is off the road will be forced to pay arrears and at least three months' motor tax under tough new rules aimed at clamping down on evasion. The Department of the Environment said that anyone planning not to drive their car on a public road must tell their local tax office at least three months in advance. How's that for pure bureaucratic cheek?

You normally do not get much notice of a redundancy and what happens if you accidentally fall down the stairs and are made suddenly unable to drive? Are you supposed to anticipate such events three months in advance? At the time this law was passed, the then Environment Minister Phil Hogan said the system would deal on a local basis with cases where, for example, a person fell ill suddenly and could not use their car but could not declare it was off the road to their local tax office. I suggest that the sick person may not even be able to get out of bed to be 'dealt with locally.' And what does, "The system would deal on a local basis with cases" really mean? Is this the wink and elbow language of delight? Do you give the nod to a Garda you know? No you don't!

The bill clearly states that, "Forms will be submitted directly to motor tax offices or online, instead of at Garda stations." So do you know someone in the Motor Tax Office? This kind of nonsense infuriates me. It is political double-speak where the meat of this new law states firmly that, "The non-use declaration must be made three months in advance." It is obvious then that any "deal on a local basis," must be done by knowing somebody in authority. Otherwise the new (bad) law is black and white and the Gardai are entitled to fine you. Remember, a non-taxed car can be confiscated. 

This is a bad law that doesn't make sense to any normal person and it pre-supposes that all of us are just looking for ways to break the law. I don't like the tone of that but I'm sure you agree though that if politicians make bad laws, (for their own reasons), then ordinary decent honest people might just react by thinking, to hell with that. Look at the water tax as an example of it! This opens a further debate which should prompt you to consider some more. Do we obey our laws voluntarily because we believe it is for the common good or do we begrudgingly obey them because of the consequences of not doing so? Are we being governed or bullied?

 

Us & Them

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A very old friend told me a touching story in the pub last Friday and it was one that made me think about things as they have become today.

Back in the early seventies he knew of a big Garda Sergeant who hailed from the West of Ireland but plodded the beat in a Leinster town. A well-known wag in the town drove as a commercial traveler by day and drank his head off at night in the local boozer. The Sergeant had seen him many times make his way unsteadily to his car for the short drive home. Then one night, he'd had way too much and the copper pulled him over.

One look at the guy and he asked him to get out and get into the passenger seat. The Sergeant them drove them both to the man's house and handed him over to his wife. But he took the time to tell the wife about the repeated drink-driving and said that if it happened again, he'd have to put the guy off the road and he'd lose his job as a result. This massive Sergeant turned his doe-eyes to the wife and pleaded with her to sort her husband out.

It was very intelligent policing because our commercial traveller kept his job and marriage as a result. The rural Sergeant knew that a police warning would make little difference but setting the wife on the guy changed everything. As such, it is one of the best examples of 'crime prevention' I had ever heard. The policeman and the civilian stayed friends too and the rural Leinster town had little crime at that time. Further, what crime there was got solved because that Sergeant could rely on the locals to tell him everything. You see, they liked and trusted him, simple as that.

Fast forward to today's Ireland and that has all changed. The Gardai are a pretty impersonal lot now and their capacity for making a value-judgement on the spot is all but gone. Today, the above offender would automatically be off the road and out of a job and his wife would have left him. Perhaps then rather than teaching him a lesson the whole affair could tip him over the edge. Maybe instead of giving up the drink he might turn to it in his desperation. And what does that achieve?

We have a good police force in Ireland but they cannot do their job without our help. Just like we depend on the Gardai, they depend on us. The expression, "Gardai are asking for witnesses," is regularly heard and when serious crimes go to court they need us on those juries as well. They even have their own P.R. Department to liaise with the public. The fact that our uniformed Gardai are unarmed makes us appreciate them and their bravery even more in today's society. There is respect for the force in the general population but I sense that the politicians are diminishing our respect for our protectors.

They closed their community Garda stations by the dozen and allowed, (even incentivised) senior members to retire in droves. Then they hit them in the pocket too. They send them out in cheap cars with bad equipment to fight well-heeled violent drug dealers and they even made a hash of the communications system 'Pulse' forcing individual Gardai to use their own mobile phones. But worst of all to my mind, they have introduced a raft of petty small-minded laws to harass the citizen at every twist and turn and then left it to the Gardai to infuriate us. The penalty points system is a case in point. GATSO vans make a fortune catching us doing a couple of miles over the limit and before we know where we are, we are in the frame to be put off the road. This threatens our job prospects and makes us very resentful and guess who we take out the resentment on? The Garda uniform is the symbol of that repression and many quietly vow not to be so helpful to them again should they need it.

Bad laws will always bring bad outcomes. Politicians eager to make an impression as a 'tough nut' can send the force out to break up legal protests with force. When that happens, it becomes a case of us and them – the people versus the Gardai. Take the NCT for example. They are running long waiting lists so if your test is due this month and you phone them to book it now, you won't get an appointment for ages, through no fault of your own. However, it means that your car technically has not been passed to be on the road. That's bad enough but did you know that the Gardai can then order you out of your car and leave it at the roadside until you organize to have it transported, at a huge unexpected cost. Depending on where you are ordered to leave the car it could also be vandalized overnight. And the infuriating thing is that the car itself was perfectly roadworthy before you were stopped. But the politicians made it an offense under law and the attending Garda could fine you as well and because the offense is covered by the Road Traffic Act you could be subject to penalty points. For what? 

The more I talk to decent ordinary guys about this the more I see a hunted look cross their faces. What saddens me is that their anger and annoyance is not directed at the politicians for the stupid laws but it's aimed squarely at the poor Garda who had to enforce those laws. They feel cheated and wronged and I would suggest that they would be less inclined to be model citizens who might come forward with information to help the Gardai with their inquiries in the future. 

Years ago we used to talk about the fabric of society. Central to that civic idea was always the relationship between the civil population and the force. There was give and take on both sides and that relationship was warm and good-natured in the main. We all were outraged if one of them was shot while on duty and we took it as a personal affront to our core decency. That decency is now being tested to the limit and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that a wedge is being driven between the guardians and the guarded to further the careers of selfish short-sighted politicians and vested interests. 

Unless it is rolled back and a new Government strikes out many of the stupid laws that have been passed, things could become very uneasy and neither the Gardai nor the people will be to blame for that.