Resistance, No. 4

A particularly interesting edition of Resistance to add to others in the Archive. This from the Irish Socialist Network was produced in January 2008. The front cover article looks at Bertie Ahern and his apologia for his financial matters.

Poor Bertie. Poor, poor Bertie. Wouldn’t your heart go out to him?

There he was in December 1993, barely scraping by in a crap job- a mere government minister … well, OK, the Minister for Finance – but, anyway, there he was with not a button to his name, other than a measly £50,000 in cash crammed into his office safe.

I mean, things were so bad for the down and out of Fianna Fail (do you remember that awful anorak he was forced to wear?) that he had to take out an unsecured … emm, yes, an unsecured loan of £19,115 from a friendly bank manager. So, when wealthy businessmen started stuffing tens of thousands of pounds into his pockets – for his private use, a badly needed ‘dig-out’, so to speak – what was a body to do?

OK, let’s slow down and look at that again. And let’s begin by remembering that the Irish pound of yore, even excluding the huge increase in the cost of living since then (‘Tell me about it!’ sez you), was worth considerably more than the euro of today. In fact, in 1993, you could have bought a very salubrious house with the £50,000 that Bertie the Bum allegedly saved between 1987 and 1993. Some savings too, you’ve got to admit, for a guy in choppy financial waters! Fair enough, he was on a handsome ministerial salary of roughly £35,000 per annum, a considerable wage for the time. Pause, though, to admire his dedication to saving: after tax, he had approximately £30,000 net income of which a very large chunk had to go to his separated wife, but, nonetheless, he was still able to squirrel away a more than goodly sum. Amazing!

Even, dare we say it, unbelievable?

The other articles in the newsletter range far and wide including ones on the death squads in Colombia, “social partnership” sell-out and a Rough Guide to Soailism which looks at Trade Unions. There’s also a debate between Paul Dillon, then of the Labour Party and Colm Breathnach of the ISN on ‘should socialists be in the Labour Party?’.

Other pieces include a review of Charlie Brooker’s Dawn of the Dumb, a collection of his articles from the Guardian on British culture.

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