So stupid it can’t die.

Many years ago I was involved in student politics. It’s not something I’m proud of, but at least it gave me an early and prolonged exposure to high levels of stupidity, and sparked an interest in me that still lives.

Student politicians radiate an intense aura of imbecility. It’s not that they aren’t intelligent, more than a few clearly are, it’s just that they lack experience. I blame the parents. They spend too much time teaching kids how to be balanced, happy, well-rounded people, and nowhere near enough time raising them as bitter, manipulative, cynical self-serving politicians.

This lack of experience on the part of students means that their politics tends to go around in circles. As activists graduate or drop out, and get replaced by a new generation the same issues get debated, the same feuds are fought and the same mistake are made.

There’s a lesson here. If an idea is so stupid that even student politicians can see its flaws, then that idea needs to be locked in a room with a bottle of whiskey and a revolver. And if successive generations of student politicians come to the same conclusion, they’ve got to be right.

Back in my own days in the students’ union I had such an idea. it was a brilliantly original method to promote one of our campaigns. I quite smugly proposed it to some of the other officers, who tore it to pieces in seconds. As I really should have realised myself, the plan was self defeating, expensive, pointless and would have exposed us to even more ridicule than we were used to. The only reason it was original ws that nobody else was stupid enough to try.

Recently I had dinner with some former SU activists, from before my time and after it, and as the wine flowed we entertained each other with the stupidity of our early years. I mentioned my plan. They laughed. Then, one by one, other people admitted having had the same idea, and having seen it trashed for the same reasons.

It was stupid. So it died. But I should have realised that there are in this country organisations dedicated to ensuring that some ideas will never die, no matter how stupid they are.

According to breakingnews.ie “Sinn Féin tonight revealed it has devised a novel way to get young football fans to read its proposals on job creation. The party will unveil a new beer mat calling for voters to support the party’s plans to get 40,000 young unemployed back to work.”

It is stupid. But it lives.

Nothing wrong a party having a plan to deal with unemployment. Nothing wrong with canvassing Croke Park on the day of a match. It’s the beer mat, stupid.

it’s not just that people scribble on, and tear up, beer mats even more than they will any other form of election material, it’s just that it is, and there’s no way of avoiding this, a beer mat.

it’s the kind of thing that people remember. So it no longer matters what the Sinn Féin plan is. Come the next election voters will think about the parties. Fianna Fáil will be the people who broke the country. Fine Gael will be the people who think it’s their turn to break the country. Labour, well I’m hopelessly biased, so I’ll let you answer this yourself. The Greens will be a joke. But Sinn Féin will be the party who thought they could fix the biggest economic crisis we ever faced with a plan they scribbled on the back of a beer mat.