parish pump politics
English
Noun
parish pump politics (uncountable)
- (Ireland, derogatory, informal) political activity that is more evidently concerned with addressing the immediate needs of the local electorate than with strategy that might affect the national interest.
- Thomas Bardel Brindley (1875) Hints, Humorous and Satirical, to all the world and his wife (Wit and humor)[1], Simpkin, Marshall&Company, page 6: “7.—Never avoid bars or smoke-rooms, because in the former case you miss the chance of marrying a flirt, and in the latter of having your mind improved by local parish-pump politics, and your head broken by a fool in his cups.”
- Electoral Politics in Ireland: Party and Parish Pump[2], 1981, page 144: “Unfortunately, the parish-pump politics this perpetuates is congenitally unsuited to deal with the demands of a modern European society.”
- Bora Laskin: Bringing Law to Life[3], University of Toronto Press, 2005: “Where others looked at Canadian regionalism and saw a fruitful and admirable diversity of human experience, Laskin saw petty fiefdoms, parish pump politics, and constricted horizons.”
Translations
putting local concerns over national interest
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