The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Strange scenes over the past five or six days. I’ve already noted how good the relations were between Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. In a curious cross between Stockholm Syndrome and a forced marriage (forced by the electoral mathematics that is) the latter party were gushing on Friday…

“We shook hands and wished them well…”

Courtesy. That’s always good.

“We actually got to like them…”

Okay…

“And Brian Cowen even said he got to like us…”

Hmmm…

Not that that stopped Trevor Sargent,

“Fianna Fáil knows what we need…”

Too much information. Get a room.

Which – surprisingly – they did. Today. Or to be more precise, at least attempted to continue the courting through the rather Cyrano de Begerac medium of the “letter” and the rather more prosaic “courtesy call” between those star crossed…(I blanche at using the word that springs to mind) “politicians” – Bertie Ahern and Trevor. Mind you, I saw Bertie leaving Government Buildings this evening and he didn’t look like a man pining for the Greens. More like the cat that got the cream.

Although trust Brian Cowen (“He says he likes us!”) to put a dampener on the occasion… saying he:

“…believed a fair offer had been made in talks with the Green Party on the possible formation of a new government.”

It’s roses Brian, or at least sunflowers…

Still, if ever one wished for a lesson in realpolitic, here it is folks.

Note the trajectory of the following key issues…

The transit of US troops through Shannon. Not quite the problem it presented two weeks ago. The M3 routing past Tara. Ditto (Actually, isn’t there a strangely inverted symmetry to the behaviour of Sinn Féin prior to polling day here?). Co-location? The big one. Just how will that circle be squared (and by the by, did anyone note how Sinn Féin said their bottom line was no support for a government that had Mary Harney as Health Minister in it – which of course leaves loopholes large enough to drive HGVs through). How Green will future taxes be? I await the outcome of the negotiations, assuming they are successful, with considerable interest.

Granted some of these are perhaps issues closer to the hearts of activists than the general public. But even so. They’re part and parcel of the cultural mix of the Green Party – its psychological hinterland as it were, and by extension of at least a section of the left. But they demonstrate a number of realities. One being the expectation that any political party entering power will have to make significant changes to its political program. Two that in this state that is the only way forward. I’ve been a bit harsh on Sinn Féin and its approach to the last election. Perhaps unduly so. Perhaps not. But in a sense both they and the Greens have had to take similar decisions for much the same reason…and in part, wailing and gnashing of teeth apart, that’s because that’s the way the system works here.

Maybe it will change, but I doubt it. People talk about the political system, but it’s not just a system, it’s an embedded apparatus of interest groups, modes of behaviour and suchlike. And, rather like capitalism, it has an almost infinite ability to assimilate whatever is thrown at it. And, let’s be honest. The respective weight of the two parties, or indeed as has already been noted here, the left and the centre, centre/right is so disproportionate that assimilation is probably the right word. Six TDs up against 78. One might marvel if any aspect of the Green program survived a coalition (while noting that the PDs were able to largely infuse the last two governments with their own brand of liberal economics). Not for nothing is there the aversion to parliamentary democratic structures by the further left… enter those gates and you’re playing by new rules.

But, don’t enter those gates and you have no influence whatsoever. And the Green Party, quite understandably, have spent a decade in the political wilderness where the comforts of opposition are few and far between. Now is the chance to shape, at least in part, the future. That’s why, even if they falter at this hurdle, sooner or later the events of the past week will entirely rework their approach and attitude to politics. The scale of their success or failure will be instructive.

Nor is this a counsel of despair. I find it oddly comforting somehow that the shape of the challenge is so clear. Perhaps because it’s predictable.

Watch the events this evening and tomorrow and see if on Thursday there is broad coalition and consider just what a remarkable meeting of minds that will represent… perhaps not quite up there with Paisley and McGuinness…but even so…