The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Meanwhile, here’s something written earlier… one wonders how much the dynamic will change after the events this morning. Although I’d almost bet that we’ll see a poll boost for FF.

Reading the Sunday Business Post poll at the weekend I couldn’t help but think that perhaps their may be hard stares around the Cabinet between the Green Party Ministers and Mary Harney. Why so?

Because the Green Party’s previous policy of saying nothing has seen then go up yet again in the polls. The RedC poll saw the following:

STATE OF THE PARTIES
Fianna Fáil 35 (-2)
Fine Gael 30 (-1)
Labour 11 (+1)
Greens 8 (+1)
Sinn Féin 9 (+1)
PDs 1 (-1)
Inds 7 (+1)

For the Progressive Democrats, what was there left to lose? Their poll ratings could hardly go down whatever Harney said (well, short of announcing the return to public life of Michael McDowell). I’ve heard that Harney broke ranks in a bid to support Fiona O’Malley’s bid for the leadership of the PDs. Well, there is nothing like a little local political concern to have unpleasant knock-on effects and here is a prime example. For them, hovering at the lowest end of the their potential support saying something, anything, was no harm. And indeed Pat Leahy in the SBP notes as much when he writes:

The Progressive Democrats may not be among those potential partners. Down one point to 1 per cent, the party is at the very edge of the public consciousness. And this is the middle of a leadership campaign.

It’s not that they are a complete irrelevance, no party with a Minister in government and a small and imperfectly formed crew of public representatives can be utterly irrelevant. But what plausible strategy can dig them out of the hole, largely of their own making, that they currently reside in? Will a grateful nation thrill to O’Malley, or her rival Cannon? It doesn’t seem likely. And they seem to me to be like nothing so much as the minor parties in the Inter-Party Coalitions of the 1940s and 1950s. Who now remembers, or cares about, National Labour or the… ? Gone. Gone entirely. Who indeed cares much about Clann na Poblachta (well, me actually, on a slight tangent I think they were a much more reforming force than some might give them credit, and had they not been lumbered with some enormous egos at the top… well, who knows?).

And the outlook is hardly good for the PDs. The SBP also reports that so far only a third of their membership had registered to vote in the leadership election. That, apparently is 1,200. If they can’t motivate their own, what likelihood that they can motivate everyone else?

But for the Green Party, smoked out as it were by the PDs this can be but a tale of woe. For silence, omerta, call it what one will, had served them well for the previous eight or ten months. But they, in the words of Niamh Connolly in the SBP (in a piece which had a remarkable number of contributions from named and unamed GP sources – too many to my mind for a party which might be better off imposing a rigid discipline on all media comments):

do not relish any of their party members even hinting at a moral custodian role for them in government. An absolute priority for them is to put a stamp on every piece of legislation passing through the Oireachtas, and it should not be deflected from this ‘‘by events that happened 20 years ago’’, the source said.

And while one may have enormous criticisms of that stance it has clearly connected with a section of the public in a way that is… well, surprising to be honest. Because their poll rating is three points higher than it was at the election and has seen a steady upward trend.

Another thought struck me that the political aspect of the Ahern issue is that it is personality based. All the calls for Ahern to go, and he will – again the SBP recounts that he has allegedly agreed to depart sometime after the appearance before the US Congress which if true sort of leaves his options just a little open – centre on Ahern. But Ahern is in a sense becoming rather like the bedraggled figure that most families have of the relative with a sort of unspoken long term ‘problem’ or malady. Someone who regarded with affection, but also a sort of resigned tolerance, and is dealt with a little warily. The trick is to not vocalise the wariness, or reserve in order to prevent verbal and other explosions.

Now that the GP has spoken will that impact on their rating?

Once Ahern is gone we have Cowen. And if there is one message that’s been hammered away on this site it is that a Cowen led Fianna Fáil is simply not going to present the same sort of target as an Ahern led Fianna Fáil. It will be a different sort of target, one that is political rather than personal and probably more vulnerable around the edges, particularly in Dublin (particularly with no Bert to shore up the defences). But the whiff of the 1980s and early 1990s will have largely gone. And, note too that Gormley is apparently ‘attempting to change legislation to ban or limit corporate donations’. That would be no mean achievement. But it isn’t going to happen anytime soon.

And what then of the other party that sees yet another upward trend in its polling, that being Sinn Féin? They must be scratching their heads at the results. And also wondering what they should do next. Two points behind Labour and yet what to show for it? In a curious way they’re in a similar situation to Fine Gael. The next election is too far away to leverage whatever support they currently have. Other, of course, than in the local elections. And it is possible that they may add to their current crop of councillors, particularly off the back of a good Lisbon campaign. And they know that even 7% in May of last year didn’t do the business. They have to consolidate their support to be in with a shout of getting even half the seat return that Labour routinely sees on those extra couple of percentage points.

Labour can take some comfort in their poll result. But only some. The new leadership hasn’t lit a fire under them. And the siren voices, at least at the SBP are now talking about how Gilmore should ‘modernise’ further. Back Room column makes three points, two of which I agree with, the other I don’t. Firstly it suggests that:

Eamon Gilmore’s steady but unspectacular start as Labour leader has included a determined assault on the old orthodoxy within the party that Labour is right and that the people will come to their senses some day and recognise this at the ballot box.

For some of us on the outside of Labour the very certainty that they are the one true voice of the Irish left (to coin a phrase) has been enormously off putting (incidentally, one might also argue that some of that thinking split off into Militant and later the Socialist Party – equally off-putting comrades). And the sort of half-baked deterministic certainty that s/he refers to that the Irish people ‘will come to their senses’ is not that different really from the Irish Times approach, which is hardly coincidental. So, very good. And perhaps realistic. Not terribly enticing, but there we go.

Secondly s/he argues that:

As was seen dramatically in 1992, when Labour gets in tune with the public mood, it can prosper.

It was also the last time that Labour set itself the objective of being the unquestioned leader of the opposition. It insisted that they would have the right to at least share the position of Taoiseach, and everything it did was about setting Labour apart from all other parties. Gilmore appears to understand this, which is why he has said that he will not be repeating the pre-election pact which delivered so much for Fine Gael.

Again, no dispute there.

On the other hand Back Room argues that:

If Labour wants to make major gains, it must change in a major way.

21st-century Ireland will only respond to Labour if the party shows that it really understands the needs of our modern economy; if it has an organisation that people with balanced lives might want to join; and if it stops responding to issues and starts leading on them.

…Should it be allowed to question old certainties within the party and genuinely look at modernisation, the next leader of Fianna Fail may face a much tougher challenge from his left.

What exactly does this mean? Change in what way? Modernise in what way? Does the Irish political system really need FG or FF 2.0, a three three-quarters party system each more or less identical? Because surely that is the suggestion, that somehow Labour shifts even further towards an already over-crowded centre.

And I’m not entirely convinced by the argument that:

The loudest critics of the party insist that this is because it isn’t radical enough – but they have nothing to say when countered with the fact that countless radical alternatives have tried and failed to even come close to matching its support.

The WP certainly was considerably more radical and built up a strong cohort of TDs, ironically one that has sustained the Labour Party since. And, WP/DL were able to largely maintain their grip on those TDs even when Labour was ascending to the dizzy heights that they achieved in 1992.

Anyhow, plenty of food for thought there…