The more I think about it… Ahern gone… politics shifts gear… April 3, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.trackback
Just a few stray thoughts to follow on from yesterday. It really does strike me that for the opposition this pre-dated resignation may have come too early. By going now Ahern doesn’t appear to have his fingers pried one by one in a Mugabe like fashion from power (indeed in an unkind moment I wondered whether the events in Zimbabwe played upon our beloved leaders mind). There is much less of the sense of the men in grey suits arriving at his door, indeed a particularly telling moment was the shot on TV yesterday of Brian Cowen actually scanning the text in front of Ahern. Yes, we were all interested in what he might say next. And although the idea that events hadn’t conspired to push him now is laughable, he could have hung on and brazened it out, at least until his next round of evidence.
So he goes with the barest fig-leaf covering the reality that it would require enormous expenditure of energy and political capital to remain.
And what of our opposition? It’s tricky.
Bertie was – at least at one point in his career – meant to represent the essentially technocratic approach that Fianna Fáil often, but not always, excelled at. In particular he was meant to personify a break with what had gone before. Where Haughey had seemed an almost reptilian figure of menace and self-reflection coiled up in Kinsealy, Ahern was to be an open friendly and engaging person who would put all that behind him. His working class persona to compare favourably with the pretensions of the older man with his horses, his island, his country manse. But ‘personify’ is a difficult term. He never quite managed, despite retaining much of those open characteristics, to shrug off his mentor. The technocrat for the 21st century was really just half a technocrat…
It’s this gulf between aspiration and reality that perhaps in the end did for him. His roots, whatever about his vision, lay in the 1970s and 1980s.
And this is why this is tricky for the opposition. Despite all those evident flaws Ahern remained the most popular politician of his generation. I’ve seen it in action at close quarters, dyed in the wool Fine Gael supporters (or members) on committees who would never vote for Ahern in a million years swayed by the strength of his personality. For those with no particular ideological leanings, as most of us do, he was and remains extremely attractive as a person.
But to attack that one had to attack the person. Which is what has essentially happened – and indeed rightly so in relation to the issue of explaining payments.
But because people recognised that aspect of his success was very personal it makes the strategy 2.0 approach the opposition is road testing sotto voce of ‘everyone is guilty’ in FF and the Green Party and the PDs somewhat less than effective. Much of the voting population was also taken in. And with Cowen, a figure untainted by the 1970s, on the point of assuming control we move back to policy. Cowen is – remarkably – even more technocratic and from some of his outings in the Dáil extremely commanding, when the mood takes him. And that is a really really troublesome aspect for Labour and Fine Gael whose own self-identity is under considerable question at this moment (consider the way Labour is reexamining itself, consider the fascinating shift to the right by a small but vocal minority within FG).
Moreover, and this is at the distant edge of the possible, what happens if at the Tribunal out of that painfully contorted hedge of verbiage we are about to be served up (and can I for a moment distinguish between his rhetorical approach and the revoltingly snobbish attacks on his ‘accent’ by people who should but clearly don’t know better) Ahern manages to put forward an excuse for the ‘unusual’ events that have come to light that is just this side of implausible? It’s unlikely. But… Ahern winning a third term was on the face of it unlikely. If yesterday’s news prompted the thought that there would be tears, well, there’ll be more…
I genuinely think this next six months is going to be one of the more interesting periods of our political life.
The accent thing is actually very interesting, and more significant than just an index of the reflexive snobbery of D4/ IT reading wannabes. FFs strength in Dublin over the past decade might be attributed in part to a strong identification between working class people who have done better than they had any reason to expect out of the boom and Bertie ‘personally’, and, just as such people feel (rightly) aggrieved at the way the traditional middle- classes have raised the ladder to preserve their comparative privilege (private schooling, post- graduate – not ‘free’ degrees, and pre-eminently through engineering the property to market to allow the upward transfer of wealth between generations that DmcW points out), so, when Bertie breaks into the demotic, they cheer, and feel they have a voice on the inside. In a way its the same trick all right-wing populists play, the insider/outsider ploy (Thatcher is the prime example) – in fact of course, this governments legacy will the exact opposite of any levelling meritocracy that the accent seems to promise…..
It’ll be interesting to see how an FF led by a ‘big, ignorant culchie’ (he’s not of course, but its the perception) will do in Dublin.
And just a note on a different kind of snobbery; Paxman last night intoduced the package on Bertie with ‘he’s not the first Irish PM to resign over corruption allegations and he probably won’t be the last’
Did he? God, I hope some people complain about that.
Paxo hates Ireland because we eat the wild Atlantic Salmon which should have ended up at the Savoy Grill.
Paxman may be right about future resignations but he’s wrong about the past. Haughey was laid low by ‘the tapes’ – small spuds v what they get up to in Whitehall, and Reynolds by issues at the AG’s office rather than either over allegations of personal corruption.
Looking forward I lament the state of the opposition. You are right Labour are re-examinig themselves. But really, the one personality who cut a pathetic figure yesterday was Kenny. He cannot be commanding or authorative, nor does he understand magnanimity, let alone grace. Ever winging it, ever the back bencher propelled to the spotlight through circumstance, particularly the circumstance which resulted in a FG party so painfully bereft of talent when he took over, and only marginally better now. He always reminds me of the nameless boy in the class who was always invisible, unnoticed by teachers and classmates alike, gliding through on D grades, shy and socially inept, with never a hint of sparkle, then one day the class bully spots him, but instead of stealing his mars bar he delivers a far harsher fate, he points him out when the teacher asks for a volunteer for class rep. Without finding words for defence he shuffles,terrified, to the front of the class and the result is cruel to watch.
God though you’re right about the emergence of this hard right in FG. Have they actually cloned Hayes, or is there a new generation trying to emulate him? Either prospect makes me shudder. And not unimportant if FG can’t realistically govern without Labour.
sonofstan, that’s exactly how I’d interpret it… and it’s interesting how a hint of that given an international twist is evident in what londoner and copernicus point to.
Tomaltach, I think yesterday revealed a faultline in FG which I think may be only widened by what splintered says. Kenny simply can’t do it. Although Hayes, who is not my cup of tea, seems somewhat wet compared to them… and that’s saying something. To be honest I think that the young turks may have to moderate their language if Labour will play ball ultimately, and a further thought. The FF/FG option is coming back into play, slowly but surely as Ahern fades away with nothing left but his diffident smile…
I wouldn’t underestimate the possible appeal of a economically right wing/ socially libertarian/ anti- multiculturalist party in the Ireland of the near future; and if that party looks like an old party (i.e.FG) so much the better. The long anticipated left/ right realignment in irish politics may end up being initiated from the right.
Eughhhh, that’s a terrible thought… but very very interesting indeed. It tallies with what I’ve heard from some acquaintances of mine of centrist views who suggest rightwing tropes are much more widespread than people believe.
Yeah….you hear the strangest stuff; I know people who think SIPTU run the country, who think the IT is a left- wing rag, who think the taxpayer is been taken for a ride by welfare mothers; generally it doesn’t come allied to naked racism, or even xenophobia, and certainly not any old- fashioned catholic nationalism – it’s closer to libertarian neo-con stuff than anything else.
The welfare mothers thing drives me wild. What a crock… In one respect I’d be happier to think it was wrapped up in ideology, but it ain’t. Just naked prejudice.