The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Between one thing and another it’s a fairly busy time news wise. We have Budgets, we have US elections, we have financial crises. We have AC/DC returning with their umpteenth album.

But, but, what to make of this news which certainly gave me pause for thought yesterday morning?

Under the headline Kenny says he expects to be taoiseach, Harry McGee of the Irish Times reported that:

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny has said he expects to be taoiseach and that there is a strong probability it may happen within the next 12 months.

Let me preface this by saying that Kenny appears to be an innately decent person, and in organisational terms he is clearly no slouch. The Fine Gael gains in 2007 (almost the year before last, how time flies) were impressive. He has revitalised a party which appeared moribund five years previously. They have a remarkably energetic, albeit unfocussed, front bench, some youngish TDs who will bear watching like hawks by the left and a curiously triumphalist tone for a party which has been in government for only 2 of the last 21 years.

But. But. But.

On the Week in Politics on RTÉ on Sunday he argued that:

“I expect to be taoiseach. I’ve waited a long time as an apprentice, if you like. My party has been in opposition for too long.

“We have the hunger, the ambition, the competence, the drive and the policies to actually do this. Whenever it comes, I’ll be ready for it.

Oh dear.

Hunger, ambition, competence, drive and policy are all very well. But they alone won’t deliver Kenny to Government Buildings.

He knows this. So his fall back plan is as follows…

“In politics you just never know – it is like life, anything can happen. I believe the probability of an election is very strong for next year, and we will be ready to meet that challenge, if and when it happens.”

Okay. For what its worth. I believe the probability of an election in the next twelve months is very weak. I believe that Jackie Healy-Rae and Michael Lowry are fully onside (ironic that latter… bestest bestest friend forever… clearly not). I believe that the Green Party are less likely to walk after the events of last week than they were before them. I believe there is every chance this government will run to full term, or at least very slightly short of it.

This isn’t great news. For the left, unless the Green Party emerges from its current post-ideological (aka centrist/centre-right) cocoon as a fine reforming redistributionist butterfly that we know, or hope, it wants to be – probably – there is little or no satisfaction in this. Other than the sly and subversive fear that however bad Fianna Fáil are Fine Gael would potentially be a less happy hand at the tiller in grim times.

But returning to Enda…

Mr Kenny did not rule out a change of Government without an election, although he said his preference was to have a fresh electoral mandate.

“I could certainly envisage something happening like happened back in 1994, but it is not for discussion now.

Hmmmm… now that’s odd. Exactly what is the process by which such a change could happen? One of the more effective jibes (albeit entirely self-serving) that the Green Party threw across the chamber in the wake of their deal with Fianna Fáil was the notion that if Fine Gael had been willing to incorporate Sinn Féin into an arrangement then they would have been in government today. Granted such an arrangement would have been the most unwieldy political concoction this state has ever seen, but be that as it may.

Let’s briefly review the numbers. Fianna Fáil had 77 (now 75 with the loss of Seamus Brennan and Joe Behan, but in political terms that has not dented their majority). Fine Gael 51. Labour 20. The Green Party 6. Sinn Féin 4. The Progressive Democrats 2. Independents 5 and one seat given to the Ceann Comhairle. 84 is a majority.

Bertie Ahern’s Coalition of most of the talents encompassed the 77 FF, 2 PD, 6 GP and 4 Independents (one of which, Beverly Flynn later rejoined FF). Total? 88 plus the Ceann Comhairle in a tight vote. 89 overall.

FG on 51, Labour on 20.

Oh dear again. 71.

Even adding the Green Party, Finian McGrath and Joe Behan to the mix, big asks, big big asks, one would see a government of 80 as against an FF/PD/Ind bloc of 80 (assuming Lowry and JH-R stayed onboard. But the obvious room for mischief in such a situation would be more, I suspect, than the Irish body politic already bruised and beaten from the financial crisis could reasonably expected to take).

Which means that to seal the deal it would be necessary for Enda to become the Irish political equivalent of Nixon in China, doing a deal with the hated Shinners. That way there would be 84 (and who knows, perhaps Lowry could be prised away as well).

Because if Kenny is serious that a ‘change of Government without an election’ is a route to power for him and Fine Gael, and Labour, and the Green Party and every Independent…

No, no. This is crazy stuff. Just thinking about it for a second shows how difficult such a structure would be to put together. Tony Gregory and Leo Varadker? Finian McGrath and Lucinda Creighton? Sinn Féin and Fine Gael?

Enda Kenny putting that together? A bit above his pay scale I’d imagine… a bit above anyone’s.

And if people think that a minority FG led coalition supported by SF and various Independents is a flier, well, think again. That would be a profoundly unstable political entity.

Now Enda Kenny is no fool and the only interpretation one can take away from this is that he is deliberately flying a kite in order to maintain the sense of political instability. But a week is long enough in politics to have put some of the febrile atmosphere of the Budget behind us. So that may be a game with diminishing returns.

And as the dust clears it seems to me that it will reveal a situation not dissimilar politically to that which was extant before – granted McGrath and Behan overboard – with the current Coalition still very much in place. And from Enda Kenny’s perspective a position where his days remain numbered as leader of FG. He may tough it out to the local and European Elections, and fair dues to him if he does. But there is a palpable sense of his power and authority slipping away (not least in the last two weeks where a resurgent Labour under Gilmore landed the heavy punches against the government). So he has to indulge in this sort of rhetoric, keeping himself in the picture as it were and propping up his political capital with the idea that … if… if only… something… anything… happens, then all will be well.

So consequently we also read that:

The Fine Gael leader was expanding on comments he made at a Fine Gael presidential dinner at the weekend where he told supporters that he was putting the party on an election footing.

The appearance of activity. There will be no election, short of catastrophe and already – from the point of view of the Government – we’ve had two of them with Lisbon and the financial crisis, or three if one wishes to count in the Budget. But heck. No election.

There’s more…

To that end, the party will unveil what it describes as “major policy initiatives” on health and the economy at its national convention later this month.

It will also hold some 30 “town hall” meetings between now and early December.

The format is popular in the US and involves a national representative addressing an open meeting and answering questions from the public.

The first meeting will take place next week at a venue yet to be announced.

Thin stuff from which to construct a political strategy for the next three and a half years. Isn’t it?

But, in fairness, what else can he do? Gilmore, who is a remarkably effective parliamentary performer, will have his work cut out for him to maintain the momentum across 36 months. For Kenny who is significantly less assured the focus may well be better outside the Dáil chamber. In the short term it may well buy him time. He’s saved his party, now he must try to save himself. And ironically, in doing this he may well be gifting his successor a priceless asset of an even more streamlined Fine Gael.

Keep talking.

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Mind you, on the subject  about of leaders, I meant to bring this particular gem from a recent Hot Press interview with Ciaran Cannon of the Progressive Democrats to those of you who haven’t read it earlier…

Does he plan to remain in politics?

“Absolutely. Despite media reports, I have not been approached by any party. But I do hope to join a political party next year – perhaps Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael,” he revealed.

Erm… let’s put the idea aside for one moment that the leader of a still extant political party might muse so openly about his political future in another political party… but if I’m not mistaken isn’t he a Taoiseach’s nominee? I think he’d want to think long and hard about making the ‘right’ choice there then… after all look at poor ould Joe Behan and Finian McGrath…

I fear we see now the Michael O’Leary (former Labour party leader, then FG TD) of our times…