The Cedar Lounge Revolution

More thoughts on the putsch and the man who would be king… June 17, 2010

Addendum: I’m surprised that it’s still tight and not conclusive as of early this morning. I had somewhat expected some new figure or figures from the Kenny camp to announce late last evening that they were going over to Bruton. A choreographed series of defections like that would have added to the troubles he had with Flanagan et al jumping ship. And yet, it didn’t happen. Perhaps they’re waiting for the comfort of the secret vote. Or perhaps not.

On the one hand I’d be amazed if the margin for Kenny, should he succeed, was in double figures. I’d have thought it would be very very tight if that were the outcome. On the other hand I’d wonder if the conduct of the ‘campaign’ was as off-putting as it was attractive as a solution. We’ll know by the very early afternoon who has been overly optimistic…

Got to say, Miriam Lord’s columns this week sort of sum up my own thoughts.

The basic problem – in political terms – with this push was timing. To push this week of all weeks when the confidence motion went through is bizarre. You’d have to wonder what sort of soundings Bruton et al were taking. What possessed them to move so fast, if not particularly hard given their shuffling around and coy silence.

If they had waited a week, just a week, so that the impact of the confidence motion was demonstrated to be completely ineffective, as it always was destined to be, then they could have struck and done so decisively. The argument that the polling data and that whatever efforts in the Dáil weren’t working would have done the trick – although one suspects Kenny would have still been no more likely to leave quietly.

But wielding a knife is little good if it’s wielded half-heartedly.

Particularly, and this is perhaps the most bizarre aspect, when the supposed victim wasn’t willing to play the role of victim. And why on earth did they expect him to slink away quietly? I’ve previously noted that this seems to demonstrate a curious sense of entitlement.

So even if today Bruton wins, on some level he loses and badly.

Leo Varadkar’s performance on TV3 on Tuesday evening was curiously downbeat – perhaps he had seen the most curious performance of his chosen one the night before, a performance that surely would have had even the most hardened Endaphobe wondering whether both leading FG pols suffered from charisma deficits. But more on that below…

Not sure I entirely would agree with his line that Fianna Fáil is about blind loyalty to their leadership whereas Fine Gael are loyal to the country. Hmmm… a tad self-serving one might have thought. As was his line that the way it has happened, were it done by a cabal or elite it would be done better

Hmmm… redux. So now it’s all gone pear-shaped he backs away from the method rather than the fact.

Nice.

Indeed Varadkar’s outline of how this had all happened seemed a bit second hand and detached from the action).

Varadkar made it seem as if all this unpleasantness could have been avoided.

This is something I didn’t think was going to happen. I’m very sorry it happened but it has happened and now we have to deal with it. And there’s never a wrong time to make the right decision.

At this point the Irish Daily Mail correspondent noted that Bruton was being pushed by others to act… and that while Leo says he’s not one of them, and then she shrugged (and if he wasn’t part of it how odd that he name-checked Brian and Simon later on).

But Varadker’s line was equally interesting on the events that took place.

A precipitation of events occurred…and Richard Bruton on this show and others failed to express full confidence in Enda Kenny. That could have been let pass but Enda Kenny insisted that he come out publicly and support him. Richard declined to do that and then he was sacked.

It could have been let pass? Really?

Then at the front bench meeting .. weren’t allowed to discuss the issue. A motion of no confidence was caused.

So, they came out because the front bench weren’t allowed to discuss this?

That’s also a very self-serving version of the history given that it has been admitted that the nine met before hand.

I’m a bit surprised that hasn’t been picked up.

Mind you perhaps there’s method in Varadkers madness given that the latest rumours posit a ‘compromise’ candidate who might emerge from the wreckage. A nation turns its hungry eyes towards someone who can bind up the wounds in FG… no, not you Kenny, though.

Or perhaps the enormity of what has taken place has begun to sink in. That by doing this they’ve not demonstrated ruthless but understandable electoral efficiency, but quite the opposite, an appallingly ill-managed and inept performance that at the least should call into question the supposed political economic and managerial genius that is only waiting to be unleashed.

Again the woman from the Daily Mail summed it up neatly.

This is the point about a heave in the first place… although FF have dipped so unbelievably low they can still teach FG a thing or two about timing. And it’s very unedifying for FG Hugely damaging for the party and it’s hard to see how they’ll get over this on the doors, it’s the type of thing that gives the electorate the jitters.

Of course what all this points to is a curious hesitancy amongst those hardy souls who were absolutely convinced that the problems facing Fine Gael, and focused on Enda Kenny, were existential to act as if the problems actually were existential.

Or to put it a different way, if it were so damned necessary to chuck Kenny through the window to save the party why didn’t they do just that rather than hanging around waiting for someone, anyone, to act.

The Government is delighted, one person close enough to it suggested to me that ‘this is great, for once the story isn’t about us’…

Oh, in a way it is you know. It really is.