Clock ticking for Micheál Martin

 

That was three months ago and becalmed on 22% they remain. Hard to believe Fianna Fáil could have made such a mess of the ongoing garda controversies but they currently sit somewhere below failing to capitalise.  Niall Collins has all the authority of someone explaining why he should be let to the disco while the overall strategy of all-out personalisation on the Minister for Justice hasn’t washed with anyone.

Fianna Fáil have completely misjudged the public mood and much of that is because people recognise that the bugging, framing, tapping and penalty point wiping is just the latest in a familiar and never ending story that Fianna Fáil themselves are part and parcel of. To top it off, the government’s shambolic efforts in a way only serve to remind people of Fianna Fáil.

Difficult to read Avril Power yesterday as anything other than a very public broadside on party management. Fianna Fáil need the vote of women, particularly Dublin women and when not making up most of the abortion vote red dots they have been very keen to stress new found feminist credentials. The picture Power paints is efforts of the party’s only visible female rep going ignored.

Such public criticism of the leader is at least one new departure for Fianna Fáil but failure to attract female candidates is only one part of fraught few months of selection. Local and national press has been full of muttering about head office, nothing new in the run up to elections but it is the kind disgruntlement that was easier contain when the party was doing well.

A good clutch of seats in May may only appear so after 2009 loses. The top down manner of selections gives Martin the opportunity to install fresh acolytes but dissenting ranks will be added too and it cannot be long before the party will be put first. Failure to achieve anything approaching even cosmetic ‘renewal’ almost insures it.