How to lose friends and alienate everyone…

…is it unfair to suggest that FF has offered something of a master class in this over the past week or so? I can’t be the only one to be mystified by their course of action. Faced with a deeply unpopular administration – or former administration, somehow they’ve managed to see sentiment shift against them, and substantially. And to what purpose? I’d wondered – vaguely – in the run up to yesterday’s vote in the Dáil whether FF had somehow organised some covert alliances, that come the vote for Taoiseach Martin would gain, say seven or eight Independent TD votes. But no. The action, not great action, was on the other side of the fence, with Fine Gael picking up one extra Independent vote. That’s a whole different story.

Apparently we’re just at the point, seven odd weeks, for the longest period without a government – quite an achievement.

Speaking of FG, their ‘none more reasonable’ stance is extremely entertaining. There was Leo Varadkar on the news yesterday saying that and FG-minority government would ‘accept some of FF’s policies’. Just like that! They don’t even have to do anything, just say this or that or the other and they come out – for many – seeming to be the voice of sweet reason.

Rhetorically there was a shift overnight, with support for an FG led minority government. But even that seems so contingent, so unclear…not least because

…Fianna Fáil parliamentary party members expressed some concerns.

Many said a Fine Gael led minority government would have to secure 58 votes to make it viable.

Several members expressed a view that a written document should not be agreed with Fine Gael.

Instead many believe the party should support the minority government on a case-by-case basis, which is a situation unlikely to be accepted by Fine Gael.

Why though have FF made such a mess? Is it that they are too locked into a mindset that somehow they won the election on some level, or a sense that they are as entitled to lead a minority government despite the numbers being completely off for that outcome, or a sense that just one more push and they’d win sufficient seats to make it possible for them to win? All that? More?

Meanwhile according to the IT Joan Burton is trying to get the LP back in government, something that FF find’s entirely unacceptable.

However, a Fianna Fáil source said it would not support a minority Fine Gael government if Labour was in coalition with them.
“Why would we support the re-election of the previous government when we fought the election to remove them from government? We just would not do it.”

Though by that logic…