Acts of contrition

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael made a right dogs dinner of the last week or so. Fine Gael on balance more so, but Fianna Fáil didn’t cover themselves in glory. And SF who moved the confidence motion process in the first place (though found themselves outflanked by FF) can only reap limited rewards.

First up Fine Gael whose bloodyminded obduracy in all this was a sight to behold. Leo Varadkar today is a very different Leo Varadkar from two weeks ago. All he had to do was to keep in mind that toughing it out – when the material circumstances are so fractious and the person he is toughing it out for is being somewhat circumspect as to pertinent aspects of the situation – is never a good move. And yet on he went. As did others in FG. It says nothing good about his judgement and potentially knocks support away from that party just when matters were on the up. It was a very contrite Taoiseach we saw yesterday afternoon at Leader’s Questions/

Worse still is the sense that had the latest batch of emails not come out we might be facing into an election over this. That’s not a good perception.

But then that is precisely the perception in relation to FF. That they were willing to go to the wire and across it over this issue. With an electorate gazing in bafflement and increasing anger at the likelihood of an election at Christmas (and so relatively early in this government and its leader’s tenure) that is something that will I suspect dog it on the doorsteps. Granted this is a political win for them – a Tánaiste. And that too will have implications. But…

It would be slightly unfair to say that everyone else was irrelevant in this, but they largely were. In a way what was notable was how conspicuous by their absence other voices were – a function in part of much of this happening over the weekend.

I’d been dubious that an election would be called from the off. Frankly the temperatures both daytime and nighttime struck me as far too cold for any snap campaign. Don’t laugh, that’s a factor, not least in terms of weighing up whether it is sensible to arrive at voters doors. But also there seemed to be too much positioning and assuming poses in all this on all sides. Unedifying, but there we have it. Which isn’t to say the Tánaiste was wrong to resign. Anything but. Her position was arguably untenable from the middle of last week. That it took so long for that to sink in for her and her colleagues tells us something very interesting about Fine Gael as is.

And what of the future? The polls – the most recent one anyhow, had already showed a reversal of fortune for FG and FF. I wonder is this a watershed moment for them where they jumped too soon and too fast without heed for the consequences. It really does raise the question what on earth was Varadkar in particular thinking, but also Martin. This from RTÉ is telling:

A senior Fianna Fail TD said that his party was not wholly certain of its ground last Thursday ahead of demanding the Tánaiste’s resignation.
“We had a hunch that Alan Kelly had a very good ‘mole’ and that more would come out.” But there was no certainty about that.
There was a view that Leo Varadkar performed well on the Six One News on Friday night and set out a plausible event. However, the outcome of the full trawl of documents was a game-changer, according to everybody.

It’s all a bit wing and a prayer isn’t it?

By the by, how does this affect government formation in future? Can’t see many Christmas cards heading AK’s way from FG. And while the point was made on RTÉ that the current arrangement is not a function of trust between FG and FF but rather expedience it can’t have helped. And within the coalition – such as it is, clearly the IA’s withdrawal of support for the Tánaiste was key too. How does that affect matters?

And yet, and yet, if those polls remain low it is very difficult – for all the hot air from some FGers about campaigns changing party support – to see a break for the country immediately. Whose interest is it in if the situation on foot of this crisis leads to even worse outcomes than those pointed to by Adrian Kavanagh’s projections.

Mary Lou McDonald argued that the confidence and supply arrangement was a ‘sham’ and there’d be an election soon. But what if the electorate don’t particularly want an election? They certainly don’t seem to to judge from all reports. And why would that change substantially in April or May?

Does it become a case that unloved and unlovely this arrangement totters on for months, perhaps a year or so, simply because there is no great alternative? And for all the talk that confidence and supply is over if there is no alternative – indeed even the prospect of same old same old after another near future election what happens to Irish politics. The most immediate response in that regard short minutes after the resignation was this and it suggests that this is not the GP prior to early 2011 walking away leaving FF hanging in the air:

Fianna Fail’s finance spokesperson Michael McGrath has said the confidence and supply agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine  Gael remains in place even though it has  been stretched “to the boundaries”.
He said the Tánaiste’s resignation has not been confirmed to him, but it looks like her departure is immient and therefore  the motion of no confidence will not proceed.

Well, he’s right. But the politics may be wrong. We’ll see. Though perhaps the tweet on the RTÉ thread directly after was the most telling and points to the immediate future.

Fiach Kelly‏Verified account @fiachkelly

What betting on Simon Coveney for Tánaiste and Josepha Madigan for Cabinet?
4:01 AM – 28 Nov 2017

Life, political life, goes on. Some will count it better to be at the Cabinet table than pounding the streets just before or just after Christmas. Strike that – some will always count it better to be at the Cabinet table at any given time.

David Cullinane perhaps struck the most important note in coverage after the resignation, that at heart this is about a citizen who was suffered the accusation of ‘a vicious lie, the most vicious lie’ and that the state or state entities appear to have been involved in this. That’s what has to be remembered in all this.