Contrived?

IEL had a very interesting point here in comments about the FF leadership, where he noted that the only place that FF could train its guns was SF and some of the smaller parties, whereas they were locked into government with the old enemy and unable to lay a hand on them. So small wonder that reports such as this emerge:

The Taoiseach Micheal Martin has renewed his criticism of Sinn Féin at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party tonight.

He told TDs, Senators and MEPs that Sinn Féin was “consistently” negative and “cynically” exploiting matters in the Dáil.

Earlier Mr Martin accused the Sinn Féin leader of taking every opportunity to tell “untruths”.

All this seems a bit overdone. Isn’t it SF’s function as opposition party and largest one at that, and in political terms, to criticise the government? And the ‘untruths’? Well, difficult to quite understand what Martin’s complaint was. McDonald’s criticism were certainly swinging, but hardly more so than any any of us have heard down the years from various quarters including FF.

But as IEL notes this approach by FF doesn’t necessarily land quite so well with the public at large. And while it’s clearly contrived, there’s a certain edge to Martin’s criticisms that suggest this is something he’s more than happy and willing to do. But simultaneously it comes across as his denigrating SF’s right to criticise, full stop. I don’t know if that’s a happy place for FF to be in. Not difficult to see people getting mighty tired of that sooner rather than later. And there’s the small inconvenience that SF gained more votes than FF at the election too and essentially the same number of seats. Indeed not difficult to see people beginning to see the superheated criticism as born of anxiety, perhaps even fear, and the current polling for FF is dire, rather than coming from a place of strength. And perhaps that is fear, and the recognition that it is necessary to keep FF’s more ambitious (or those simply worried at the prospect of political catastrophe looming ahead) backbenchers at bay.

So this may be a tactic that cannot be elevated to a strategy without the likelihood of political blow-back sooner or later.

As for FG, they must be delighted with themselves. Who wouldn’t be in their situation?