Irish Politics: An Occasional Guide
" Feck the Brits. We choose to rule ourselves. After all, how hard can it be? And what's Dev doing with that sniper rifle?" Michael Collins, 1921.
The Fianna Fail Activist
Curiously for a member of the largest party in the country, the Fianna Fail activist isn’t interested in politics. Not in the academic sense. To him, you’re either in or out, winning or losing, and all that other stuff is for schmarter fellas than him. Politics is about people, in that you help, or get helped by your own, and you shaft the others, putting the bastards into the ground for the good of the country. And that’s the running mate’s people we’re talking about. Never mind the Fine Gael and the Labour and all them others, the fact is, there’s a single Fianna Fail seat in every constituency in the country, and the biggest threat to your fella getting it is that other robbing tinker who packed the convention to get on the ticket and shafted the deputy’s cousin who’s a lovely girl and should have got a run out at least to give her a heads up for the locals!
He does have principles. He’s all for a united Ireland, especially at closing time, and he was against contraception and divorce and the gays and the cutbacks until he was told he was in favour of them. He won’t have a bad word said against Charlie, on account of him shaking his hand as he walked by the activist when he was waiting 9 hours in A&E with that heart murmur. He doesn’t remember seeing Charlie waiting that long, or even sitting down in A&E, but still. A Man of the People to be sure. Sure didn’t he keep waving even when that man collapsed after those two drunks started fighting with the drug addict? And the single nurse started screaming for help? Charlie kept waving, regardless of how fast his car was speeding away, God bless him
THE FINE GAEL ACTIVIST
She didn’t really like Garrett, as he was a bit too metropolitan for her tastes, but Liam Cosgrave, who knew his way around a hunt Meet, and where he stood on law and order, now that was a leader. And that flat Dublin accent……she’s always had a secret hankering for a little bit of Dublin rough.
THE AMATEUR OPINION POLL SPINNER.
He’s the bore to beat all bores, the one who extrapolates election results down to the last seat in the Feckerstown ward even though the election is 17 years away.
But it gets worse. Not only is he a moron, he’s a partisan moron. If his party is up a fraction of a percent, he declares as fact that his party could run a rotting headless corpse in a given seat and still have a surplus quota. But if the party drops an iota, the poll is immediately dismissed as an abberation, not comparing like with like, obviously rigged by the pollsters who are of course in the pockets of the other crowd.
He’s on Politics.ie at the sniff of a poll, cheerleading for his crowd and fingerpointing at the others, racking up posts the way, well, proper political activists rack up first preferences for their candidate.
Still, could be worse. At least he’s at home out of harm’s way, rather than sitting on the bus beside you and overwhelming you with a toxic wave of body odour and Monster Munch as he flicks through Nealon’s Guide to the 1987 general election and sweats.
THE DEPUTY “WHOSE SEAT IS GONE.”
You’ll see him about 18 months before the expected election, fidgeting and wild-eyed. Questions about poster quantities to be ordered trigger a manic response: “ Posters? Sure why bother? The dogs in the streets know it. The. Seat. Is. Gone.”
“Everybody” knows that your man, that Shinner, is a dead cert to take the seat.
“ A dead cert. Why are we even bothering to have the election? We might as well just award him the seat. Sure, I’m surprised he hasn’t got a running mate for a run at the last seat.”
The deputy can be seen slinking slope shouldered into old folks homes, sighing and pondering as to how the constituency, whom he has loyally served for twenty years, could vote for a fella who used to blow up people. And what about his running mate? Sure what does he need two quotas for anyway? The old dears console him with a chocolate digestive and a nice sit down.
Of course, he runs a full campaign, but not to win, perish the thought, sure that’s impossible. He’s just running to keep the party flag flying, really. Only in Ireland does a candidate brag about how badly he’s doing, but not too badly.
He grudgingly accepts, without anyone actually asking him the question, that he supposes it could be possible that he might squeeze into the fifth seat on the nineteenth count without reaching the quota if it were a nice day, and all the people he’s helped through the years turned out, but that the Shinner probably “ has it all locked up, with military precision.” He says ominously.
The day after polling day, the deputy comfortably takes the second seat on the third count, but assures everyone that it is a dead cert that this is the last time he’ll hold the seat, no doubt about it. His “safe as houses” running mate’s vote collapses and he loses his seat.
THE LABOUR PARTY.
If there was a physical mannerism for every party, Labour’s would be a shrug of despair. To Labour, things just aren’t right. The health service is in shite, housing is either too dear, too small, or in Mullingar, and trying to get anywhere is like the retreat from Moscow.Labour are actually the oldest of the three main parties, but spent their early years trying to raise class issues when every one else was busy punching Englishmen in the back of the head, and never quite managed to catch up. The big difference with Labour and the other parties is that Labour believes that feelings should count more than money. Labour give the impression that everything could be solved if only the government cared as much as they did, and voted to abolish homelessness, poverty, war, death, days when you just feel fat, and that pain that takes a few “Oh no!” seconds to arrive after you stub your toe.
In fairness, they are thoughtful, honest and responsible for most of the liberal social reforms Ireland has seen in the last 20 years, including divorce and gay rights. They used to believe in taxing the shit out of anything that moved. They still do, but smartened up to the fact that no one else does.
Their hopes in 2007 had been to put the rogueish Fianna Fail out, and settle down with that nice and sensible but boring Enda. But now they’re getting on a bit, and becoming afraid of being left forever on the opposition shelf smelling of cat piss, and so have started showing FF a bit of skin. In short, Labour is willing to put out on a first date.
Handsome in a bland kind of way, he resembles a male model wearing drip dry shirts in a safety wear catalogue. He was never interested in politics, but everyone knew the old man and it was just assumed, and sure enough, when the father moved on, the party moved in. It was the wife who made the decision, and runs the campaign, and, let’s be honest, has the political brain, and should really be the candidate, but she didn’t have the pedigree, and in this party, pedigree is everything.He was comfortably elected first time out, and the wife and his father’s old secretary keep the constituency ticking and a life in his father’s shadow allows his brain to pump out trite, harmless nonsense at the drop of a microphone. He has earnestly declared that he passionately believes in a “world class health service” and “protecting the weakest in our society.” as well as, one assumes, gravity, the North Atlantic, and the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun.
He was asked once as to whether he was ideologically more disposed towards higher taxation or alternatively, spending cuts, and he’d had to lie down in a dark room for a week.
Given his absolute blandness, one wonders as to whether there actually is any real passion behind those dull eyes. It is, of course, quite possible that he pays to be dressed up in tights, suspenders and a bra, tied to a rocking horse and spanked by a woman dressed as an SS Gauleiter, but it’s very unlikely. He’d need an imagination to do that.
The Tesco “Whatever you’re buying, we’re selling” Party. Fianna Fail were doing the middle way when Tony Blair was a member of CND. Political Acrobats to a man. Founded by Dev in 1927 with a vision of a barefoot, pregnant maiden dancing a jig at every crossroads, there was a time when FF’s leaders used to consult with the archbishops (The clergy, not the 70s funk band.) before making decisions, or lectured the rest of us on the evils of contraception as their party leader worked his way through so much of the nation’s illicit condom supply that he pretty much stank of burnt rubber. Now the party of the municipal interchange shoe-free maternity policy takes out ads in gay magazines. Supple or what?
Their policy platform, being the government, is More Of The Same. They’re now a low tax party, but given the speed at which they changed from being a high tax party, don’t hold them to that.
Big beliefs? A united Ireland, but not quite yet and preferably with someone else putting their hand into their arse pocket for it. And stuff. They’re big into stuff. If you meet an FF canvasser on the door, ask him is he in favour of anything, and he’ll say Yes. Or No. Depending on the cut of your jib.
The Fianna Fail core objective is, as always, to stay comfortably ensconced around the Cabinet table. Every thing else is up for trade. To Fianna Fail, a policy is something you claim on when your ceiling leaks.
Loyalty used to be the big thing with Fianna Fail, but with the downturn and the realisation that they can’t throw other people’s money at their constituents, don’t be surprised if you see a load of Fianna Failers running for election wearing false moustaches and talking about that “awful crowd runnin’ the country. Sure somethin’ should be done about them!”
