Political World
Cabinet reshuffle opts for safety over real surprises
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
I wrote last week about the perils of predictions – and then went on to predict that the new Cabinet would be announced by the time the column appeared.
How wrong could I be; I should really have known that it never works out like that.
Last week panned out like Tom Crean and Ernest Shackleton heading across the Antarctic. “And on the fifth day, we finally saw it…South Georgia and Pat Rabbitte sloping off into the distance.”
The Coalition now has about 20 months to turn the ship and avoid that massive iceberg that will hit around the spring of 2016.
Is there enough the change of line-up and in the ten-page document on political priorities to avoid a repeat of the drubbing both parties took in the local elections in May?
Naturally, the changes in Labour were more profound. The party has a new leader and a new team. All of the old guard were driven out, even though Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte had some expectations they might be retained.
But Burton (older than both) said the membership has spoken and the class of 2011 needed its day. And so along with deputy leader Alan Kelly, Alex White was also promoted.
It was always a racing certainty that Burton would promote a second woman. The only surprise was that it was Jan O’Sullivan rather than Kathleen Lynch. Time may show that it was a strategic mistake consigning the very able and articulate Rabbitte to the dung heap. But then, if he was retained, Burton would have been accused of having been too conservative.
On the Fine Gael side, those who have no expectations are never disappointed. It’s well known that Kenny is very conservative when it comes to shake-ups and reshuffles.
His experience was tempered by the 1980s when Garret FitzGerald tried to effect a radical reshuffle and it backfired spectacularly, when several Ministers (including health minister Barry Desmond) refused to budge.
There was a feeling that Kenny might not fire anybody, with Alan Shatter’s resignation two months ago an excuse not to act. There was also talk that Michael Noonan visited Kenny after returning from Brussels last week and talked Deenihan back into the starting fifteen (Noonan later denied this).
As it transpired, Deenihan was the only casualty of the ten Fine Gael Ministers. And then he wasn’t exactly fired but demoted to the sub’s bench where a new junior ministry was created for him. He has responsibility for the Diaspora and for the 1916 commemoration which sounds a little bit like Lionel Messi getting the gong for being the best player at the World Cup.
There’s a debate about whether or not reshuffles make any real difference, other than give the incumbent Government a bit of a boost that withers away with time. The problem with radical reshuffles is that they can backfire – sometimes spectacularly.
The obvious example is that of the long knives in January 2011 when Brian Cowen essentially arranged for the resignation of almost all Fianna Fáil members of Cabinet in an attempt to bring in new blood. His close advisers thought it was a great idea.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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