Politicians seek the perfect wave – not a political storm

Political World with Harry McGee

The calculation used by politicians is a little like that used by surfers when they paddle their boards out into the sea – they know conditions could be fine but they’re still hanging on until the perfect wave comes along.

So how do they know which one it is? Well it’s a combination of skill and timing and a bit of luck. But if all of the conditions fall into place, they can get up onto the crest and surf that wave all the way home.

Timing is a key factor in politics too, knowing if the time is right to start paddling furiously or if it’s better to wait for a better wave to come along.

Take Fianna Fáil. If Brian Cowen had been a cuter politician (but not necessarily a better citizen) he could have called a snap election in 2008 or early 2009. The chances are that Fianna Fáil would have lost that election and gone into opposition.

But the net effect would have been that they would have left a Fine Gael coalition take most the brunt of the hurricane that was welling up. While not getting away scot free the party would have been in a far stronger position for the next election than the much reduced entity of 2011.

So what about Fine Gael and Labour? Well, the expectations for both parties were low. To listen to some commentators you’d think that they took us out of the sewer and threw us all into the swamp.

There have been some remarkable achievements. The Troika is gone. We are no longer in a bailout programme. There is growth in the economy (last year’s figures were tremendous but many not be maintained).

For the first time in five years, there is more money – however slight – in many people’s pockets. The State can borrow money at rates only slightly higher than that for Germany, the EU’s most solid performer.

And yet, it’s getting in the neck. Tánaiste Joan Burton may be telling us that the recovery is real but the reality is that its effects are not trickling down to ordinary people.

At an earlier stage, the phrase ‘jobless recovery’ was being bandied about, to explain why the economy was growing but no jobs were being created (what seems like technical treatment of export figures was responsible for that). It hasn’t been helped by the fact that there were a couple of nasty stings in the tail that came out of the Troika years – namely the water charges and the lingering resistance to the property tax.

On the face of it, it is astounding that people seemed to be willing to grin and bear it (well, whinge a little bit) during the worst years, but as soon as things get better, the parties with the strongest anti-austerity messages have got huge purchase.

Why is that? It’s possibly because people are now saying we are told that things are getting better and we have made huge sacrifices. But I don’t see any evidence of it and now with new charges, I am reaching the end of my tether.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.