Lucyloo and Enda – Bill says COOL IT

The PJ Mara School of Irish Politics dictates

Una duce Una voce
No More Nibbling at my leader’s bum.

But Il Duce should realise (and did) that

Sometimes it pays to listen to the message even if you dismiss the
messenger.

Keep in mind the cult of the leader. In Catholic countries the cult of the
leader lead to fascism in the 20th century. Franco – Spain, Mussolini –
Italy, Hitler – Germany and Ustashe leader Pavelic in Croatia. Then is
Protestant and Orthodox countries the cult of the leader was obvious during
communism – Russia from Lenin onwards, East Germany – Honecker,Kadar in Hungary, Ceausescu in Romania, Novotny in Czechoslovakia. Catholic Poland had Gomulka. Greece had the Colonels.  

In other words, democracy is a precious flower under threat always from
centres of power.

In the modern age, political parties have difficulty attracting members and
then trying to organise in such a way that policy development is not the
preserve of an inner clique. That is in practice a difficult objective to
achieve especially when there are catch-all parties which contain people
with widely differing views across most social and economic areas.

Because Irish politics has become more presidential mainly as a result of
the dominance of some individual leaders and the influence of television,
that leader person has attained an additional importance. However if the
steeply rising eduational attainment of the population is considered, it is
clear that the people will not be patronized by cliched catch phrases and
mediocrity.

Now to Fine Gael – the question for the party is – Is there space for
dissent? What is the position of dissidents within the party? If there is
no public dissent then there will never be pressure for change. The more
dissidents are suppressed, the narrower the party becomes and there will be
less inclination for young people to join. Remember in Garret’s
hayday,social issues caused runctions within all three main parties.

A singular point of Enda Kenny’s achievements has been to lead and direct
the party to focus on the election at hand. He also induced the development
of new policies – NewEra, NewPolitics, Health etc. These are on the Fine
Gael website. The effects of policy change will be seen when implemented.
This will take a change of government and then negotiation. I believe a
strength of Kenny is his ability to get people to do their jobs.

Personally, I NEVER accept dictation. Every policy should be scrutinised
for accuracy and plausability in a systematic fashion. NEVER cash in your
critical faculties. That is the purpose of education. If a policy is found
to be wanting in some aspects, then it should be immediately amended.

John Barton and myself could claim to be relatively well informed on
healtyh policy and on medicine itself. I was uninvolved in the genesis of
FG health policy. As far as I know, neither was John. Some people might
consider that a plus as they may detest me or John of both of us. Others
may contend that we have a conflict of interest being consultants in a
public hospital. If that is so, then Dr James Reilly is at a minimum in the
same position. I will confess to have been involved with Labour Health
policy with Dick Spring in the 1982 negotiations with Dr Garret FitzGerald.
That government remains my favourite for characters. I still think that
Ruairi Quinn should have been there instead of Liam Kavanagh.

So whither lies dissent?

Lucinda clearly has my RESPECT.

Enda has my support as LEADER and also my RESPECT.

I LIKE both of them.

So lets do a Steve McQueen and take some time out in the cooler.

Enda, Lucyloo – Bill says Cool It.

LUCYLOO is of an age where she can join the CHUCKIES (tiocfaith ar la)ie
wait.

For Enda and myself (59 and counting) THE TIME IS NOW.