By Matt Cooper

Friday, October 08, 2010

ENDA Kenny should run for President instead of Taoiseach. That could solve a lot of problems for him, for his party and for his country.

Kenny must wonder what would become of him should he have to step down as leader of Fine Gael, something that remains a very real possibility notwithstanding his successful defence of the position during the summer.

If Kenny is to be persuaded to step down as FG leader — and there are many within the party who would still really like him to do so but who are not prepared to attempt another heave after the summer’s botched effort — some compensation, in the form of a meaningful job, is likely to be required to save face as much as anything else.

Without gainful other employment, would he become the FG equivalent of former Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern who has become an embarrassment to his party with his hanging out with vegetables in a cupboard as part of a TV advertisement for a tabloid newspaper?

Or, as has happened with Labour, would he take on another senior role with his own party, much as Pat Rabbitte and Ruairí Quinn have done, or indeed as Michael Noonan has done recently again within FG, providing a useful precedent?

Or would he become an Alan Dukes figure, taking on a role outside of politics that provokes hostile reaction from within his own party, or would he become like Garret Fitzgerald, so detached as to make some wonder if he really is that committed to FG at all now?

Or would he be like Liam Cosgrave, who has been almost invisible since standing down as party leader in 1977 after his term as Taoiseach — and who has drawn a massive pension ever since?

You can’t see Kenny as a newspaper columnist — either on economics/politics like Fitzgerald or sports like Ahern — and the queue of publishers wanting to put his memoirs into print might not be long or offering much money either. Nor does he have the type of expertise upon which Dukes — a qualified economist — draws for life outside of politics. And, of course, Kenny would not have a significant ministerial pension upon which to draw, having served for only about 30 months as minister during the 1990s.

In any case it isn’t just a financial matter. Kenny is clearly energetic at the very least and needs the buzz of political involvement, even though he might find it hard to deal with the emotions of stepping down as FG leader, especially after doing so much to lift it off the floor of the 2002 general election. It could be that he would do a deal with a new leader of FG to become a minister in the new government, perhaps at some prestigious office such as the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Or he could secure agreement that he would be the FG nominee for next year’s presidential election. That might be a very good idea.

When FG and Labour hammer out their coalition deal — and where FG might find itself the junior partner because of a voter swing to the third party of Irish politics — provision could be found that the coalition would nominate just one candidate.

This assumes of course that the general election has taken place over the next 12 months, but if it hasn’t, then this country is even sadder than anyone thought. If that nomination was to be of a FG person there are few stronger options than Kenny. That would mean disappointment for Michael D Higgins and Fergus Finlay in Labour, but if FF could also be persuaded not to make a contest of the presidential election — and I’d be willing to bet that by the time November 2011 comes around contesting this election would be one of the last things FF would want — then a deal could be done.

Whatever about the public not wanting Kenny as Taoiseach — and this is what the opinion polls say consistently — I doubt if most would have any real problem with him serving as president. While the profile of the job may have improved since 1990 it hardly ranks in the list of political priorities at present.

One problem, however, is that he has shown no willingness to step down — and another is that FG doesn’t seem to have anyone capable of transforming the party’s fortunes in becoming leader.

Be that as it may, what seems clear is that should he step down FG may have a better chance of leading the next government under a new leader. The question is whether Kenny is prepared to put the party and the country ahead of his own career options?

Read More: http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/matt-cooper/theres-one-face-saving-way-out-of-fg-for-kenny-the-presidency-132889.html#ixzz11j1ZqPVc

I believe that Fine Gael’s bank policy and recovery jobs policy (Richard Bruton’s website) is clearly better worked out, safer, realistic and more likely to work. I would have acted to guarantee BoI and AIB on 30 september 2008 had I been forced to make the choice at that time and in those circumstances. I thought that Labour was simply wrong then and Nothing has changed my mind. Just read Professor Honohan’s report and make up yopur own mind.

However, Fine Gael should not have fallen in with Fianna Fail so comprehensively at the time. My dog “Fluffy” would have objected to lying down with Anglo Irish Bank. Systemic? No, Professor Honohan, No! Fine Gael’s subsequent policy position is light years ahead of Labour and Fianna Fail. Matt Cooper addresses a numerical conundrum for those who have particular confidence in Noonan, Bruton, Varadkar, Coveney, O’Dowd and Hogan in comparison to Joan and company. I have confidence in Pat Rabbitte and Ruairi Quinn who are economically literate.

The realisation among the public that Brian Lenihan has been a disaster in Finance is slowly becoming apparent. Gormley’s call for a national government is laughable. Call and election John and see if you beat the odds! Gormley’s problems will be Ruairi Quinn, LucyLoo, Clever Andrews and Kevin Humphries. The Incinerator will be built and the issue forgotten about in 18 months. John you will be gored by a bulling electorate.

Matt Cooper’s musings in the Irish Examiner on the Enda Kenny issue are interesting. Enda has worked magnificently for years and does not deserve the shredding he got recently in the Sunday Independent. But as a putative Taoiseach, there is a public interest in Enda that transends the interests of Fine Gael. I hear it everywhere I go. It is the same refrain for years only gathering pace. Can Mark Mortell change the game? This is a very serious issue for Ireland.

We need to grow the economy to close the budget deficit. The national indigenous economy is still contracting or at best standing still. Bruton, Varadkar and Rabbitte – may be able to get things going. I hope so. More to come.

This piece is from An Spailpin Fanach.

Enda Kenny is quoted as saying that he is not in favour of a second Tallaght strategy – Alan Dukes’ decision to support the Charlie Haughey minority government of 1987 in its policy of fiscal rectitude – because Fine Gael “suffered at the polls as a consequence” of the first Tallaght strategy.

But is that true? Fine Gael had 50 seats on 27.1% of the vote after the 1987 election. In the 1989 election, Fine Gael won 55 seats on 29.3% of the vote.

So the electorate rewarded Fine Gael in the immediate aftermath of the Tallaght Strategy. The popular vote increased by 2.2% and the Fine Gael seat total increased by five. That’s a positive result.

Fine Gael got hammered in the next election after, 1992, when it lost ten seats and dropped to 24.5% of the popular vote, but they can’t really blame that on the Tallaght Strategy. Fine Gael threw Alan Dukes overboard after they lost the 1990 Presidential election to Mary Robinson and ditched his Tallaght Strategy along with him. John Bruton, Richard’s brother, was in charge by 1992.

Fine Gael got rid of a leader who gained them seats and votes in the 1989 general election for one who lost them seats and votes in the 1992 general election. That is Fine Gael’s Tallaght Strategy legacy. They didn’t know a good thing when they had it.

This is not the only time in this generation that Fine Gael have been unable to interpret their own electoral numbers. If anything, 2002 was the greater psephological disaster.

Michael Noonan endured eight years of odium for the 2002 election result until his recent rehabilitation in the party – and that only came about by accident too – but that interpretation has always been unfair on Noonan. The party’s percentage of the popular vote dropped to 22.5% under Noonan in 2002 but the fall of 5.4 percentage points from their 1997 total resulted in an utterly disproportionate loss of seats.

While Fine Gael only lost ten seats on a 4.8 percentage point drop in support in 1992, the year of the Spring tide, they lost 31, more than three times as many, for a 5.8 percentage point drop in 2002, even though there’s only one percentage point in the difference.

There is a reason for this. The Irish electoral system is unfair. It not nearly as proportional as it claims.

The multi-seat nature of the constituencies means that a small tremor in the popular vote can result in an earthquake when it works its way through the local rivalries and the cute-as-you-like vote sharing and constituency dividing that the nation considers so vital to our national politics.

The corollary of 2002 happened in 2007, when Enda Kenny’s increase of only 4.8 percentage points of the popular vote, from 22.5% to 27.3%, saw Fine Gael increase its seat total by 20, from 31 to 51, an increase in seats gained that was out of proportion to the increase in votes won.

The result of 2007 was just as disproportionate in terms of popular vote versus seats as 2002 had been, but Fine Gael chose to ignore it because it worked their way in 2007. They are paying the consequences of that decision now, as bumbling conspirators again dream of a bloodless decapitation.

But the greater error was Fine Gael’s jettisoning of the Tallaght Strategy twenty years ago. Because they did not suffer from the adoption of the Tallaght Strategy in the first place, Fine Gael gained no advantage in dumping it.

Had they continued, Fine Gael would now be able to claim twenty years of a high moral ground when the standing of politicians has never been lower. And they could have, because the evidence is there as outlined above.

For the main opposition party to be so very poor at doing their own sums or exercising self-knowledge does not bode well for the nation at a time of deep and dark crisis.