INSIDE POLITICS - LABOUR PAINS

JIMMY SANDS we will never forget you, went the joke about the status of the 1981 hunger strike in Irish history.


That joke was always a bit of a cheap shot and I suppose it is an even cheaper shot to start a peroration (oops Pat Rabbitte is no longer there), ahem, an argument on the future of the Labour Party.

As he prepares to give his first leader’s address to his party’s national conference (and his preparation was thrown off kilter by the death of his mother, Celia, this week) Eamon Gilmore has two major problems as leader of the Labour Party.




The first one is organisation. The second is even more challenging. To put it in highly technical political terms: Eamon who?

Gilmore faces the same mountainous journey that Enda Kenny faced in 2002 when he became leader of Fine Gael. Outside the Dáil, outside Ireland’s political beltway, Gilmore is unknown. Not quite like Kenny, who to borrow Rummy’s famous phrase was an “unknown unknown” (ie we didn’t know him and we didn’t know if he was any good). Those of us who watch him for a living know Gilmore’s ability. But the question is can he make it stick with all those who don’t watch him for a living and whose only real interaction with him is shoving a piece of paper into a box every five years.

Of course, this particular conference — time-wise — is a bit of a mistake. It was organised at a time when Labour believed it would be in government and that Pat Rabbitte would be Tánaiste. None of those eventualities came to pass. And a new leader, for whom it is too early to begin to build up profile, will tonight address a party for which it’s much too early to build up profile. It’s like a country man putting on his Sunday suit to go down and clean out the byre.

And that’s what Gilmore has been landed with this weekend.

The conference isn’t being fully televised (there’s a live stream available on the internet). There are no potential divisions (do we all take along long spoons just in case we have to sup with the de Valeras?). The meatiest motions are the usual existentialist ones — the political take on the plea from Captain McMorris in Shakespeare’s Henry V: “What ish my nation?”

And Labour will once again be embarking on an exercise asking itself what is its nation, what is its constituency, what is its identity in a fragmented society with none of the neat divisions of class that gave the party is support.

Nowadays, in south Dublin constituencies for example, the Labour Party’s base is predominantly middle class and liberal (the prawn sandwich brigade). In the north, west and south-west of the capital, its core is still blue collar workers. And down the country, there are places (Limerick, Cork, Westmeath, South Kildare, Waterford) where it still attracts a strong traditional rural and town vote, that would be more conservative in values. And then there are other places where the party has no presence at all.

And so to the heart of what this weekend is about. Sure, it was meant to be about taking stock of the new government and seeing the best way forward for Labour. The only slight glitch is that Labour isn’t a part of the Government.

And so two commissions, a Centenary Commission and a Commission for the 21st century will be formed to explore those things. I remember interviewing Pat Rabbitte about three years ago where he mulled over the direction that Tony Blair had taken the Labour Party in Britain.

Rabbitte never saw himself as a Blairite, pointing to Gordon Brown and the late John Smith (Blair’s predecessor) as personifying what he admired about Labour in Britain. Gilmore and those advising him will need to forge a strong identity and brand within the next 12 months. The test of its efficacy? When somebody asks what does Labour stand for, Gilmore and every representative of the party will be in a position to answer in one concise and simple sentence. It sounds fatuous, but it is important. People need to know what you stand for without having to listen to a thesis full of conditionalities.

And unfortunately for the opposition, Fianna Fáil has had a monopoly in that market for a decade. Who are you we ask. We are the party that governs and runs the economy, they reply.

And on that score, you begin to worry when the motion proposing one of the commissions runs to 720 words — I’m not codding you, 720 words — that’s almost as long as this column.

On an individual level, Gilmore could do worse than follow the strategy adopted by Enda Kenny. Spend the first year going around gee-ing up the party and rebuilding. Spend the second year building up your own profile. Throw everything at the local and European elections in 2009 (including all the dosh you have) to make some gains to allow you to claim electoral success. Then begin the big push for 2012.

This weekend’s conference will be the most hi-tech event hosted live by an Irish party. It’s going out live on the Labour Party site with clips being posted to YouTube. There are also blogs, online Q&A, photos on Flickr and mobile posts on Twitter. A lot has been organised by Shauneen Armstrong aka the blogger Red Mum (www.redmum.blogspot.com).

INSIDE POLITICS - LABOUR CONFERENCE

Eamon Gilmore's biggest problem is the one that Enda Kenny had when he became leader of Fine Gael.

Outside the beltway; outside his own constituency, outside Caltra and East Galway where he grew up (and is fiercely proud of - up Galway!) Gilmore is still an unknown quantity to the public out there.

His speech at the conference this weekend will be vitally important for him. He follows a very high-profile high-personality leader. He has been (unfairly) described as a clone or mini-me of Rabbitte. He has not yet established a national profile; or a 'brand' for himself - if I can use such a crude marketing expression.

And of course it has all been affected by the death of his mother this week, which has delayed his own arrival at the conference until Saturday.

Gilmore has done very well in parliament since becoming leader. He is non showy during the two key sessions of the week - Leaders Questions on Tuesday and Wednesday - and tends to ask Bertie Ahern pointed, sometimes blunt, questions, not giving the Taoiseach that much opportunity to pick the most convenient question to answer.

The main quote attributed to him on the Labour Party website sounds lovely when you say it out... but beyond its vague resonance of Martin Luther Kind does it really mean anything?

"Not only me, but others too; not only here, but elsewhere too; not only today, but tomorrow too."

Unfortunately for Labour, it's always been about tomorrow.

One thing to note about its conference (and I suspect the influence of super-blogger Shauneen Armstrong here) is that it has embraced technology like no other. Ustream, YouTube, flicker, twitter, online Q and A - you name it, it's there. It's going to be more exciting on the screen than it's going to be in real life down in White's Hotel! For more details of all the online stuff, see here.

And just to get in the spirit of things, my own blog will be chugging along on Saturday, and giving instantaneous (ie discount it immediately!) reaction to Gilmore's speech as it happens!

INSIDE POLITICS - POLLS APART

The Wexford Echo is running a poll today, conducted by Red C.

The surprise are at both extremes. John Browne is his county's answer to Michael Ring. Despite being a junior minister, he is ubiquitous - at funerals, weddings and barmitzvahs! He told me a couple of years ago that his constituency office deals with 14,000 pieces of correspondence each year.

It is, therefore, not surprising that he is the likely poll topper this time round as he was in 2002. But what's flabbergasting is his showing in the poll. 30 per cent! That's double what he got five years ago. Now the last time I looked at Browne he hadn't unveiled hitherto concealed superhero powers or disclosed that he was putting his name forward as the next leader of FF.

So why the jump. If you look at the local constituency polls done so far, you see the leading contenders getting massive showings of support (Mayo, Galway West and Dublin Central are cases in point). It suggests that voters have not yet fully committed themselves and are plumping in opinion polls for the candidates they know best. I will perform a jig in Michael Flatley's most outre costume in the Bull Ring in Wexford town if Browne repeats that on polling day.

Can Colm O'Gorman be scoring as low as 2%? That happened too to John O'Mahony in Mayo. It's worrying for him but it's still early days. In his case, he has to get over the hump people will have about him (like O'Mahony) being a parachute candidate. But at the same time, the PDs better start worrying if he is their main hope of a gain.

INSIDE POLITICS - PDs

4pm Saturday
It's still February. The election is still months away. And already I'm beginning to feel like one of the depression-era marathon dancers in the film "They Shoot Horses Don't They"

The pre-election-campaign campaign is in full swing. Nearly every weekend between now and the end of March, there is a party conference or Ard Fheis. From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, each of the parties say 'come hither' and spend the entire weekend shamelessly flaunting their wares at us.

This weekend it's the PDs down in Wexford (for the party's own ongoing coverage of the event, follow this link) With each convention, the names and slogans and messages may change but the format and over-riding atmosphere are the same for all.

For the media, this is how it pans out: The party leader opens the conference on a Friday night with a speech that will include a news line for the TV and radio news at 9pm and for the following morning's newspapers. The news tag from McDowell last night wasn't an announcement but a 'The End is Nigh' speech, warning about the Armageddon that will happen if that useless shower in the opposition ever get their hands onto power.

The Bert is a master of the Friday night newsline - at the last FF Ard Fheis he announced in his Friday night speech that he wanted a referendum on the rights of children (that's the one we may or may not have before the election!).

These are annual conferences and motions actually do get debated. But nowadays you sense (with all parties) the internal debates are mostly for cosmetic purposes. The real deal is the oodles of priceless unopposed publicity all weekend. They get two hours of live TV in the morning. It gets an opportunity to showcase as many of their candidates as they can. The party leader will do a doorstep interview with a huddle of reporters. This is for the benefit of radio reporters. Then there's another hour of RTE coverage, this time on radio with John Bowman, in which three or four of the party heavyweights get airtime.

Things you always hear at party conferences. Morale has never been so high. We are all 100% united behind our great leader (insert appropriate name). I have been coming to conferences for a long time and can safely say that this has been the best one ever. The media have got it wrong.

Things you never hear at party conferences. We're doomed. The media have got it right.

Anyway, like other conferences, the PDs have gathered a big crowd here. I'm in the main hall as I write this, for the afternoon workshops. They used a neat visual trick to portray the hall as full. Every row of seats has its own table. Brilliant! Theres nothing worse on TV to show a half-empty auditorium.

For a small niche party, the showing is very respectable. At this very moment they are debating a few motions on crime. Hey, it's the PDs after all and we're hearing a lot about being tough on crime, but not so much, sadly, about being tough on the causes of crime. Oh, yeah, loads of applause for McDowell everything his name is mentioned.

They have just started an open forum now with the great man, as he does a Q and A session with delegates. He, John Dardis and guest speaker David Quinn have been placed on stage in an informal manner, seated on stools like traditional musicians but without their instruments (ie they all look very uncomfortable).

Of course, the main event will be McDowell's maiden leader's speech tonight. You don't have to have too much wattage up in the attic to know that he'll go for broke - with tax cuts, or new tougher laws on crime, or the like.

As I wrote in my column this morning, McDowell is omnipresent. In Ireland, the cult of personality has always run deep in political life, particularly in Fianna Fail where the party was personified by its leader, de Valera, Lemass, Lynch, Haughey, Reynolds and Ahern.

All parties approach campaigning, here as elsewhere, in a presidential manner, pushing the personality of its leader. But it seems to me that the cult surrounding McDowell is a bigger one that the one that surrounded Mary Harney.
Everything in the party seems to revolve around him. Sure, Harney is still a senior minister but she now confines herself to the task in hand in Health. Where are the others who should have stepped up to the place. The two other members of the leadership troika, Liz O'Donnell and Tom Parlon, have not asserted themselves sufficiently.

Sure, there's no such thing as bad publicity. But are there perils to being over-exposed, to to the PDs being totally synonomous with McDoweel, to fatigue kicking in. Maybe he and his party should learn that sometimes less can be more.

INSIDE POLITICS - The Hurricane of Hype

WHO is the star of this week’s column? Take a wild guess. If you happened to die and are now pushing up daisies, you might not have noticed him this week.


Of if you happen to be an anchorite monk living on a remote island sometime in the 6th century, there’s a slim chance that he may not have crossed your path.

For everybody else, there was no escape. From the moment he choked on his Corn Flakes last Sunday morning, Michael McDowell has reacted to Labour’s tax coup by invading our every waking moment, policing our thoughts, and trying to wash, like rain, the trashy Labour promises off the pavement.




On Monday, he introduced the techniques of Sumo wrestling to Irish political discourse. In a matter of mere seconds, his ferocious and fierce onslaught removed Pat Rabbitte from the ring. The winning technique? Haiku. “I want to say this about the speech that Pat Rabbitte made the other night. That speech proves that he is now admitting that he has been talking rubbish for 20 years. He has attacked every aspect of our tax policies. He’s voted against them in every Finance Bill.

“He has denied our argument that tax rates matter. And here he is now saying, after 20 years of empty, unsuccessful, hypocritical rhetoric, that he accepts he is wrong. What a sadmoment for him.”

This outburst came during a so-called doorstep interview, where the politician takes questions (usually on the street) from reporters. There were no questions here. McDowell walked up the reporters, delivered his broadside, said “I’m finished” and walked away again. A few reporters sniggered. But for McDowell there was nothing funny about this.

For this was a Labour leader having the cheek to encroach on his territory. Though what came across washumorous, what bubbled inside was toil and trouble. This column has said it before: McDowell is a one-man walking Atlantic weather system. This week, it was storm force 10 stuff coming in furiously with no respite.

The really scary bit is that all this is just the lead-up to the Progressive Democrats national conference this weekend. You might have noticed the sly reference above to Travis Bickle, the anti-hero of Martin Scorsese’s classic film, Taxi Driver. On Tuesday, McDowell did his own bit of scary “you looking at me” stuff when he announced a package of anti-crime measures. The Tánaiste has a tendency to announce his measures in the manner that Twink introduced John Bruton at a Fine Gael Árd Fheis a long time. You initially think, great stuff, and then you think, this is over-the-top, and then you think, oh, God, this is going to finish up badly.

His crime package sounded very impressive on first hearing. Suspects could be detained for seven days. There were tighter measures for bail; further curtailments of the right to silence, as well as provisions to introduce the long-awaited DNA database.

But then we found out it was all based on an interim (and rushed)report of the expert group charged with re-balancing the law.

Not only that, but the package of measures didn’t include legislation — only an intention to legislate.

So what was that all about then? Optics? In reality, by the time that package becomes law, the general election will be but a dim memory.

McDowell wanted to give the impression he was being tough on crime (as usual the “crisis” has been hyped up by politicians and the media). Now he has come up with illusory measures to remedy an illusory crisis.

For one thing hit me between the eyes in the recent Frank Luntz focus group exercise for RTÉ. Crime was identified as a huge issue. Yet, not one of the group had been a victim of crime in the past five years, save for one guy who got his chainsaw nicked. And why were they all scared to walk the streets, leave the key in the door etc? They said it was because the media told them so. That’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if there ever was one.

Of course, the Tánaiste didn’t leave it there. He was just warming himself up. On Wednesday, he took on the Mahon Tribunal, claiming its legal bill could top €1 billion. By Thursday, that row deepened into a full-blown crisis. Characteristically, he robustly stood by his word that night, setting up the second grave stand-off with the judiciary in as many months. And that was the same day, he promised he would big it up at the PDs’ conference in Wexford, with his own proposals on tax cuts and stamp duty.

Batten down the hatches folks. A hurricane of hype and histrionics is fast approaching from the South East.

(This is my column from today's Irish Examiner)