Burton may take on Gilmore as Labour discontent grows
By Shaun Connolly
Saturday, February 04, 2012
AS one Labour TD bluntly put it: "How long does it take to write the sentence: ‘We fucked up’?"
The curious case of Labour’s much awaited assessment of its general election campaign has caused fear and loathing to simmer just below the surface of the People’s Party once again.
Fresh from internal blood-letting over what was widely seen as a botched budget from Labour’s self-proclaimed social justice stance, a number of disgruntled deputies are once again expressing disquiet about the leadership.
An intriguing political narrative is beginning to gain ground amid the back-biting, namely: Is Joan Burton getting ready to run?
The party founded on "brotherhood", may or may not receive a jolt from the sisterhood just yet, but an increasing number of its TDs do not expect Eamon Gilmore to lead it into the next general election.
Winter may be passing into spring, but the discontent remains as sharp as the chill wind with a number of issues provoking concern — with the failure of the review of Labour’s rather ropey election campaign to be disseminated being one of them. The document was presented to the party’s executive board in November, but most TDs have yet to get sight of it.
"I understand the first draft was so explosive it had to be re-written several times," one TD revealed.
"I’m concerned it’s going to be a whitewash — they did not go deep enough in asking the people on the ground what went wrong — and it would not be in the leadership’s interest to be honest about what happened," said another.
"The campaign was a mess — the Gilmore for Taoiseach line imploded — so we were on the back foot the whole way. We made all those promises in the last 10 days to try and stop Fine Gael and they have come back to haunt us now. But in the end it was the people cottoning on to a Fine Gael majority that narrowly avoided that — not us," one TD remarked.
"They seem to be sitting on this review," said another.
Mr Gilmore is blamed by many for setting expectations too high and falling far short of delivering them. Yes, Labour did get just about their best seat tally with 37 TDs (the combined Labour/Democratioc Left/Workers’ Party tally in 1992 was the same), but it was still not close to Mr Gilmore’s boast: "I would expect to break 50 seats — in order to lead the next government, it would be necessary to do that, and that’s what we’ll be aiming to do."
Once the IMF took over in November 2010 the highly personalised "Gilmore For Taoiseach" thrust looked vainglorious and was overtaken by the need to project economic competence. Labour failed to abandon the suddenly dated strategy and Fine Gael’s slick seizure of the economic reigns chimed with a nervous electorate.
That’s when all the trouble started: Fine Gael made promises it knew it could not keep because it was desperate for one-party rule, and Labour did the same because they were desperate to stop a Blueshirt overall majority — and another five years on the sidelines for themselves.
The leadership does not want to be reminded of a near miss with power — despite many constituency branches complaining Labour had no clear tax policy until the third week of the campaign, and had no "door step line" to give to voters on its abortion stance or trade union links, those issues were not specifically addressed in the final draft of the review.
A year on, the corridors of Leinster House begin to sigh with whispers of Ms Burton’s discontent — and future leadership intent. Some backbenchers are keen for her to stage a leadership challenge to Mr Gilmore in the autumn at the earliest, or 2013 at the latest.
"It would just take eight or nine of us to stand up at the PLP (the weekly parliamentary Labour Party meeting) and tell Gilmore our confidence has run out, for him to be gone — he couldn’t survive a quarter of the party saying that," said one TD.
Ministers from both coalition parties fear Joan is going "rogue" and setting herself up as the leader of the internal opposition.
Already demoted by Mr Gilmore once, and knowing she will be 67 at the next election, she must surely know her last chance of taking the leadership lies in a challenge.
Her recent outspokenness on a number of key issues, such as the likely need for a second bailout, along with her stout defence of the welfare budget — which will be remembered longer than her own goal of an attempted cut in benefits for the young disabled — puts her in an interesting position within Labour. However, her attempt to be Labour’s Iron Lady is also losing her support as one TD walked out of this week’s PLP in disgust at her attitude to community employment schemes, which is causing great unease in the party.
Whichever way you cut the uneasy marriage of political convenience between Joan and Mr Gilmore, it looks like it may not be heading for the happiest of endings.
But this being Labour, there is always another game at play — will Joan ever wear the crown?
"You can never discount Howlin," said a prominent TD who predicted Ms Burton could trigger a challenge in the autumn with support in an attempt to leave Mr Gilmore sufficiently wounded to be defeated in a second attempt after December’s now annual "Budget from Hell".
In this scenario Mr Howlin emerges as the "white knight" riding to the party’s rescue. Discontent is rife, with some TDs complaining the leadership has given up pushing the party’s economic objectives in the face of the troika and Fine Gael opposition, and is instead planning to focus on the "liberal agenda", such as closing the Vatican embassy and legislating on the X case, but not carrying out more radical manifesto pledges like gay marriage equality.
The party’s media presentation has been particularly poor, with TDs from across the party acknowledging the pre-budget kite-flying did the party nothing but damage.
Similarly, the way the partial, and still opaque, climbdown on taking 428 teaching posts from disadvantaged schools was handled has caused great concern. Sinn Féin was allowed to plunder Labour’s social justice flank at will as it was the Shinners’ emergency debate on the cuts that forced a belated Labour backbench showdown — unusually led by Pat Rabbitte — which prompted Ruairi Quinn to think again.
Mr Gilmore already knows he’s on a sticky wicket.
The "Gilmore For Taoiseach" mugs may now be novelty items on eBay, but who’s to say Joan is not thinking of tasting victory champagne in her very own "Joan For Tánaiste" china bone cup yet?
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, February 04, 2012
