Some should stop lying, others should just stop talking

Saturday, April 21, 2012

SO, do politicians become liars, or do liars become politicians?

The age old question — lets call it the Bertie Conundrum — has surfaced again after British prime minister David Cameron was caught out telling a string of untruths so weirdly banal you would have to assume he has some sort of compulsion.

After peddling the very odd sounding story that he and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg were so close and “normal” that they built IKEA wardrobes together when he first moved into Downing St last year, Mr Cameron has now admitted that this story was “not entirely rooted in reality”.

Given he is fifth cousin of the Queen and worth about €40m, while Mr Clegg is said to be heir to a fortune some ten times that amount, the whole idea of them wrestling with flatpack furniture was ludicrous from the off.

Particularly given the waspishly snobby, putrid core of the British Tory party which oozes with bigoted prejudice, as highlighted by Thatcherite minister Alan Clarke’s legendary put-down of an uppity Micheal Heseltine when he sneered the man who eventually dragged Maggie down was “the type of person who buys his own furniture”. Meaning Mr Heseltine was so irredeemably vulgar he didn’t even have the manners to inherit a medieval castle like Mr Clarke and all decent Tory sorts do.

The truth about the IKEA lie emerged hot on the heels of the “pastygate” incident which saw “Dave” pretend he was so down with the plebs that he loved nothing more than one of those working class pasty things and had one just the other day from his most favourite pasty shop in all the world — but unfortunately the place he named had closed down three years previously, and the lie arrived right in the middle of a cash for access scandal involving influence seeking millionaires buying invites to eat with the prime minister at No 10 in a public relations disaster dubbed ‘Cam Dine With Me’.

He then denied riding a retired police horse which Scotland Yard lent to the now notorious ex-News International boss Rebakah Brooks — and which the Metropolitan Force said was later returned to them by Mr Cameron’s flame-haired chum in a poor condition — only for the prime minister to finally have to confess during an EU Euro crisis summit that he had indeed saddled up on the allegedly abused nag after all.

The trickle of untruths has been part of the reason why the previously level-pegging Tories have suddenly slumped 11 points behind Labour in the space of a few weeks. But there is something strangely quaint about Mr Cameron lying about wardrobes, snack foods and horses, when you consider the history of our own taoiseagh in this department.

Charlie Haughey amassed a fortune equivalent to €75m in modern currency from his buddies doing him “favours”, and while no one quite knows where the sterling and dollar lodgements sloshing in and out of Bertie’s 23 bank accounts while he was finance minister came from, the Mahon corruption probe exposed that his tale about winning some of it on the gee-gees was a lie.

A lie — one of many — that still haunts his former henchmen in Fianna Fáil like Micheál Martin who defended his boss to the last, well, while Mr Ahern was still useful to him anyway.

And look where it got him — leader of a rust-bucket shell of a party, forever languishing in the low teens in the opinion polls.

So toxic is the Fianna Fáil brand now that some openly hope a name change will make us forget their misdeeds of the past. Indeed, they have apologised so much they could just call themselves The Sorry Party.

Some of the younger, hipper, members of its all male Dáil party, like thrusting Éamon Ó Cuív, might even try and latch onto popular culture and suggest a hint of femininity by playing around with their English name and becoming Soldiers of Destiny’s Child.

But do people really forget infamy just because the title changes? That is the dilemma the 104 residents of the Austrian village of Fucking are wrestling with as they decide a radical new future after decades of being the butt of cruel jokes by tourists.

The village’s mayor Franz Meindl, said: “People are now willing to discuss changes to the spelling of the name, but first all Fuckingers have to agree on whether they want to change it or not.”

Will all Fianna Fáil-ers here follow the led of the far-flung Fuckingers? And is it not eerie that other unusual place names could sum-up Fianna Fáil’s various predicaments?

What better home for their policy of absorbing all the Coalition’s unpopular banking/economic polices to justify their time in power other than the town of Crackpot, Yorkshire?

Clinging onto Mr Martin as leader despite him seemingly being around forever would only work in the German village of Oldtimerfahrt, while their continuing denial over the bailout disaster would be believed in Silly, Belgium, but nowhere else, and their general lack of any oppositional credibility leaves our entire parliamentary system stuck at Witts End, Wales.

At least good old Enda hasn’t lied to us, well, unless you count shutting down Roscommon Hospital’s emergency department after he pledged he wouldn’t, and then pretending he never made the promise until a tape suddenly emerged of him doing just that, or his promise to burn the bondholders, or his pledge not to flush yet more billions down the Anglo toilet, no, apart from all that he’s been a tip-top taoiseach truth wise.

Although Enda might like to explain a few awkward home truths to his Fine Gael constituency mate Michelle Mulherin who enlivened a Dáil debate on abortion rights with a stream of consciousness ramble so unusual it would be difficult to pick a highlight. However, her view that: “Fornication, I would say, is probably the single most likely cause of unwanted pregnancies in this country,” is unrivalled in its insight.

While most politicians should stop lying, Ms Mulherin should just stop — full stop.

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