Bullish Kenny nails his colours to the mast

ANYBODY who questioned Enda Kenny’s commitment to the cause was given a salutary lesson in how to nail your colours to the mast yesterday.

His car, as it arrived in Sligo, was festooned with flags; he even donned the geansaí and, for good measure, the most pungent thing he said yesterday related to what really matters to him at the moment.

“Bertie should not be worried about my substance. We showed them that when we stood in front of Hill 16 recently. And we will do that again when the white flag is raised for the election.”

Yep, it’s the green and red of Mayo that is tugging at Enda’s heart-strings this week, rather than the deepening blue hues of his party.

That’s fighting talk, somebody said to him, when he said that his party would be as ‘in yer face’ to the Government as the Mayo footballers were to the Dublin supporters on Hill 16 in the All Ireland semi-final.

“It is fighting talk,” responded Kenny. “I intend to fight this election tooth and nail. I look forward to it with great enthusiasm.”

There was a bullishness to him yesterday that was absent four years ago; a sense that, like Mayo, Fine Gael might just be bold enough to topple the Kerry of Irish politics.

On Tuesday, Michael McDowell predicted that the PDs would double its number of seats at the expense of Fine Gael.

A couple of days earlier, Fianna Fáil were promising that they and the PDs would be returned by the Irish electorate to Government.

But Fine Gael has a little bit of form on its side. Five of the last six opinion polls have put the party at its highest rating since the mid-1990s. The party’s current thinking is that, at worst, it will increase its seat tally by 21 seats to 53 and — with a gale force behind it — might even get up to the magical 60 mark.

Just in case any wavering Fine Gael supporters might deign to think of swallowing Michael McDowell’s entreaties whole, the message that Kenny repeated at infinitum yesterday was a simple one: “(Michael

McDowell) is entitled to his dreams. I’m going to implement mine.

“Fine Gael voters will not be keeping Fianna Fáil in Government. The choice that’s been sought here is to give Fianna Fáil 15 years in government propped up by the Progressive Democrats. FG voters will not support that.”

Most of the party’s 47 TDs and senators were in Sligo to discuss key issues for the party like crime, the economy, public service and energy. Its crime session was unrepentant.

Politicians know that you can never be too tough on crime with the public. Over the past year, FG has very firmly returned to its ‘law and order’ roots, with tough poster campaigns featuring Kenny and a private members bill enshrining the right of property owners to defend their own homes.

The riffs of Kenny’s contributions in the Dáil have increasingly been about the anarchy and chaos out there.

Unlike four years ago, he is no longer talking about his own party.