FG’s credit crunch pain as Merrion is out and HQ bikkies are in

IT IS much worse than we thought, the end must indeed be nigh: Fine Gael has gone into recession.

The merchant princes of Irish politics have long been known for the sheer lavishness of their press launches.

Fianna Fáil might run to a tray of curdling sandwiches (depending on whether they were in one of their little moods with the ungrateful media, or not); Labour might stretch to half a packet of custard creams, but the Blueshirt opulence knew no bounds.

No suite at the Merrion or Shelbourne hotels was too grand, no solid silver teapot too sparkling, no tray of biscuits too dazzling to entice the press to the dullest of announcements.

But yesterday, reality finally bit as the media, which had amassed to marvel at the latest defection from the PDs, was greeted with a Club chocolate bar, a chipped tea mug and a dingy little room at Fine Gael HQ.

The shame of it! Suddenly we were all thrown 20 years back in time.

The damp bubbling up through the oppressive, paint-chipped red walls, the stacks of hard black plastic chairs dumped in the corner, the mangy carpet giving off its own slight hum, the naff discoloured vertical blinds — all that was missing to complete the feeling of 1980s despair was a used syringe and a Johnny Logan LP. Why, some of the pictures on the walls were so old they even showed Fine Gael winning elections.

The era of mass emigration was given human form in the shape of captured councillor Cáit Keane who was seeking a better life as a refugee from the politically unemployed Progressive Democrats.

An immaculately dressed woman, Cllr Keane seemed very much the Brown Thomas platinum-card-carrying wing of the (now near deceased) PDs who had always viewed Fianna Fáil as irredeemably vulgar.

She didn’t say it — she didn’t need to — but you couldn’t help thinking she was slumming it in these surroundings.

Oh Cáit, what had you done? How had it come to this, Cáit? “I’m a realist in politics,” she volunteered by way of explanation, “you take it as it comes, day by day.”

That’s the way Cáit, put a brave face on it and don’t look at the stains on the carpet, or the wet patches on the walls. Just keep thinking of the Manolo Blahnik opening at BT’s, Cáit. Would you like another Kit-Kat to cheer yourself up with?

Fine Gael had tried to flog off the dilapidated Georgian pile in the last flickers of the boom, but the deal fell through and now they were left stuck with the decaying edifice (no, don’t be cruel, not Enda Kenny, the building).

Defeat from the jaws of victory — will the curse of the last election never leave them?

Fine Gael are feeling our pain.

Pass the Club biscuits.