Crouching Taoiseach returns to flying daggers

IT WAS a case of “Crouching Taoiseach, Hidden Dangers” as Brian Cowen completed his troubled tour of the Orient last night.

The Taoiseach touched down in Dublin to the deafening autumnal sounds of a teachers’ revolt after attending the EU-Asia summit in Beijing and behaving like a bull in a China (talking) shop.

The 7th ASEM meeting was as dull as Finian McGrath’s claim to be the conscience of the nation, but it had still made Beijing the place to be this bank holiday weekend, well if you didn’t have tickets to the jazz festival, anyway.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy stormed in for 24 hours, unable to bring his elegant wife with him, as he berated Asia for not doing enough to stop the world plunging into financial meltdown.

Mr Sarkozy rocked the Great Hall of the People, insisting the planet was “sick”, but he only had a day to administer the medicine.

The lack of Mrs Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was no doubt welcome as her presence could have caused a diplomatic incident if Mr Cowen was let loose on the matter.

You can imagine the scene now, an apoplectic Sarkozy turning to his best Lisbon bud, Brian, and asking “Where’s Carla?” Only to be told by Biffo: “Carla? — it’s between Kilkenny and Wexford, you goon.”

Well, a lot sillier things have been coming out of his mouth recently, like the budget decision to withdraw the automatic right for the over-70s to have a medical card, which produced Grey Rage on Dublin’s streets as he braved the diplomatic cocktail circuit delights of the summit.

A residue of luck must still shine on Mr Cowen though, as he was spared the embarrassment of meeting the Vietnamese premier, Mr Dung.

Sensing a downer, the Vietnemese VIP pulled out of a long planned photo op, no doubt fearing the devious western press would snap away as the Taoiseach reached into his south-east Asian counterpart with a handshake, captioning the picture: “Yes, it’s true, everything Mr Cowen touches turns to Dung!” ASEM itself might have been a yawn, but Biffo rocked his way across the world with a new sparing partner at every turn. Even the farmers were revolting as the Taoiseach went about it abroad, but they could just keep hoping for help until the Cowens came home.

It was the same story for human rights campaigners, as Mr Cowen forgot to mention the Asian elephant in the room when he got his 20 minutes of small talk with China’s supreme leader — on the bloodstained steps of Tianamen Square itself. This trip was about money, not the pretence at international morality.

Even so, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe managed a polished performance, which held the fort while Mr Cowen fiddled with medical card numbers in Dublin and Shanghai burned with embarrassment at the Taoiseach’s decision to snub what will surely be the next financial capital of the world and head straight for Beijing.

Indeed, Batt-man assumed the mantle of de facto Tánaiste at one point, and even made it look like he was up to the job — unlike the real second (rate)-in-command, Mary Coughlan.

When Mr Cowen finally landed in Beijing, he did not so much look jet lagged, as debt-lagged, as he kept telling anyone who would listen he had to turn the screws on the pensioners/school pupils/everyone else, because of the terrible state the last Government had left the country’s finances in.

Unfortunately for Mr Cowen, by the time he made it back home, the electorate had remembered who was finance minister in the last Government and Fianna Fáil went down with the speed of a toxic stock exchange.

All in all, not the best week to be out of the country, but then the foreign trips of a Taoiseach seem designed to merely exacerbate the crisis at home.

Bertie Ahern’s last big tour to Cape Town and Tanzania back in January became his scramble through Africa as questions dogged him up the continent regarding his curious tax status in the light of all those cash “gifts” from pals.

Mr Cowen has continued the tradition with his Far East fall-out from the budget.

He’s off to Japan again in February, so, while he is in the land of the rising sun, pencil in the budget bystander Greens for a possible coalition collapsing moment.

Stay at home, Biffo.