Gilmore fields a Cabinet team of Grumpy Old Men

NEW politics: same Old Boys Club.

Splits within the Coalition parties over the carve-up of Cabinet posts was to be expected, a bitter battle within Labour itself was not.

Eamon Gilmore’s Cabinet land grab was tactically brilliantly in political influence terms, but terrifically dumb in the realm of public relations.

The treatment of Joan Burton has caused ructions right across the party, with the backlash over her demotion taking some of the shine off Labour’s return to power after a decade and a half in the wilderness.

Within hours of International Women’s Day ending, Mr Gilmore declared Grumpy Old Man’s Day in the Labour ranks.

Pat Rabbitte was handed the Energy and Climate Change department — even though his previously recorded interest in climate change is believed to be restricted to when he asked a Leinster House usher to close a window because it had turned a bit chilly.

At least Ruairí Quinn has experience of Cabinet and the education brief he now presides over — even though his crass comments on women being more suited to the Children’s Minister role proves you’re never too old to learn when to keep your mouth shut.

The most curious appointment was that of Willie Penrose (or, as he is better known to people outside his immediate family, Willie Who?) to the “super junior” role of the minister who attends Cabinet but does not vote.

The fact Mr Penrose clearly thought he deserved something better and flounced off to check with Mr Rabbitte before accepting, shows amazing chutzpah for a man who has had even fewer confirmed sightings on the cutting-edge of frontline politics than the monster has in Loch Ness.

But dangerously for Mr Gilmore a vibe has been allowed to go out that he was heavied by Quinn and Penrose in particular, and failed to think strategically in the best long-term interests of the party. All of which does not bode well on the back of a rocky election campaign.

The whisperings against Ms Burton started in Labour at least six months ago, and chimed with mutterings from Fine Gael that they simply would not wear her being finance minister.

The Blueshirt election surge ensured that post would never go to Labour anyway, but Ms Burton was widely expected to get the Labour consolation prize of the less glamorous side of the divided-up finance department, but Mr Gilmore had other ideas — but, disastrously, he failed to prepare her, or the party, for the news.

As with his disappointing performance in the first TV debate of the campaign, Labour failed to manage expectations and let too many names run wild for the five-and a-half Cabinet posts they would control — and left the belief Ms Burton would be elevated unchallenged.

A number of people may find Ms Burton’s manner, and to be brutally frank, her voice, off-putting, but few could seriously question the way she has mastered her portfolio for almost a decade, or how she single-handedly pumped credibility into Labour’s economic agenda by standing out against the now intellectually bankrupt bank guarantee scheme when Fine Gael and even Sinn Féin rushed to eulogise it along with Fianna Fáil.

She deserved to be treated better by Mr Gilmore, especially as his own grasp of economics has always been more surface than substance.

The fact her expected role went to Brendan Howlin has also raised eyebrows, especially as he was seen as in semi-retirement in the shadow cabinet, managing constitutional reform while double-jobbing as deputy Dáil speaker.

He is said to have proved a good negotiator in the programme for government talks, but his dramatic rise surprised almost all.

Roisín Shortall should really have been in the Cabinet, not because she would have boosted the pathetically low number of women, but because she is very good and would have been a formidable Social Protection Minister, able to cut with compassion.

And if Mr Gilmore had not been so keen to reward the old guard, Sean Sherlock should have got the super junior role as he is highly capable and relatively young in a Cabinet very skewed towards the upper age bracket.

Likewise, Ciarán Lynch, who crafted an impressive agenda to tackle the impending mortgage crisis, would have been a highly effective minister-of-state, but the state Mr Gilmore made of the Cabinet carve-up meant he was squeezed out.

However, Mr Gilmore was very politically astute in the spheres of influence he now presides over from his perch as Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The key ministries his party now occupies means Labour is in a commanding position to push through its agenda, or, perhaps, more importantly, block any advance from the ravenous Fine Gael right-wing.

The departments it controls will act as tank traps holding-up any attempted Thatcherite surge if the government descends into the bloody trench warfare of the last full-term coalition between the two parties in the 1980s.

Both sides must hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, as they know an early divorce is not possible as by Christmas this will be a deeply unpopular government due to the economic straitjacket imposed on it from outside, and neither party will be able to risk an early encounter with the electorate.

Howlin in the spin-off finance brief gives Labour a 2:2 presence in the four-member inner economic decision making body which also comprises the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Michael Noonan.

Labour ministers are already calling this body “The War Cabinet” in what is presumably intended to refer to the national economic crisis it must plot a strategic course through, but this central core could easily descend into “The Civil War Cabinet” if the government hits gridlock.

Ms Burton at Social Protection will be a strong bulwark against Fine Gael attempts to roll back the ‘welfare state’, Rabbitte in energy and communications will have a large swathe of influence over which state assets, are, or are not privatised, Quinn at education will be able to protect Labour’s key supporters in the teaching unions and among students, while Mr Gilmore can keep a grip on the EU/IMF bailout re-negotiation from foreign affairs, and the Labour snared role of Attorney General can be used to delay government decisions it does not like.

But it is not Mr Gilmore’s tactical achievements that stand-out, but rather his tactical blunders.

A large swathe of onlookers believe the narrative that St Joan was martyred and she now burns with rage on the stake.