Sober occasion: restrained Kenny sets tone for ‘think-in’

THE alfresco hot tub bubbled away untroubled by the Taoiseach.

Enda Kenny remained unswayed by the frivolities on offer at the up-market Galway hotel where Fine Gael had gathered for its September ‘think-in.’

The atmosphere was more sober — in all senses of the word — than last year’s get-together in the same city by the then-dominant power in the land, Fianna Fáil, which really did live-up to the ‘drink-in’ tag usually loaded onto such events.

Indeed, FF partied like it was the final days of Rome — but, in reality, it was the final days of home rule, at least in the economic sense, as Brian Cowen and Company were about to surrender national sovereignty to the International Monetary Fund a few chaos-laden weeks later.

It was noted at the Blueshirt bash that Mr Kenny was far less touchy-feely than usual — the normally-tactile Taoiseach cut a more restrained figure and commanded the final press conference with a quiet confidence that was so lacking in his cock-up prone outings in opposition.

One journalist mused despairingly: “He’s changed, you could always rely on Enda to mess up big-style at least once at something like this, now he’s, well, assured — it’s no fun anymore.”

Less fun, but more fitting when we remember the national cringe of humiliation as then-Taoiseach Cowen rejected Simon Coveney’s claim he sounded “halfway between drunk and hungover” on Morning Ireland, turning the country into a worldwide joke.

US late-night chat-show king Jay Leno flashed-up an even less-flattering-than-usual picture of Biffo and asked viewers to shout out whether the figure of ridicule was a bartender, comedian or politician.

They laughed heartily when Leno confirmed in a mock Irish accent this, indeed, was “the prime minister of Ireland,” before going on to remark: “It’s so nice to know we’re not the only country with drunken morons.”

With the former Fianna Fáil minister, John McGuinness’s recent angry claims that Cowen surrounded himself with a clique of bar-room buddies, who were the only ones with influence over him, you realise the last administration was incredibly dysfunctional.

Throw into the mix the latest bizarre ramblings of Bertie Ahern, as we await the findings of the Mahon corruption probe, and it is no wonder this country is now reduced to the status of a beggar depending on the generosity of the European Union and IMF to keep the hospitals and schools open.

And the IMF looked over Irish finances again, as it effectively checked our maths homework and decided we were good little boys and girls, who should now go to the top of the austerity class as we had successfully calculated that taxes + cuts = a pat on the head from our economic masters.

But the IMF-ers are having their attention drawn away from us by renewed concern about the volatile Italian financial system, which is so big it could bring the Eurozone down with it — and surprise, surprise — Italy just happens to have been led for most of the past decade by a political showman who makes headlines for all the wrong reasons, in the form of Silvio ‘Bunga Bunga’ Berlusconi.

Berlusconi is such a charming figure he was caught on wire taps insisting he would quit Italy, because it is such a “shitty country,” as prosecutors investigate allegations he paid prostitutes to attend his notorious parties.

Like Ireland, Japan is one country that has turned away from colourful political figures, as, like us, it struggles with a seemingly never-ending recession.

Indeed, the Japanese now also boast a new prime minister who makes a virtue out of being dull.

Yoshihiko Noda described himself as a “man of mediocrity” when he took over the top job last week and warned colleagues from his unpopular Democratic Party: “With me in the office, with these looks, I don’t expect our approval rating to skyrocket.”

Though it has to be said he did lose the international audience when he referenced an apparently famous Japanese poem and stated: “I’ll never be a goldfish in a scarlet robe, but like a loach in muddy waters, I’ll work hard for the people, to move politics forward.”

It was a bit reminiscent of some of the weird stuff Enda used to come out with to the horror of his handlers.

Even though he never promised to avoid becoming a goldfish in a cloak, Kenny did raise some eyebrows last year when he suddenly announced he would be the ‘real’ Enda and no longer the (presumably) fake Enda he had been up until that point.

But Enda and Noda have another thing in common, as they are both being slightly sneaky about taxes. The Japanese PM, apparently in the way of eel-like bottom-feeding fish, the loach, said he wouldn’t put taxes up, then suggested doubling the rate of their equivalent of VAT.

While over here, Kenny’s firm election pledge not to increase income tax has suddenly been given the caveat that this will now only be achievable if the IMF overlords cut a deal to get, from somewhere else, the €250m-a-year the rises were supposed to bring in.

Not that the opposition-in-name-only that is Fianna Fáil would be able to make any political capital out of such a u-turn, as they were the ones who agreed the tax hike with the IMF, just after throwing national economic autonomy away.

And what a difference a year makes — 12 months on from their long night of excess, Fianna Fáil meet once again Monday for a rather reduced, and we suspect somewhat drier, think-in.

Indeed, the Galway hot tub that Enda shunned could now fit most of the FF Dáil bailout boys (it’s a strictly same-sex party after the election humiliation) in one go.

At first glance, the rise of figures like Kenny and Noda seems to bear out the Biblical adage that the meek shall inherit the Earth.

But when you look more closely at the appalling state both nations have been plunged into by more flamboyant predecessors, whose dire decisions have left them at the mercy of others, a quote from the late billionaire John Paul Getty seems more appropriate: “The meek shall inherit the Earth — but not its mineral rights.”