Spending cuts are funding FF’s five-year plan to buy your vote

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, I suppose I should say. It’s never really clear when the anniversary of a government is — the current one, for instance, wasn’t voted in by the Dáil until June last year. But we have just passed the first anniversary of their election.

In the Irish context, elections normally mean hours of telly-watching before you can be sure of the outcome. Sometimes, depending on what side you're on, your mood can change in the course of a count, from despair to elation or vice versa. Sometimes a handful of votes can decide the outcome in one case which I'll never forget, as few as four.

In the election of 2002 there was no real suspense. The only issue was whether Fianna Fáil would be able to get an overall majority, the only surprises being the dimensions of Fine Gael's loss and the PDs' revival. The election took place on a Friday, with the first electronic counts in our history being announced before the papers went to bed. The three constituencies involved were so strong for Fianna Fáil, and so bad for Fine Gael (with deputy leader Nora Owen losing her seat) that the newspapers could almost predict the overall result on Saturday morning before the full count even began.

In fact, by the morning after, the front pages of the newspapers had already turned their attention to the fact that some footballer called Roy Keane was too tired, or too preoccupied, to stand up when Bertie came to Dublin Airport to bid him and the rest of the lads bon voyage on their way to the World Cup. Little did we know then that the tortured soul of the Manchester United and Ireland captain was to generate far more headlines over the next month than even Bertie had managed.

If the election was over in a flash, the reason was that there was only one big winner the same Taoiseach. Well, maybe a winner and a half. Michael McDowell's stroke of political genius, in focussing attention on the PDs in the last week or so of the election, succeeded in making them central to the political action.

I still don't know how anyone in FF had the stomach to do business with McDowell after his attack on them, but that's a certain kind of politics for you. (Of course, it's possible that Bertie has read Oscar Wilde, who once said "When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers". It's certainly hard to figure out who looks more like Ceausescu now.)

The day after the election, I wrote in the Irish Examiner that "To the victor belong the spoils but the Taoiseach may discover now that political victory comes with a heavy price tag. The next 12 months may be the most difficult, and the loneliest, of Bertie Ahern's career. He has been given the trust of the people, and they expect him to deliver."

I went on to say that "his first task is to put a new, and fresh, Cabinet together ... now is his opportunity to build a power-base for himself, and to offer us all a new beginning. That means inevitably that people like Michael Woods, Joe Walsh, and several others will have to go. Room will have to be made for the likes of Brian Lenihan, Mary Hanafin, Eoin Ryan, Seamus Brennan and others in the Cabinet. They will be Bertie's fresh start, his mandate, and it will be up to them to ensure that the Government retains some kind of fresh appeal over the next few years.

"The Taoiseach also needs to think about reshuffling some of the Government ministers likely to survive. There is a strong case for moving Charlie McCreevy, and Noel Dempsey is wasted where he is. How the Taoiseach responds to these situations will tell us a lot about the man who has been given a national mandate.

"Will he be the cautious, conservative, operator of old, or will he respond to the national message that people want change?"

We know the answer to that question now. He made minimal changes in personnel and none at all in philosophy. In fact, he has only done one really significant thing since the election. He has acquiesced in a pretty heartless political strategy for the future, aimed at manipulating economic and social conditions for party political advantage.

Some time before 2002, a cabal at the heart of the last government decided to develop a strategy for not one but two elections. This strategy involved making sure of victory at the 2002 poll at all costs, and laying down a treasure trove for the 2006/2007 election. They were already very far ahead in the polls at that stage, and looking pretty good so good in fact that they spent a lot of time in the run-up to 2002 trying to dampen down speculation about single-party government.

To make assurance doubly sure, they spent money like wildfire in the year before the election, and as much of it as they could as close to the election date as possible. Remember, for instance, the massive increase in child benefit over €30 per child that was paid out on May 7, just ten days before the election.

The day before that, May 6, Bertie told a press conference that FF would "permanently end hospital waiting lists within two years if returned to power".

The minute the election was over, and irrespective of all the promises they made, they turned the tap off. A central part of the strategy was to begin screwing down public spending in every possible way, and to keep it screwed down for at least two years, in order to build a massive war chest for the next election.

This strategy is essentially being run by a handful of FF ministers with the support of the PDs. It's not because we need to do it, or because we can't afford to spend. It's because they believe the people will forget being screwed for two years if resources are poured into the economy in the period just before the next election.

The people won't forget. FF has just published a tome about what they actually said during the election, in the fond belief that they can persuade people they were being honest all the time. Bad idea. First of all, when you're explaining like that, you're losing the argument. Secondly, it isn't true. Apart from all the things FF told us they were going to do but didn't, what about all the things they never told us they were going to do, but have done anyway?

It used to be said of Jack Lynch's 1977 government that its worst feature was all the damage it did by keeping its wild and irresponsible promises. That will never be said about this lot. Broken faith with the people is why they've spent so much of their first year in a precipitous fall from grace.

Better politicians than Bertie Ahern know that broken faith, or even the perception of it, is never forgiven. If his first year was tough enough, I'm forecasting now that his next one will be even tougher.