Tánaiste victim of Newton’s Third Law

THERE are some laws of nature immutable and predictable. Gravity. Death. Taxes. Kerry winning All-Irelands.

And then there are some that are not so precise, more theories than universal truth.

One is a version of Newton’s Third Law — for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.

It goes something like this: For every over-the-top reaction from Tánaiste Michael McDowell, there’s an equal and opposite downward traction in the opinion polls.

In the relatively peaceful period in the run-up to Christmas, he was uncharacteristically quiet (maybe he was still hurting after being put through Bertie Ahern’s truth-mangling machine).

People so like to hear him speak. On occasion. There’s only so much voice that mortal human beings can bear. In the past 10 days, McDowell has been on an extraordinary crusade to make his voice more omnipresent, more omniscient than the voice that haunts Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984.

He launched his poster. He made some vague threats about detention camps (letting Enda Kenny know who’s the real tough guy around here). He made pronouncements on tougher sentencing (again), anti-gun and anti-gang legislation (again). In 10 days, he opened, released, spoke at, launched, presided, keynoted, addressed, appeared, and stopped just short of walking on water.

He’s a fantastic old genie all the same, capable of many things including shinning up lamps.

But the problem is that once he’s out of the damn bottle you will never be able to put him back in again.

And the result of this ever-so-slightly unscientific theory? When you bang the oven door too hard, the souffle tends to collapse. When you heat up the custard too quickly, it tends to curdle. When you are trying too hard as leader of your small political party, your support tends to plummet.

The latest TNS/mrbi poll for The Irish Times has support for the PDs at 1%. To be sure, there’s a 3% margin of error plus or minus. So it’s not all bad news. It’s worse than that. It’s drastic verging on disastrous.

Statistically (well, theoretically) the Progressive Democrats might be at minus two, a delicious thought for its many enemies. And no excuse about being a niche party is going to magic away such a lousy finding. Bluntly, in terms of national reach, there are almost down to ‘Ming the Merciless’ or Abbey of the Holy Cross Fitzsimons territory.

Let us enter the caveat. Though couched in the language of science, and festooned with mathematical terms that suggest precision, you always have to remember how crude, how unscientific and how imprecise polls are.

I don’t believe the PDs are quite facing meltdown. In fact, with the margin of error, they could actually be at 4%. But I think that the party is having a bad, bad month all the same.

Beside McDowell’s overexposure (and being exposed somewhat on his crime policies), Mary Harney has also had a cruel January.

Nowadays, everywhere she turns, another Socrates is telling her the blatantly and pitiably obvious. You were biting off more than you could chew when you took health. You should have known the monster you were taking on. The biggest ships are slowest at turning. What is the moon, what is the stars, Joxer?

Harney has been brave but has been a little like the new boy, the outsider, in The Lord of the Flies. Those who control the conch are the posh ones, the doctors who call themselves “mister”.

Fair dues to the minister — she has been the first to really tackle them head-on. But she has learned to her cost that there are forces in this land (namely rich business people; rich lawyers and rich doctors) more powerful than any Government.

Will the PDs be vaporised because of the weakness of strategy of its two strongest assets? They will certainly struggle and may end up back in 1997 (when they had four TDs).

Incidentally, the Greens have jumped to eight points apropos nothing in particular in January. A 100% leap looks a bit iffy to me but I have been writing for months that the Greens will gain, and take huge scalps in constituencies where convention doesn’t give them a prayer.

That’s not a theory by the way. It’s an actual law of nature. And its name? The law of the jungle, otherwise known as this year’s General Election.