Our lives in cycles - Politicians are failed by system too

ONE of the ways we cope with the bad days is to tell ourselves that everything is cyclical, that if this is a bad day then the good ones can’t be too far away.

It may or may not be true but it offers the comfort of the familiar; it’s security-blanket thinking when we may not have the resolve to do much more.

Putting aside the fatalism inherent in such sangfroid yesterday’s announcement by Prime Minister Gordon Brown that Britain will go to the polls on May 6 will probably start a new political cycle in Britain. Polls tell us to expect that Labour — and Fianna Fáil — will face a period in opposition. If the truth be told such a dismissal might bring considerable relief to senior figures in both careworn and exhausted parties.

The parallels between recent British and Irish political history are uncanny and raise a few questions about politics and how each entity is governed.

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern came to power within weeks of each other — Blair became Prime Minister in May 2, 1997, Ahern became Taoiseach on June 26, 1997. New political cycles had begun in both countries.

Each was imagined much more than the new broom who would sweep away the jaded politics of their predecessors. How were we to know that time would ultimately define them as equally jaded and discredited?

Each man came with a sense of possibility and optimism, each brought palpable energy and promise to their jobs. Each assumed office on waves of goodwill from an electorate crying out for change, modernisation and transparency. Then, over the next decade, each contributed to creating the conditions that destroyed both economies and each, ultimately, imploded.

Each man saw their credibility destroyed, Ahern through the Mahon Tribunal, Blair through the Iraq war. Each is now regarded with considerable ignominy which is all the sadder if we remember the great optimism that greeted their premierships. Each has seen their parties decimated in European and local elections.

Then both were replaced by a colleague with little more than a nod and a wink from their parliamentary parties. Brown replaced Blair and Cowen replaced Ahern without votes of any kind. It was almost as if they were bank directors — no outsiders need apply, we have our own, homegrown, house-trained man here.

As it stands neither leader has a popular mandate. Neither of them might consider this a problem but at critical moments moral authority is essential and that can really only come through an election.

It may be unfair, but not terribly so, to describe Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen as a kind of political pallbearers, each presiding over the obsequies of a political cycle but that is what they have become.

Now that Gordon Brown has bowed to the inevitable it can only be a matter of time before Brian Cowen follows suit but before he does maybe we should ask ourselves a few questions about what we imagine politics are for or how politicians can be successful.

Blair and Ahern, Brown and Cowen may have, like the rest of us, weaknesses, but each of them are very capable and streetwise, yet they are deemed failures. Politics are not working for us and the political process is not working for politicians either.

Something has got to change or the next cycle will end up in the very same place as this one.