A Cabinet reshuffle before Enda shuffles off to Europe?

ENDA Kenny is a tad cannier than we thought, if his reshuffle kerfuffle is anything to go by.

The Taoiseach deftly moved attention away from speculation he was heading for an exit from the Irish political stage, after being touted for a top Euro job, by re-roasting the old Christmas chestnut of a Cabinet carve-up.

That such a shake-up is at least nine months away leaves Mr Kenny pregnant with the political initiative within the Coalition. By stating that he is embarrassed by the extravagance of talent on his back benches (who knew?), Mr Kenny ensures that the lobby fodder-sheep on the outside of the Cabinet pen will be even more obsequious than usual until September, while Cabinet colleagues will be anxious to please, lest they be sheared of their responsibilities come the autumn.

Thus, Mr Kenny can expect an easier-than-earned ride through the inevitably turbulent waters of the early summer’s Euro and local elections.

But the Taoiseach is playing a dangerous game. By exciting the backbenches, he must follow through in September and axe some of the under-performing ministers to make way for new blood.

But gazing around the Cabinet table, the Taoiseach must wonder where to start, such is the lack of ministerial muscle on display.

Indeed, despite so many broken promises — he had to abandon the pledge to mark ministers with individual score cards, due to the low showings any hint of honesty would expose in the gimmick — Mr Kenny remains one of the less unpopular members of the top team, with an approval rating of 33%.

Though, before this goes to his head, it should be noted that Toronto’s notorious Mayor Rob Ford enjoys better ratings — hovering around 40% — than Mr Kenny does.

However, it would be wrong to directly compare the two, as Ford is, of course, a self-confessed crack smoker, while, via The Gathering, Mr Kenny is an international craic dealer. Which brings us to Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar, who deserves credit for making something of a success of a hastily put-together, and poorly-funded, idea to suck US dollars back into the old country by tapping into American whimsy.

Such blatant tugging of the American heart/purse strings by a thrusting Thatcherite like Mr Varadkar would not appeal to ardent lefties of the ilk of Clare Daly, who lit up the Dáil with a spectacular anti-US broadside in which she denounced Barack Obama as a war criminal and condemned Mr Kenny for “slobbering” over Obama’s wife, Michelle, before adding: “Is it not the case that he has showcased us as a nation of pimps prostituting ourselves in return for a pat on the head? We were speculating, this morning, about whether the Taoiseach would deck out the Cabinet in leprechaun hats decorated with stars and stripes to mark our abject humiliation,” Ms Daly mused.

So, we can probably rule out a shock alliance with Ms Daly in the slow-motion reshuffle (though, that would probably still be more likely than letting Lucinda Creighton back in the tent), but it is Mr Varadkar upon whom all eyes have focused so far.

Touted for the health portfolio his fellow doctor, James Reilly, has reduced to the grim horror story of government, Mr Varadkar may well feel cursed by praise that he could do a better job, as it is difficult to think of anyone doing a worse one, well, apart from maybe Feck-It-Up Phil Hogan, of course.

Despite claims that Mr Varadkar doubts he will ever be Taoiseach, such a promotion would also set him up nicely for the post-Enda leadership battle against Simon Coveney.

Though it is interesting to note that Mr Varadkar hired a former chair of the FG national executive committee as a special adviser — breaking that old fairytale of a public-service pay ‘cap’, in the process, by paying him upwards of €115,000 of taxpayers’ cash — maybe longings for the top job linger, after all.

And it is the ambition to cling onto the top job in Labour that motivates Eamon Gilmore’s agenda in the run-down to the autumnal Cabinet carve-up.

Having never recovered from accusations of Coalition cowardice, by not taking a frontline domestic economic role, Mr Gilmore must now scramble to recover credibility in the run-up to the next election.

To achieve this, and thwart Joan Burton’s advance, Labour is desperate to combine the trade element of his foreign-affairs portfolio and marry it with jobs and enterprise, but, of course, the only thing standing in the way is Richard Bruton.

Not to mention old Labour war horses, like Pat Rabbitte and Ruairí Quinn, who, though avoiding the knacker’s yard, look set to be put out to pasture, nonetheless.

Europe is cited as an escape route for some, but there is only one parachute and that seems to have Hogan’s name emblazoned upon it already.

Given the damage he has presided over at home, via botched attempts to bring in water-metering, property taxes, etc, one can only shudder at the trouble he would cause on the Continent as a commissioner.

Such are the complexities of applying the axe. Bertie Ahern hardly troubled himself with such shake-ups, largely contenting himself with bumping Charlie McCreevy off to Europe, and holding back the rising Brian Lenihan for as long as he could.

And given the disaster-laden efforts of his successor, Brian Cowen, maybe he did us all a favour by refusing to reshuffle the pack too often.

The last attempted shake-up came in the final, chaotic weeks of the collapsing Cowen government, when, in a moment of calamity, the then Taoiseach finally completed his car crash journey from the Bruiser of Irish politics to its Mr Bean.

Rattled by a belated coup attempt by Micheál Martin, Mr Cowen sought to reshuffle his top team, but resignations had reduced it to seven members, and the Greens, in a rare show of spine, refused to allow him to bring in new people.

Thus, extra portfolios were heaped on the remaining ministers — inevitably dubbed the Seven Dwarfs — and the country lurched closer to the general election, which Fine Gael and Labour promised us would usher in a “political revolution”.

And so, here we are again, a long-range reshuffle signalled in order to keep the backbenchers quiet, and the ministers on their toes. How Mr Kenny must have smiled to himself as he cycled the Mayo byways over Christmas, and mused on the era of ‘new politics’ over which he presides.