Politics is about managing the future - not letting it happen

Enda Kenny’s vision of the next election as a Tudor jousting tournament between Gerry Adams and himself has credibility. Not so his exclusion of Fianna Fáil from coalition.

To come within spitting distance of a majority, Fine Gael has to increase its polling figures by 50% to get into the thirties percentages and Labour has to double its figures to scrape into the teens.

From where will these votes come?

Even if they do appear at the end of some Mayo rainbow, Kenny would still have to rope in canny and amenable Independents to make it over the line. Indeed, even if the unthinkable were to happen and what remains of the three ‘establishment’ parties were to cobble together a pre-election agreement, they, too, would be hard-pushed.

Ironically, precisely such a three-way (or two-way and a squeaky ghost) arrangement is the most likely ‘probability’ after the count and all the pathetic, tribal catcalls and ritual gesticulations have faded away. So why not do the ‘unthinkable’ and draft a broad agreement now?

Yet again, our political elite is several steps behind the common-sense ‘plain people’ of Ireland.

Of course, some of us are vaguely interested in picking over the odoriferous entrails of what was, or was not, done by whom over the last ten years. But we are far more interested in what kind of secure, practical and pragmatic governance (if any) we are going to get.

Politics is about managing the future; not letting it happen.

The common-sense citizen is intensely frustrated by the failure of our elite to make the quantum leap into a new, updated politics appropriate for the 21st century.

The poor, ignorant peasants and new proletarians have grasped the increasing insignificance of ‘the differences of emphasis’ between the three right-of-centre parties.

We do not care. What we want is an assurance of a democratic, constitutional Government with basic competence and its collective feet on the socio-economic ground.

Indeed, the ultimate paradox is that were a draft FG/FF/Labour deal on the menu, there would be a drift towards those parties of several hundred votes in each of all constituencies, enough, perhaps, to decide the destination of the last seat and win the match.

Those of us moderately to the left of centre might not like the mediocre result, but it could provide a breathing-space for the emergence of the ‘new’ politics.

Maurice O’Connell

Fenit

Tralee

Co. Kerry