Leo’s Ireland is a blank slate on which his success may be emulated by all

Fine Gael came out of its national conference on Saturday night into the last lap of this Government’s life span, writes Gerard Howlin.

It is ahead politically now, but only just. Events are gathering, not just on Brexit but domestically too.

Tomorrow, the Oireachtas committee on climate action reports. People Before Profit and Sinn Féin oppose carbon charges on people and households. That replays their position on water charges exactly. As I write, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael disagree over the sort of carbon charge we need.

Tomorrow, the row over carbon will be the politics of selected specifics, chosen carefully out of context, the better to shaft opponents. There is a selection to choose from: A carbon charge of €80 per tonne means the charge on top of the actual price of a 40kg bag of coal increases from €2.10 to €8.40, a bale of briquettes from €0.45 to €1.80 and a litre of diesel increases by 21.2c, up from an existing carbon charge of 5.3c.

This is the politics of hard choices, not aspiration. Unlike water charges, which were politically toxic in urban working class areas, carbon is more widespread in its political effect, but especially so in rural areas. That, especially in Munster, is the thinnest ice electorally for Fine Gael, where it must pull ahead of Fianna Fáil to deliver extra seats. Unlike nationally, Fine Gael is either level or slightly behind Fianna Fáil there, depending on which poll you pick. Now, Fine Gael goes into a general election with a net lead of three seats over Fianna Fáil. By-elections after European elections, if this Dáil lasts long enough to have them, will change the sums slightly. In the interim, the probable departure of Frances Fitzgerald and the possible election of Andrew Doyle to the European Parliament immediately makes Fine Gael more dependent on Fianna Fáil, every Dáil vote, every time.

Varadkarism is the politics of aspiration. It is unmoored from the manufactured traditions, only recently essential, for presenting an acceptable face of Irish modernity. Where once Fine Gael was the set of those “always there”, it is now the party of those “determined to arrive”. His status as the son of an immigrant is happy coincidence. More profoundly, he leads a movement of those doing well, and who want to do better. His is the party of people winning from globalisation. It has colonised and incorporated enough of the children of the Celtic Tiger to allow the national My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding be re-catered, but with more decorum and taste. Personally, I miss the outlandish vulgarity, but there you are. He, in contrast, encapsulates quiet privilege. That’s the move on from Ireland’s most recent manufactured tradition.

His Ireland is a blank slate on which his own success may be emulated by all.

Varadkar is a leader with the enviable advantage of having cornered the market in aspiration. That is what the language of tax cuts is for. His opponents, to one degree or another, are all about spending and welfare, but there is a social awkwardness about the political project. References in the Taoiseach’s speech last Saturday to the EPP and Ireland 2040 are tell-tale signs of the too young spending too long in too enclosed a space. Out there, that lingo is not everyday speech. Neither are the accents of the sentries. Of five Fine Gael TDs from Dublin who are members of Government, four — including Varadkar — went to private schools. Paschal Donohoe is the exception. The Taoiseach’s challenge is to navigate who he is, and what he stands for politically, in a diffuse electoral system, used by a socially, sensitively calibrated society.

Delivering rural broadband, and emoting the concerns of rural Ireland is part of that, but squaring the circle — like Dancing with the Stars isn’t always decorous. The National Children’s Hospital has permanently damaged a reputation for competence, intrinsic to what Varadkar’s project is about. The inference is clear. All others are either gombeen men or chancers. Now the distinction is blurred.

Yesterday’s announcement on the long-delayed Metro for Dublin is a comical case in point. The iron horse will not intrude into Dublin 4, instead stopping at Charlemont Street, at the Grand Canal. An enormous tunnel will bore through Ballymun on the north side, but they have been accustomed to a main road roaring through the community for decades, so presumably are used to the inconvenience. Housing minister Eoghan Murphy, however, won’t have Ranelagh in his constituency similarly troubled. Ironically he recently unburdened about having NIMBY’d as a councillor years ago. He feels guilty now, he said, but not so sorry as to want to change yet.

The cost in terms of housing, in stopping a metro in mid-stream, is the difference between 8,000 passengers per hour and 20,000. That means for miles through south Dublin, to Sandyford and beyond, the scale of housing development possible will either be limited for decades, or go ahead without adequate public transport. In its absence it contributes to a housing shortage, and the increased costs of houses built. If housing development goes ahead regardless, it further clogs a traffic-choked city. That is what the cost of holding a second Fine Gael seat in Dublin Bay South looks like. It’s not pretty work, squaring circles.

Varadkar cannot present his binary choice, with rural scenery as a backdrop, in a similarly engineered electoral system. Success here is around the edges. A Brexit bounce is probably fully factored into his existing support base.

It is telling that, regardless of what is said in public, nobody really believes Varadkar wants another budget, and the responsibility for government for another winter. There is the downside of Brexit as estimated by the ESRI yesterday. The thought of it alone dents confidence, and confidence is political capital. Then there is the fact that the Government, aside from publishing plans, doesn’t have any actual purpose except managing Brexit. An aftermath, or a long interlude, would expose that and bring unfiltered focus on the ever harsher realities of bread-and-butter issues.

There is great confidence in Fine Gael now about beating Fianna Fáil to more seats, on the back of a better campaign and a stellar performance from Leo, but I don’t know. Fine Gael unquestionably has a deeper, better front bench, but the campaign will focus on the party leader, and at most two or three others. Varadkar doesn’t have an inbuilt advantage over Micheál Martin — poll numbers show that — and Martin knows how to annoy him: Doing his “disappointed daddy” to Leo’s “bold boy”.

Then, there is the ultimate political instrument: Time. Martin can confound Varadkar by agreeing another budget, letting events take their course, and the Taoiseach’s margin’s narrow. Fine Gael is ahead now, but it’s closer than it seems. The ultimate outcome is to play for. That I think is a fundamental but underappreciated fact. Varadkar doesn’t have an inbuilt advantage over Micheál Martin and Martin knows how to annoy him