It has not even been a year since Leo Varadkar found himself in a PR maelstrom for attending the Mighty Hoopla festival in London. Similar events — like Electric Picnic — had still not been given the go-ahead in Ireland at the time. How could the Tanaiste preside over Ireland’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions while enjoying the absence of them in England?
Hypocrisy was the ultimate charge. Though it was not exactly watertight. Varadkar had acknowledged that Westminster and Dublin were taking separate policy approaches to virus management. And he emphasised that England was not an appropriate model for Ireland. The political and epidemiological differences between the nations was just too vast. Anyone in possession of a festival ticket and a boarding pass could have attended with him, too.
Of course — as is often the case with a cavalcade of moral outrage — the public response was not exactly fair, and was certainly disproportionate. Varadkar was subject to sustained fury: the allegation of double standards sticks to a politician like nothing else. But even if he was behaving like a hypocrite, would it have been so bad?
The instinct to brandish the pitchfork at our leaders is indefatigable, and piety is always satisfying. A year on it shouldn’t surprise us to note that the impulse has not matured or even adapted but simply found a new target.
Deputy leader of the Green Party and Minister for Tourism Catherine Martin has defended her decision to fly business class on overseas trips to the United Arab Emirates, Argentina and the United States within the past year. “Party leader Eamon Ryan and his deputy Catherine Martin,” the Irish Independent reported, “have both booked business class flights despite research showing those seats are responsible for at least three times more carbon emissions than economy seats.”
Martin has said she would do it again in the right circumstances. And the response has been predictable. How unbecoming of any politician — not least the deputy leader of the Green Party — to brazenly commit such harmful acts to the environment? To not even repent or display remorse? When did our policymakers become so out of touch? And whatever happened to leading by example?
These are reasonable concerns only to someone more interested in feigning indignation than engaging in substance. Martin’s personal travel arrangements are an odd hill to die on: The president of the United States has his own plane. So does the United Kingdom’s prime minister. It is not much to ask.
But even more so, there are myriad qualms to raise with the Green Party, its policy platform, its effectiveness in the Coalition, its petty infighting. The Green Party is not responsible only for green issues: it is as much a member of this administration as anyone else. It bears a portion of responsibility for the housing crisis, the cost-of-living crisis and whatever else is besieging the Government.
Serious brief
Martin does not have a frivolous brief: the Irish tourism industry was once worth €7.6 billion, employing a quarter of a million people. It has been decimated by Covid. Obsession with personal transgression comes at the expense of legitimate accountability for things that matter; obsession with the micro detail always sees us forsake the big picture. It allows us to censure our oh-so-out-of-touch leaders but it does not lead to better administration.
There are few things that unite everyone across the political spectrum. The near-universal loathing of hypocrisy is perhaps one of them. And if there is just one thing we abhor in our politicians more than incompetence, foolishness, cruelty or even straightforward dishonesty, it is when they preach one thing and practise another. It is the original sin of governance.
This is an obviously unserious position to hold, no matter how ingrained in our psyche. The charge of hypocrisy is a powerful, blunt instrument perfect for chastising those we do not like without ever having to think about the substance of their arguments. And it is so easy to do: identifying a gap between someone’s public intentions and their private behaviour is always going to be possible because there has never existed a person totally lacking in internal contradiction.
A fresh dose of perspective would do us no harm. This is not Partygate: no one has enacted stringent laws only to break them with callous indifference. Little contempt was expressed for the electorate by Varadkar’s festival-going or Martin or Ryan’s comfy long-haul flights. Perfect moral consistency is a high bar for anyone to clear.
All of this debases our public debate to the lowest-hanging, most intellectually lazy level. We can always wield outrage more easily than we can interrogate policy. Why bother work out whether the Green Party’s standards are good and defensible when we can simply prove its Ministers are failing to meet them? Who cares if Martin or Varadkar or any one is competent when we can just brand them as disingenuously holier-than-thou?
Hypocrisy is certainly not a vice to be endorsed. But in a list of all the ways a politician can do wrong, a Green Party Minister taking a business-class flight can take a back seat.