Last Friday night, Leo Varadkar, the then tánaiste, weathered the icy blast to watch Snow White, a pantomime that, hilarity notwithstanding, is about a reawakening leading to a new chapter in life.
Last Saturday morning, in Dáil Éireann, on his nomination for Taoiseach, he faced an onslaught from Mary Lou McDonald, the ferocity of which would be unusual in modern parliamentary protocol. He remained calm and stoical.
Last Sunday morning he went from a Ukrainian refugee Christmas lunch to Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). There he announced all-out war on the housing crisis. Not only is he going to run over, through and around every enemy of planning and house building like a Panzer tank, he is going to personally oversee it, a latter-day Rommel in the housing desert.
Varadkar’s weekend, if not according precisely to the classical dramatists’ strictures on time, place and action, comes close and, more than anything, suggests the philosopher Heraclitus’ insight: character is fate.
It matters, because on Varadkar’s character hangs the fate of Ireland’s political safety. And he has two short years in which to change the perception of official complacency and stop the Sinn Féin surge to government.
Battle lines were drawn last Saturday. There were no soft words, no accolades for Varadkar’s Covid leadership. Close observers of Dáil proceedings saw Pearse Doherty awkwardly circumnavigate the serried ranks queuing to shake Varadkar’s hand. No more parliamentary niceties either.
McDonald surpassed her normal homiletic style in her opposing speech: it was his “failures” all the way, housing, the bank of Mum and Dad, waiting lists, document leaking, investigations, standards in public office, investigations. On and on it went. Ironically, all these failings are the very things that make him Sinn Féin’s nemesis. Author Bernard Malamud said we all have two lives; the one we learn with and the one we live after that.
Varadkar has given himself plenty of the life to learn with. But, as has been pointed out ad infinitum over recent weeks, Varadkar of today is very different from the one who took office in 2017. One difference is he is nowhere near as popular as he was then. Which may be no bad thing. There is a new urgency; a distinct change in style.
His declaration on taking office had no poetry and few polemics. He gave no hostages to fortune as Rishi Sunak did with the promise of transparency that crashed within days. It was a powerful mission statement. If managing a series of crises – he pinpointed housing, health and climate – all at the same time is central to the art of leadership, he has embraced it.
First among the emergencies is housing. There is symmetry in this: here, almost exactly five years ago, the first crack in his gilded aura appeared and a reputation for lacking empathy ignited.
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Explaining the dangers of returning to the 100 per cent mortgages we had before the crash, he said: “It has always been the case that a person needs to raise a deposit to buy a house. People do it in different ways. Sometimes people go abroad for a period and earn money. Others get money from their parents. Lots of us did. Others get money through other loans. Sometimes people stay at home for a period and raise a deposit.”
The errors were myriad, such as not checking his own privilege – “lots of us [got money from our parents]” – and tone deafness to the existential pain of those struggling to put a roof – any roof – over their heads. The carelessness was on an epic scale. But worse – callousness was the after-image.
He displayed characteristic courage during this period too. Like his calling out of the smearing of whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe and castigating People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy in the Dáil for the ordeal meted out to Joan Burton during the water protests.
But carelessness dogged him and led to other judgment lapses. His leaking, to a friend, of a document that was due to be published imminently, and which contained details of GPs contracts, was referred to the DPP.
Sinn Féin made hay. Mary Lou McDonald demanded that he resign as tánaiste and wrote to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who judged it “a political tactic.”
The leaking may have been unethical but was not, in the end, illegal. But Sinn Féin pieties about “criminal investigations” and “corruption charges” continued.
Sinn Féin is clearly oblivious to how this spectacular sanctimony might play out with the Irish public who, recent polls reveal, have not entirely forgotten Sinn Féin’s violent recent past and who are currently being reminded daily of the continued existence of the IRA as a force in the criminal underworld.
But they overplayed their hand. Because slowly, inexorably you could see the iron enter Varadkar’s soul. Besides, Ireland still has some moral compass but is not so infantilised as to require its leaders to be paragons of virtue.
Take the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. The vision and courage were John Hume’s and David Trimble’s. But the underpinning came from Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. none of whom were above personal reproach. Yet what we remember is Ahern leaving his mother’s funeral, driven, breakneck, to Belfast for a crucial meeting; Blair soothing republicans by ordering a second Bloody Sunday Inquiry; Clinton’s calls from the Oval Office, dissolving the last republican occlusions.
Varadkar has flaws. He may not be the leader some people want. But he is, right now, the leader we all need.