MY COLLEAGUE, Sarah Carey, gets accused regularly of writing party political broadcasts for Fine Gael. Lucky old Sarah. I get accused of being a closet Fianna Fáiler.
I put this down to my innate desire to be fair to everyone, until my self-righteousness began to remind me of a character called the Texan from Joseph Heller's classic satire, Catch 22.
“The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.” Mind you, I hope that even those who accuse me of closet Fianna Fáilery would stop short of considering me to be in the same bracket as the Texan.
He believed “decent folk should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk”. Although given the antipathy I manage to inspire in some who post comments on my articles, you never know.
The sad truth is that when it comes to political parties, I am homeless. If I were a closet anything, it would be a Green. To me, climate change is a massive moral challenge, one with the potential to make the current crisis seem like the good old days.
If the Greens are wiped out, it will be a major loss. It would be a shame to lose politicians of the calibre of Eamon Ryan and Trevor Sargent. However, aspects of Green policy trouble me.
I like and respect John Gormley. However, I was disturbed by his comments on Cardinal Seán Brady’s views on civil partnership. No one should be denied the right to speak, simply because their views do not fit the prevailing consensus, or worse, because they are speaking from a religious conviction.
I also have to part company with the Greens on the issue of marriage for same sex-couples. I support rights for people in caring and dependent relationships, but stop short of marriage, because children fare best when raised in a low-conflict marriage of biological parents.
I can see the sense in awarding guardianship rights to adults in specific circumstances where children have known no other parents, but anything which encourages more sperm and egg donation and surrogacy is deeply worrying, whether it is by gay or heterosexual partners. You are not allowed to buy a kidney, but at the moment in Ireland you can rent a womb, or buy gametes.
Labour, however, are a much bigger disappointment than the Greens, especially given my soft left economic sympathies. They facilitated the passing of both the bank guarantee and the budget, and yet are trumpeting their moral purity. “Frankfurt or Labour” is simply bluster.
I cannot understand how a party which boasts of its commitment to equality can also be the most pro-choice party in Ireland. There is an inherent contradiction in professing concern for the marginalised, while being comfortable with excluding the youngest humans from the most basic right of all, the right to life. Still, there are individual Labour politicians for whom I have great respect.
Fine Gael? I grew up in a staunch Blueshirt home, although unlike Sarah Carey, we didn’t have John Bruton dropping in for chats. Austin Deasy dropped in sometimes. Does that count? Enda is growing into the role that seems destined to be his. There is an innate decency to the man that is very likeable. However, for a man who claims to be more of a consensus builder than a chief, he takes some strange solo runs.
Why, when we most need to feel some sense of real national pride, did he decide to undermine the Irish language? There is no great demand for an end to compulsory Irish. According to an Ipsos MRBI poll, 65 per cent of 15-24 year olds thought Irish should be compulsory up until Leaving Certificate. Virtually everyone acknowledges that there needs to be changes in how Irish is taught, but if implemented the 20-year strategy for the language will address many of the issues.
We have suffered so much humiliation in recent years. Must we add to it by downgrading such a precious cultural resource?
The language issue aside, some members of Fine Gael refer to the public service in a way that makes it seem the words “service” and “enemy” are interchangeable.
Does Fine Gael’s fantasy figure of 100,000 jobs allow for 30,000 public service job losses? Where are those people supposed to go? The draconian public spending cuts are frankly scary. Yet I have huge sympathy for Fine Gael heading into government.
For all sorts of reasons, I hope they help form the most successful government ever.
Whenever I write about parties, someone from the Christian Solidarity Party complains that I ignore them. So do most voters, unfortunately. It is not just that I cannot warm to a political grouping that claims the Tea Party in the United States “is a continuation of the Christian political action that gave great hope and inspiration to the pro-life movement”.
There is a need for a party broadly based on Christian social teaching that is not a specifically Christian party. While Christians have a right to contribute to public debate and politics, associating the name “Christian” with a political party is fraught with difficulty, not least because it alienates many natural allies.
There is no party that fully fits my personal wish list. So what will I do at the polling booth? I will resort to that most derided of tactics, and vote personality politics, in that I will give my preferences to the candidates that I most like and trust, and who approximate most closely to the values that I hold.
And, sorry to disappoint, but it won’t include Fianna Fáil.