Though it may not have been his intention, Ruairi Quinn's rambling and characteristically over-simplistic speech to party members last week raises more questions about his views on modern Irish politics than it does about anyone else's.
The speech should be placed in context. Ruairi was addressing the troops in Cork North Central, where Fianna Fail won three out of the five seats last time out. All three look set to hold on to them, at Labour's expense, so his people doubtless needed a good morale-boosting, rabble-rousing speech, hitting out at all the old targets.
Nonetheless, Ruairi does need to regain control of his party's electoral strategy due to the machinations of what he described as "the more presumptuous members of Fine Gael". He will not do this by indulging in crass personal invective. Neither will he do it by deliberately misrepresenting the Government position and record on such major issues as Europe and social partnership.
Ruairi's assertion that Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail's social democrat credentials are "an illusion" rings hollow. Labour's own reputation in this regard is none too hot. Where were Ruairi's Labour and Workers' Party colleagues back in 1987 when the concept of social partnership was introduced? I don't remember them in the Yes lobby supporting the Programme for National Recovery (PNR). Back then, Labour opposed the policy with Dick Spring calling the PNR "a series of con tricks within a con trick".
By 1991, and the Programme for Economic and Social Prosperity, they had changed tack, albeit reluctantly. This time they tacitly supported the policy, but not enough to make it into the lobbies and vote for it alongside Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats. In fairness, though, they didn't join the Workers' Party and Fine Gael in the No lobbies. They now wish to claim parentage of social partnership's first two offspring, even though they were not present at the conception of either, disowned one at birth and offered little or no support to either until their Programme for Competitiveness and Work sister came along.
Meanwhile Fianna Fail championed social partnership, which is perfectly in accordance with our traditional values and ethos. These beliefs and principles were well described in Tony Blair's and Gerhard Schroder's June 1999 essay, Europe: The Third Way/Die Neue Mitte (The New Centre). Others may call it social democracy, but for us in Fianna Fail it is republicanism.
Blair and Schroder set out the key features of their popular European social model: a robust and competitive market framework that allows market forces to work properly is essential to economic success and a precondition of a more successful employment policy.
A tax policy to promote sustainable growth. Flexible markets must be combined with a newly defined role for an active State whose top priority must be investment in human and social capital. Small and medium-sized enterprises must be encouraged to take risks. The burdens on them must be lightened. Their markets and their ambitions must not be hindered by borders.
The State must become an active agent for employment, not merely the passive recipient of the casualties of economic failure. It must transform the safety net of entitlements into a springboard to personal responsibility.
Modern social democrats should not advocate a single European model, still less the transformation of the European Union into a superstate. We are pro-Europe and pro-reform in Europe.
These principles represent the core philosophy of every Fianna Fail government since 1932.
Social partnership as directed by Fianna Fail is in line with this European social model. It is wholly in keeping with Fianna Fail's republicanism and heritage. Fianna Fail's republicanism does not begin and end at national liberty, i.e., self-determination and independence. Its republicanism embraces the ideals of the French Revolution.
Fianna Fail believes in a society where all citizens have equal opportunity and equal access. We believe the State is the guarantor of these rights and liberties and with these rights come responsibilities to our fellow citizens and society as a whole.
So where does the Labour Party think its fortunes lie? Polls may claim that over 60 per cent of core Labour supporters would prefer alignment with Fine Gael, but how do you resolve the paradox that most trade union members vote Fianna Fail? Quinn is right to be cautious about Fine Gael. Labour has been burnt by too cosy a relationship with them in the past.
As John Waters argued a few weeks ago, there is a small coterie of opinion writers and media glitterati who see politics purely in terms of side-tracking and marginalising Fianna Fail. They cultivate and promulgate a narrow conception of what the party stands for, excluding such trivia as fact, truth and record. As the last 13 years show, they have been unsuccessful in influencing anyone except Fine Gael or, on some odd occasions, Labour. So let them continue. They are damaging no one's credibility but their own.
The election is over a year and a half away. Ruairi may just have enough time to resolve his identity crisis, but he won't do it by engaging in political name calling. He needs to set out his political vision, and then back it up with real policies. The electorate will want to know what the parties stand for. To use the poker parlance, they will expect us all to play the cards they deal us straight and bluffing will not be tolerated.
Willie O'Dea is Fianna Fail TD for Limerick East and Minister of State for Education Mary Holland is on leave