Right-of-centre ideas have driven politics in recent decades. So what advice is there from that perspective for the Irish left? Cormac Luceysteps forward
For me the left means the Labour Party as opposed to Sinn Féin, the Green Party and other life forms on the left side of the political spectrum. Having failed again at the recent general election to secure power, where to for the Irish left? Where to for Labour?
I'm not sure that I am particularly well-qualified to answer that question. But having recently failed to consciously advise the Progressive Democrats to victory, maybe I can now guide the left to victory by mistake.
Complaints about Labour's alliance with Fine Gael failing to produce electoral gains at the recent election miss the point. Labour didn't perform markedly better or worse than in 2002 when they had no such alliance. But just as Dick Spring showed Labour's power over FG's fortunes by withholding co-operation in 1992, so Pat Rabbitte made the same point by granting co-operation in 2007. Labour giveth. And Labour can take away.
When Labour campaigned in 1969 under the slogan "The Seventies will be socialist", wags commented that it wouldn't happen until the socialists were 70.
Judging by the elderly appearance of the massed ranks at the last Labour Party conference, we might soon reach that point. In the last Dáil, Labour's youngest TD was Willy Penrose, aged 50. Labour isn't just old. It is facing political competition from the fortysomething Greens, the mostly thirtysomething Sinn Féiners and assorted twentysomething protest groups (People before Profit Alliance etc).
Labour badly needs to renew its appeal, its membership and, eventually, its leadership.
The Labour Party can and should use the forthcoming elections to the Seanad to elect younger people with a real chance of winning a Dáil seat at the next elections. But it is important that Labour Party Oireachtas members spend a little less time in Leinster House and more time in their constituencies. How do they think that a partyless outsider such as Michael Lowry got 12,919 first preferences, comfortably the highest vote in any three-seater in the country?
The question of social background highlights a growing problem for the Labour Party. The Lansdowne/RTÉ exit poll conducted at the recent general election revealed that, for the first time, Labour has more middle-class voters than working-class voters.
In part this may reflect a shrinking working class as the effects of the aspirational society and broader access to third-level education make themselves felt. Labour has failed to connect with the aspirations of its working-class voters nearly as well as Fianna Fáil.
Whereas Labour supporters might feel sheepish about availing of private health insurance, FF supporters probably regard it as satisfying proof of their upward mobility and of their ability to look after their families. The recently published History of Modern Britain by journalist and commentator Andrew Marr subtly makes the point that politics was hijacked in the swinging Sixties by shopping and the search for personal fulfilment.
It may have taken longer for this to happen here but it has happened and Labour seems slow to adjust.
When Labour's Liz McManus criticised hospital co-location and rasped the words "for profit" as the obviously dubious motivation for private medicine, sole traders from a Labour Party background must have scratched their heads.
Here were they getting up at six each morning in busy housing estates, leaving home to travel long distances to work 12-14 hours on a building site "for profit" so that they could give their children things their own parents couldn't afford for them.
And there was she coming from a comfortable background, university-educated, prize-winning novel writer, living in a listed building and with a husband earning a fortune each year from the medical service.
What they do is "for profit". But what she does in okay because it's "not for profit"?
Labour needs to ask itself whether it really matters if a euro taken home to finance the needs of a family is called "income" or "profit". Or is their thinking on the matter really a case of "four legs good" and "two legs bad"?
It is, in my opinion, a clear fiction of the left that self-interest operates less in the "not for profit" sector than in the "for profit" sector. Might it not be the case that, behind a shield of purported public service altruism there is indeed greater scope to practise adroit, subtle and sustained selfishness than in the private sector, which is overtly driven by the profit motive?
In the public sector long-term contractual agreements, temporary political masters and strong union power protect insider gains once made. In the private sector, by contrast, insider gains can and usually are competed away.
But Labour's thinking on profit is symptomatic of their worrying dependence on the public sector. Look at the Labour TDs elected last month. About 65 per cent were employed in the public sector before they took up politics. But less than 20 per cent of the population is employed in the public sector. So Labour's bias towards the public sector is hardwired.
My guess is that Ireland's public service employees vote disproportionately for the Labour Party. And why wouldn't they? The Labour Party's policy on the sale of shares in Aer Lingus seemed tailored to the needs of the Aer Lingus workers rather than to those of the general public. But why does the State need its own airline?
The Labour Party's policy on bus competition within our cities seems tailored to the needs of the CIÉ workers, not to those of the public. But freer competition on inter-city bus routes has led to dramatic increases in the quality and quantity of services offered.
Pat Rabbitte was asked during the election campaign whether clearly incompetent public sector officials should be dismissed. He said no.
The Labour Party is the oldest political party in Ireland. When it was founded it was founded to fight unfairness and privilege. But over the years, the Labour Party has become an entrenched supporter of public sector privilege: higher incomes, better pensions and virtual unsackability.
Tony Blair recently wrote a piece for The Economist titled "What I've Learned", in which he wrote: "Public-sector unions can't be allowed to determine the shape of the public services."
Pat Rabbitte had himself articulated that point in his first conference address as party leader in 2003 when he spoke of how Labour Party transport policy could not be dictated by the needs of transport workers. Unfortunately his commitment to consumers seemed only to exist at a theoretical level - when it got down to specific cases, he failed to follow through.
But Rabbitte is, by some distance, the best leader Labour has at present and should be given a second chance. Next time he should take his courage in his hands and opt consistently for consumers. After all, whether they are consumers in shops or consumers of public services, they are the voters.
Cormac Lucey is special adviser to the outgoing Tánaiste, Michael McDowell, and is a member of the Progressive Democrats. This commentary is written in a personal capacity
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