The unencumbered incumbents don’t know themselves any more, free now from the encumbrance of the other incumbent.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have joined the ranks of The Provisional Incumbents, but on opposite sides. However, if they regain power at the end of the month, they will become The Continuity Incumbents. Back in power again.
Yes, it’s confusing.
But for the moment, they are free at last to express their own personalities, to showcase their unique talents, to fight and stamp their feet and say how much they don’t have in common and why they never loved each other anyway.
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Although everyone knows that after spending time apart (three tempestuous weeks, to be precise) they would fall back into each other’s arms in a heartbeat.
For they are both different but the same. If Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were to fight this election on a joint platform, that could be their slogan.
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Instead, we have two star-crossed parties struggling to go their separate ways while knowing in their heart of hearts that, even if they don’t relish living together, they cannot live apart.
There’s a real Mills and Boon vibe to this campaign.
FG and FF find themselves in a very difficult situation since last week’s break-up.
Shacked up together in government for the last four years and doing a steady line for the four years before that, the pair are out on the voting market again and desperately trying to convince voters they are not still tied to their exes.
But when people look at unconvincing political singletons Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin they see one government, not two leaders of separate parties vying to be God’s gift to the electorate in their own right.
There is always the possibility of Fianna Fáil throwing its lot in with Sinn Féin, in which case the country would see a very historic coupling between continuity and change incumbents. But that “categorically” will not happen, stressed Micheál at his party’s manifesto launch on Monday.
He did, however, admit that the next government would more than likely be another three-party coalition. To lead it, he must convince voters that Fianna Fáil is a better catch than its partner turned love-rival, Fine Gael.
Micheál’s campaign got off to a dream start, thanks to the other side opening its innings by insulting the fine upstanding teachers of Ireland, who could give grinds in how to take umbrage if only it were on the curriculum.
What was FG Minister Peter Burke doing inviting Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary to launch his campaign in Westmeath when “don’t frighten the horses” is the unspoken rule of engagement for incumbent parties trying not to draw attention to this fact? The airline boss was always going to insult someone, because that’s his style.
Perhaps Peter thought he would just stick to insulting the Greens, which is what he usually does. Instead, O’Leary said that while he likes teachers, he wouldn’t each a whole one. Or words to that effect.
The resulting furore has been a triumph for him. All these years shooting his mouth off and insulting people and, finally, the man who runs one of the most successful airlines on the planet has managed to have a gate named after himself.
Never mind that Fine Gael’s finest have been apologising for him ever since or that the Harris hop was hobbled on the first day, O’Learygate is now a thing and Michael won’t care a jot that the Taoiseach has now slapped the equivalent of a Blueshirt flight ban on him for the remainder of the campaign.
Simon Harris and his team will have to work overtime to ensure O’Learygate doesn’t become a departure gate for some of their voters.
Every day is a school day, as Fine Gael has very quickly learned. Don’t diss the teachers.
It’s been a terrible start for the party. However, at least Tánaiste Martin wasn’t taking any pleasure in its early onset mortification.
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But he had to talk about it because journalists asked him a lot of questions about how he feels about a person launching a Fine Gael Minister’s campaign insulting the teachers of Ireland.
The Fianna Fáil leader grimaced and sucked air through his teeth and stuttered at the start to signal how uncomfortable he was at having to very reluctantly answer at great length about how Fianna Fáil brought in secondary school education for all the poor but bright little children who weren’t lucky enough to be born on the Fine Gael side of the tracks. He talked of the importance of education to him and to his party and to the nation going back to the historical days of the brave teacher in the hedge schools.
Hedge schools. Swear to God.
The manifesto was launched in the Smock Alley Theatre in Temple Bar on Dublin’s quays. Fianna Fáil spirits were already up because they had just seen the photographs and video clips from Fine Gael’s housing launch, which had just finished at another press conference across the city.
Mortification heaped on mini-mortification for the party when the election slogan affixed to the front of the Taoiseach’s lectern, a slogan specially tailored around the special skills of its youthful new leader, fell off in the middle of his speech. Twice.
“A New Energy.”
Simon Harris was talking about housing at the time and what Fine Gael would do to fix the crisis when it slumped. Like the hopes of first-time buyers.
“I don’t know what fell there.”
“It’s your new energy,” said Louise Burne from the Irish Mirror. A colleague tried to stick it back on with Sellotape but it dropped off again, rather like Micheál’s audience was trying not to do back over in Smock Alley.
Maybe “A New Energy” was trying to escape across the Liffey to enliven what must rank as one of the dullest manifesto launches in the colourful history of Fianna Fáil manifesto launches. Exactly what they wanted – let the Blueshirts make the news.
There were more handlers than hacks in the large, echoey, vaulted room. The Tánaiste addressed his sparse attendance with eight gender-balanced candidates seated in a line on either side of him – six gentleman TDs, four lady Senators and six others.
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They sat there saying nothing while Micheál did all the talking. Minister for Finance Jack Chambers had the honour of introducing him.
The highlight of Jack’s monotone speech was the chance it gave everyone to watch footage on their phones of Gerard Hutch arriving at Dublin Airport to commence his campaign for a seat in Dublin North Central and incarceration in Leinster House.
Apparently conditions are far better there than they are in the jails in Spain.
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