Peter Hain’s job description

To say that Peter Hain wears two hats—Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Wales—is an understatement. For he is also a key player in the Labour party hierarchy, and clearly a Blairite who may have a role to play in the management of the transition to Gordon Brown (?). But does his job now extend to providing a rhetorical bulwark for Bertie Ahern? In the context of an election? Apparently so.

Consider Hain’s remarks in Dundalk today after meeting with Dermot Ahern (ireland.com, subs. req’d):

[Blair] and the Taoiseach are twin architects of the whole dramatic change in Northern Ireland for the past 10 years. They are the best people to take it forward. There is nobody else–no successor who can do the type of job that the Taoiseach has done and the Prime Minister has done.

They know the people, they know the issues inside out. They have the strategic brilliance to be able to conclude all of these. It’s absolutely crucial that all the parties take advantage of their detailed knowledge and attention.

Does this cross a line? The whole point of elections is that no leader is indispensable, and to proclaim in advance of the Irish election that any leader other than Bertie would lack the same “strategic brilliance” to run the Dublin side of the political process is strong stuff. Now Hain could say that the remarks are not directed at the Republic’s electorate but at the dithering parties in Northern Ireland, but he did make these remarks in Dundalk. It also lacks credibility to claim that Blair is still giving Northern Ireland “forensic” attention, when the North was the one thing missing from the leaked valedictory tour memo in the Mirror, and when Blair’s attention is quite clearly directed to his legacy in the Middle East.