Boy George no more
Read more about: Dublin South, Fine Gael 
So Boy George has bit the bullet. Fallen on his own sword, hoist by his own petard, crashed and burned, came a cropper.
At 1pm today former RTE economist and more recently celebrity by-election candidate, George Lee, announced he is resiging his Dáil seat and his membership of the Fine Gael party.
It wasn’t happening fast enough for him. He wasn’t a Minister yet. So he flew the coop. Barely a TD six months – could it have been the shortest career in Irish politics?
The harder they come…
A really sad day for Irish politics.
Obviously Lee wasn’t willing to join the queue with the brainless backbench gom-daws, only to spend years earning his stripes on the pot-holes & funerals circuit.
He was on the pigs back, on a personal and political roll. Golden new boy on a team that was favourite for the championship. Two years max and by any yardstick he was going to be in power. That’s all he had to wait.
If he was so abhorred by the Fine Gael party he could have served his term out as an independent. At least served the people who elected him.
Fine Gael wanted a celebrity candidate to win an election and then had no clue what to do with him.
He wanted it all and he wanted it yesterday.
Says a lot about both.
IF George goes, can Enda be far behind him?…And I thought it was only socialist parties that did ‘The Split’!
Text of Statement from George Lee announcing his resignation:
Statement from George Lee TD.
I wish to announce that I have resigned from the Fine Gael Party and from my seat in Dáil Eireann today Monday 8th February 2010.
It has been a very difficult decision, but it is one that I have taken after a great deal of reflection on my position and on the role that I have been playing in Fine Gael since I
joined that Party in May last year.
The nine months since then have been a period of enormous economic upheaval. Throughout that period I have done my best to play a positive role in contributing to the national debate and to efforts to find a solution for many of the country’s economic problems.
The reality, however, is that despite my best efforts I have had virtually no influence or input into shaping Fine Gael’s economic policies at this most critical time.
The role I have been playing within the party has been very limited and I have found this to be personally unfulfilling.
When I entered politics last May I made it clear that I was doing so because I wanted to try to play a new role contributing to economic policy formulation. After nine months of trying within the political system it is now my considered view that the role available to me within Fine Gael is not a role I am happy to play.
I would like thank most sincerely all those who campaigned for me, for all of their efforts and support. I would also like to thank my Secretarial and Parliamentary Assistants for all of the help and work that they have provided to me.
I particularly want to thank the electorate of Dublin South who voted for me in such large numbers last May. It has been a great privilege and an honour to serve on their behalf. However, I do not believe I would be serving the electorate honestly if I were to continue allowing my efforts and mandate to be used to promote and market economic policies into which I have had no input.
George Lee
Monday 8th February 2010
Ah sweet, sweet schadenfreude … by far the most noble of our national personality traits. Its what makes us such a great little nation after all. Well, that and begrudgery.
Notwithstanding the speed, it reminds of Jim Glennon. Someone with real talent, but also didn’t see things changing fast enough. Note Glennon’s quote from just a couple of weeks ago –
As a rugby player, he said he always knew who he was supposed to be marking before a match. “But it was only when I went into politics that the concept of marking a man at a funeral surfaced.” Glennon said there was a “funeral culture” among politicians which had left him with a sense of “self-disgust”.
This was in the course of describing his general disgust with backbench life.
If it is the case that Fine Gael frustrated Lee to the point of exit then it is indeed a sad day for Irish politics. Of course it will be doubly sad if this development in any way contributes to a reduction in the hammering FF gets in the next election. Indeed I write this with a certain amound of dread that FF might not get a hammering at all, though I think the intensity of the national trauma is such that the emotions towards power which it has stirred will not have subsided by the next general election.
One of the common points made by those poor unlistened to believers that we call political scientists is that a key flaw in the Irish political system is how resistant it is to ordinary civilians, by which I mean that you can scarcely imagine a person successful in a civilian career – be it as CEO of a private firm, a professor of medicine, a school principal, or other – making a successful transition to politics mid career. There are exceptions, but they are indeed the rarity that proves the rule. This leaves us with a political system built only from a certain kind of person: those political animals that serve their time shadow canvassing, and collecting, organising and arranging, and scrammbling their way up through the layers of local, then national party machinery. Apart from the damage this must do to the soul, and the attendant effects on any possible political psyche, this kind of self selecting process deprives us of, not just variety, but a great many talents.
This great flaw in our system guarantees us a political elite who are loyal to party rather than to political ideas. Indeed this very characteristic is so acute in FF that it is striking. Coughlan and Cowen are extreme versions of this malady.
And that is why Lee’s emergence was a refreshing and hopeful sign. Yet given that FG is a party feeble enough to allow itself to be led by a dullard like Kenny, it was always too much to expect that anything invigorating would emerge from it.
Lee’s talents too were doubtless oversold. And even had he been handed the econmic reigns of the party, it is unlikely that their offering would be all that much more attractive. But at the very least, we would have known that the upper echelons of Irish political life are not impermeable to ordinary people who think they can contribute and are willing to at least to try to make a difference.
@Tomaltach
Amongst the slack-jawed backbench set, I believe such soul-destroying activity is lauded as “working hard on the ground”.
Like latter-day cargo cultists, they revere an essentially useless activity.
I’m very disappointed, angry, ticked off by all this. I reckon he is doing the wrong thing for what on the basis of what he has said are the right reasons. If you think you can’t do the job you expected then you’re better off out than in, the question is how hard did he try to get into a position to shape policy. He could have reached out directly to voters and party members, fact is that is what he appeared to be doing to me. But resigning right now makes you wonder about how much he realised that politics is very lonely and solitary work for all that people call them political parties.
There again many would rate 9 months of George Lee would as better than 2 Dáil terms of Shay Brennan so I’d avoid too gloating James.
James,
Why is my comment, which simply reprints George Lee’s formal statement to the press this morning for the record, ‘awaiting moderation’?
Charlie Bird and George will soon both be free together to make their own reality TV show-
” I’m a celebrity- Why does no one listen to me around here?”
There is definitely a touch of the Walter Mitty about George. He is the head lining star in his own biopic and not content to be a bit player,perhaps he now sees himself making one dramatic stand for truth and justice before setting out, alone like Shane, into the sunset.
What good can come of this? For one thing, it may signal the end of ‘celebrity’ candidates and media personalities being parachuted in to flatter by association the public image of otherwise pedestrian and mediocre political leadership. It may also alert the electorate that all that glitters is not gold; voting in ‘good media performers’ may not result in quality public representation.
What’s disturbing is that Lee appears reckless about the damage he is inflicting on the party he freely joined and on his former party leader, whose future in that position is probably fatally wounded as a result of what’s happened. To judge by his media statements throughout the day, it’s as if it was they who owed George, and he had no responsibility towards them in turn. He displayed a similar attitude towards his RTE management when he made the jump into politics just a few months ago.
Perhaps it’s not any great loss that he’s picked up his ball and walked off the pitch. On the face of it, his political judgement is clearly terrible and his arrogance is breathtaking. Are those the qualities that one would want to see on display in a senior economic minister in any government faced with an ongoing economic and employment crisis?
What’s disturbing is that Lee appears reckless about the damage he is inflicting on the party he freely joined and on his former party leader, whose future in that position is probably fatally wounded as a result of what’s happened.
Pretty useless to let him do so much damage especially when he commanded so much trust amongst the public.
Only FG could take a real ace in the hole and turn it into something that makes them a laughing stock and threatens the career of their leader.
Its the bad. forks and rain, gun and foot stuff
What I can’t quite fathom is how a man who is undoubtedly clever and surely was aware of the nature of life as a backbencher, thought his situation could have been any different.
It’s either arrogance or naivety to believe a newly elected T.D., having held no previous public office, could saunter to the front of a party that already was made up of 52 deputies along with more earnest figures looking on from the sidelines in the Senate.
Is it possible he was misled on what role he would play within Fine Gael when his candidacy was sought for the by-election?
Conor,
Whether George was naive, a arrogant or idiot savant is irrelevant. George represented a brilliant opportunity for Fine Gael to sell their message through a communicator trusted by the people.
he should have been managed more skilfully and deployed more frequently. Maybe that would have annoyed the abrasive Doctor Leo or the capable but low profile richard Bruton but so what building the party vote and strength was the objective.
His walking away represents a weakening of FGs ability to connect with voters on economic matters.
Whether he is naive or arrogant or just simply honest in his actions is irrelevant to the political damage FG has effected by pointing a loaded gun at its foot.
I began my first comment with “if it is the case that Fine Gael frustrated Lee t o the point of exit then…”. I hadn’t heard much more than the headline. It is now pretty clear that Lee, while a fine commentator for RTE, was a political idiot. In interviews throughout the day yesterday Lee emerged as a figure who had a stunning ingnorance of party politics. When put to him that he was being handed a front bench role (always certain after a cooling off period for the lifers) and that there was a strong chance he’d be in a minister’s chair within a couple of years, he said he didn’t want high office, that wasn’t what he was in politics for. What? He wanted an input into economic policy. This came across as pitifully childish. What, did he want to be a policy wonk in the back rooms teasing out position papers? Then why run for the Dáil.
Remarks from other party members also suggested that Lee didn’t exactly fit in socially and culturally. He never threw his weight behind an effort to begin establishing himself in the party network – even the basic elements of sociability were missing. It counts a lot to just hang out! But Lee was loner, perferring not to head off for a coffee and network within the party.
It just seems as though he hadn’t a clue what politics is about. He made a complete fool out of himself. But as Veronica says above, not without causing great damage to FG, and its leader, Enda Kenny. If Lee dived in at the deep end and found he wasn’t up to it and had to leave the water, he could at least had made a more graceful exit. But of course, he felt like he had to make it look like it wasn’t his fault the marriage ended, so he blamed the other half.
This has made George Lee very small indeed.
If he wanted to exit gracefully he could have served out his term then quietly stepped down. Given the fanfare around his arrival ‘quiet’ is relative, but amidst the general churn of a general election it would have been less catastrophic than this. And he could at least have claimed to fulfil his contract to the people of his constituency.
On the wider issue there are those who suggest an either / or neverland of high level policy debates or rubber chicken and funeral circuits. Some manage both, some manage neither. The latter is over played and the former is there for those who seek it. I gather our new (old?) friend never even got so far as a policy paper. For all his self acclaimed policy wonk status, we have yet to hear what particular policies he so yearned to implement. In fach what little we did hear was mainly soundbite politics and populist partisanship.
There is an incredible arrogance to it all. One aspect which seems to be forgotten is that there is no current vacancy in the first place. This is forgetting (or ignoring) one the fundamental tenets of democracy. You have to win an election to be in power. There already is a Minister for Finance in place and doing a top job. There is no current vacancy. And to make one you have to win an election first. The sense of entitlement that exudes from not just Lee but many FG figures in this regard is incredible.
Furthermore, regarding a wider issue with the system. There are policy difficulties sure. Backbenchers and opposition TDs should have a greater role in policy development agreed. Private members bills being just one example. Channels for policy development from whatever corner need to be opened up and created to allow ideas come onstream. But this is a guy who had a constituency handed to him on a plate and about to be followed up by a Ministry. Whatever about the flaws of the irish political system, becoming a Minister within a year or so of taking office is a pretty good place to be in to start changing it.
To abandon one career is unfortunate. To abandon two is downright careless.
Tomaltach,
Leading on from your comment, there are many TDs in the Dail, and Senators, who over the years have made an issue their own and slogged away at bringing it to public attention when it was neither popular nor electorally profitable for them personally, and whilst they sat on the opposition benches with little or no prospect of government office in sight.
Dan Neville’s relentless campaign on suicide and alcohol abuse and the damage caused to our society as a result comes to mind as a more recent example, as does Fergus O’Dowd’s campaign on nursing homes and the rights of the elderly. In the early years of his political career, Alan Shatter made a very significant contribution to the development of family law in this country – he was like a dog with a bone who wouldn’t let it go no matter who was discomfited by it. Mary Harney championed many causes throughout her long political career, among others, the case of haemophiliacs who contracted the Aids virus in the mid 1980s as a result of the State’s negligence. In the final stage of her career in national politics, Maire Geoghegan Quinn exposed the realities of the Anti-D scandal and harried the then Minister for Health for action. Right up to the day he left the Dail, the late Jim Mitchell was banging the drum of Oireachtas and electoral reform.
There are many other examples, going back to Des O’Malley’s political generation and beyond, of backbenchers, whether in government or opposition, who first persuaded their own party colleagues, then the Dail and the general public, that something was wrong and that policy direction must change for the good of society. All kinds of abuse was heaped upon them for their trouble in many cases. But they persisted. They took the risk of being wrong to pursue what they believed was right.
It’s easy to dismiss George Lee as a petulant, self-absorbed, ego-centric, intellectually arrogant, angry-man poster-boy. But it goes further than that: he exemplifies many of the characteristics of the Celtic Tiger era that he professes to despise. In particular a sense of entitlement, of right, to be listened to without ever listening to anyone else or without doing the hard work of researching a position and then persuading your colleagues, and the public, by the intellectual force of your agument that they should come along with you.
His parliamentary performance in the short time he was in the Dail made no impression, and frequently the wrong one. Ditto his public appearances, where he frequently made statements that ran contrary to his own party’s policy positions. Maybe he didn’t need to read any of the policy papers because he was so brilliant himself and knew what was best, though what that was we shall never know because he never got much beyond grandiose general statements of the cause of our economic woes. He was persistently negative in his critique of government economic policies, yet had no alternatives to offer.
The main beneficiaries of his bravura performance yesterday will likely be his erstwhile political opponents, Fianna Fail, the Greens and the Labour Party. Now, following his playful foray into the political arena, he will swan back into RTE and a salary of €150k for covering cats and dogs’ shows plus a bonus of €15k, courtesy of the taxpayer, as severance pay for his nine months as a TD. Nice work if you can get it!
Far from being the ‘people’s champion’, as some of the media seem to want to characterise him, he’s the last thing we need. Time to forget about him.
I can’t help the parallel of George Lee with an Olympic sprinter who is brought into an NFL team because of his pace, an important consideration for sure but who is unaware that the task involves more than merely running.
I’m not abolishing FG from blame for failing to notice that he was discontented with his role and the way the party operated but I have to ask what was George’s magic plan?
that should read “absolving Fine Gael”, I’m not in a position to be “abolishing FG” though I’m sure there are some that would like to.
Committed and bright political candidates who would give their right arms to have a mandate and a dail seat are contributing to this thread. The opportunity to comment on policy, to elbow in on debate, to have a quiet word and slip a document under a coffee cup knowing that the letters TD and the votes, entitle one to be heeded even occasionally.
Its very bizarre that George couldnt deal with thatopportunity and style of getting on. UNLESS he is frightened now of losing BOTH jobs if he lets the leave of absence from RTE run out and fails to hold his seat in 2012. He knows he hasnt set the world on fire, he knows his impact may fail to impress the electorate. There are two top Fine Gael campaigners in Dublin South already.The chances of three FG seats in that constituency will be slim.George has gone back to safety. He is disingenuous now to those politicians who embrace the slippery pole and cant or wont cut and run.
According to George he was head-hunted by Fine Gael. It is obvious that they only wanted his name. He was therefore expected to leave his brains at the door. I am delighted that the truth is now there for all to see.
Des,
I’m not sure I agree with you about George lee entertaining fears of not being re-elected in a GE. 27,000 + votes is an awful lot of votes and it would take a massive drop in his personal popularity not to retain that support, especially if the electorate anticipated a change of government and the opportunity to put the ‘people’s champion’ into the Cabinet. I suspect Alan Shatter might have been more at risk than Lee. Also, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that FG would have kept their three seats in the next GE. In the two elections of ‘81 and ‘82, they returned three candidates (John Kelly, Shatter and Nuala Fennell). FF are performing dismally in Dublin in opinion polls and what with Dublin South being a traditional stronghold for FG and FF’s candidate problems, it’s possible that the constituency might have split 3-2 on a very good day for FF, i.e. three for FG, and two for Fianna Fail. More likely though, 3-1-1, with the ‘ones’ going to Labour’s Alex White and Fianna Fail pushing out the Green’s Eamon Ryan for the last seat, or possibly not even winning a seat at all if Ryan hung on because of a personal vote. (He was about 2,500 votes clear of Shatter at the end in election 2007 by the way, mainly courtesy of transfers from FG’s Jim O’Leary.)
What happens now with Lee out of the picture is anybody’s guess. If there’s a by-election Alex White would seem the likely favourite to win, but nothing is certain. In the next GE, FF should now have no problem taking one seat, if they can get their act together!
Thanks for that analysis veronica- when you put it like that it’s a cut throat constituency. Shay Brennan will struggle to get a look in again.
Time to let the sideshow pass by as you say though.
EddieL, “According to George he was head-hunted by Fine Gael. It is obvious that they only wanted his name. He was therefore expected to leave his brains at the door.” I’m not sure that is the case, I think that people thought he would know what to do once elected, instead he was a lost lamb with no idea how to take something and run with it.
Take this being chairman of an economic policy committee, he as chair could decide when it would meet, what the agenda would be, who would be invited to speak, what shape its outcome might be, all sorts of ways to influence policy. Christ he could have written a set of policies and published them, look at what Leo Varadkar did on quangos after he was 6 months in the Dáil.
http://www.leovaradkar.ie/wp-content/docs/streamlining.pdf
Where are even the sketches of the policies that George wanted to have implemented?
Dan,
I hesitate to say this, because it’s entirely a matter for Fine Gael about which I know little and am not therefore qualified to comment, but I think FG could look to skip a generation when they next decide it’s time for a change of leadership or the current leader realises he has taken them as far as he personally can, whenever that may be.
Perhaps I’m partisan because Leo Varadkar is in my constituency. He’s an excellent local representative in my particular area, as is Brian Lenihan,and they both demonstrate a commitment to the best interests of their constituents and an understanding of local sentiment and concerns. Leo, like Brian Lenihan too, also has an impressive command of national issues.
While most of the time I probably wouldn’t agree with his ideological perspective, his work rate and output in his shadow portfolio are impressive. But that’s the thing about real leadership potential, isn’t it? You may profoundly disagree with the ideology, but the practical ideas and personal commitment might persuade you to say: “Why not? Let’s give it a shot!” Leo also seems capable of learning from his mistakes. So should a vacancy ever arise, maybe…
A woman said to me this morning “he never got a chance”. He got the best chance any rookie TD ever got and he blew it. Dáil seat on a plate and chairmanship of an open ended committee to boot. You’ve got to make your own chances in this life. Or else move over and let someone else have a go.
Daniel:
James:
“chairmanship of an open ended committee”
All part of the plot! George’s name to FG economics!!
Maybe George was naive to think that FG politics of keeping the oligarchy in power could be made to accommodate the truth about Nama, the cause of the recession, the dire prospects for the labour force now on the dole etc.
But against that I suppose he had to give it a try.
EddieL, I have to repeat myself (and that’s no fun for anyone) but where are his policies. What is Leeism and how did it differ from FG were offering? I mean I’m sick the back teeth of banging my (not inconsiderably sized some might say) head against the lack of a transparent process for members of the political parties in Ireland to have more of a say in policy generation but George Lee had an opportunity staring him in the face and he couldn’t see it. Vincent Browne has pointed up the same thing, Declan Costello wrote the Just Society document, and he wasn’t standing about wanting to be asked, I’ve posted on my thoughts of how we could change the electoral system. I’d be a proponent of revisiting ideas like the basic income scheme. If I and others here and elsewhere can scribble down concrete ideas why couldn’t George?
One other thing about this notion that has gotten about that some people felt George had to serve his time or wait his turn and that he was like a star athlete that the party was simply refusing to play. I’ve heard no one in FG suggest that he had to wait his turn, in fact it is the media that have come up with that notion, perhaps because it is so common in that field we couldn’t have Tubridy present the Late Late until Pat Kenny stepped down. In truth he was more like a star sprinter such as Dwain Chambers (not making any drug or scandal comparison here) who tried out for rugby league but ultimately wasn’t suitable. It was not about George being made to wait but George getting a chance to acclimate to the best way to be effective in the world of politics. Beating the analogy to death, I wouldn’t have taken Mike Frank Russell in his heyday, signed him for Crystal Palace on the Friday and thrown him into the team the following day. It is remarkable that George Lee is feted and rightly so for being a great communicator but he didn’t communicate a single idea to anyone either in FG or outside in his time in the Dáil. I think that says a lot about the Dáil, and the way we pay attention to politics.
Veronica, I think Leo Varadkar has been a stand-out of the 2007 Oireachtas intake and I would certainly rate him as a leadership contender whenever that contest might arise. Yet I also think that Leo is wary of the lessons from Brian Hayes’s arrival when he was on the front bench quickly, did well but lost his seat in 2002. I wouldn’t always agree with Leo but you can actually have a debate about ideas with him and feel that he is listening to what you’ve got to say even at worst it is only to hone his own argument more.
Daniel: All I am saying that when you cut through the waffle FF and FG have the same policies. On NAMA FF would create a bad bank and a good bank, FG would create a good bank and a bad bank. FG pretentions to difference with FF on the privatisation of public services are nothing more than waffle. This was not going to change but it is obvious that FG was trying to lend credibility to to their lack of an alternative economic and social policy to FF by having George Lee’s imprimatur.
It seems to me that George and the country had learned this the hard way.
Dan,
2002 was FG’s ‘meltdown’ year, I think, and Dublin South West is quite different to Dublin West in its social profile – substantial middle-class vote, ‘new’ suburban areas and the like. Anyway, DW is going up from three to four seats in the next GE, so Leo looks to be sitting pretty. Even if he sat on his ass and didn’t do another stroke of work from now ’til polling day, it would take a complete national collapse of the FG vote to threaten his position, I reckon.
I completely agree that Leo is not at the same risk as Hayes turned out to be but no one thought he was at that much of a risk as it was considered thar SF would challenge for the 2nd FF seat there. However, I still think that Leo planned for this Dáil that he would solidify his seat 1st and foremost.
Who knows DW could even suppply all 3 main party leaders, if the brakes on a bus on Kildare st were to take out the incumbents.