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Keeping your Friends Closer
Read more about: Fianna Fail 
It is hardly surprising that following a reshuffle in which the conservative streak won out, the back benches in Fianna Fail are slightly angsty. They are in a perpetual knot over keeping their seats and advancing toward the ministerial merc. Interestingly with the reshuffle Cowen has brought both his Kitchen cabinet and the Green party closer to him while repelling much of the rest of his party and probably the country too.
In typical Cowen style, it seems to have happened by accident rather than design. The FF party – now replete with younger versions of our long-term ministers only agonising for an opportunity to prove their mettle in advance of an election – are likely to find living with the ongoing public profile granted Batt O’Keeffe and Mary Coughlan by their leader to be a source of great ire. The lack of promotion of what could be seen as capable, qualified, literate candidates in preference to best mates is not a recipe for success.
Yet it is always like that, in a party with over 70 TDs there arent enough jobs for the boys and girls to go round. Hence Committees and even the plum posts there have been cut back. When jobs get scarce, backbenchers get shifty. And yet the reshuffle has put the prospect of collapse in government in the distance. For with an additional Junior for the Greens bringing the total representation in government to 4 or 2/3 of their TDs – with only Sargeant and Gogarty able to make difficulty from the outside – the prospects of an election before 2012 are now slightly farther away.
While some Green members despair, and some even talk of a heave, any viable stalking horse is now ensconsed in government thanks to John Gormley. While one cannot underestimate the potential for strange political fallout, the Greens have weathered so much of it thus far that one no longer feels there is a sufficient weight to force an exit.
For Cowen managing his internal affairs will become a priority, for the country they will watch a Taoiseach surrounded by his friends attempt to deal with his party. The lack of any major signal over cabinet is an obstinate refusal by Cowen to bow to ‘conventional wisdom’ that is almost admirable only for the fact that this time the wisdom is right. He needed to change things and he fluffed it.
I suspect what’s driving the FF backbenchers truly mad is the second junior ministerial post for the Greens. That Cowen didn’t dump any of his existing Cabinet though deprives the dissident rump of a figure to coalesce around. Although I don’t know much about the inner workings of Fianna Fail, I think that any challenge to the leadership fronted by already well-known complainers such as John McGuinness or Maire Hoctor or Jim McDaid or Mattie mcGrath is guaranteed to fizzle out pretty quick and no amount of media priming will make it otherwise.
It appears that Cowen’s priority is to keep his administration stable for the foreseeable future, so that barring unforseen ‘events’ this government will see out its term. The Greens and defections by FF backbenchers are the most pressing threats to the survival of the government in the medium term of which the Greens were the most immediate threat in recent times. If the Greens demanded the cancellation of Christmas to save on CO2 emissions from the roasting of turkeys, Cowen would probably oblige them. For the moment, his own backbenchers can be kicked into the middle distance since each and all of them know that forcing Cowen to resign as Taoiseach and party leader now would cause an immediate general election. And a general election forced by a split in Fianna Fail could only result in total electoral disaster for most of them.
There appears to be a general belief at government level that the longer they stay in power the less annihilation they will ultimately suffer at the polls. How soundly based that hypothesis is will be tested in due course.
Very conservative. Very cautious. Very late.
http://jameslawless.ie/2010/03/24/lord-help-me-to-be-hopeful/
Consider the split in cabinet late last year on the unions’ demands then consider where Ministers on the other side of that split (e.g. the ones opposing the 12 days of Christmas codology) are now. Very telling.
The backbenchers are not just worried about their own seats but also about the future of the party and the country.
James,
Thanks for posting the link. Very good analysis – I think you would find as many in agreement with it outside of FF as among your own party colleagues. Would you agree, though, that a general election precipitated by a backbench revolt and then played out as an FF ‘cvil war’ election would be completely disastrous? Which means Cowen will get away with this?
@Veronica
It is a conundrum as I think the party needs a spell in opposition to reinvigorate and renew itself, but equally I cannot contemplate the idea of Fine Gael or Labour being in power. So a definite quandary there.
It’s not just the party politics, there are more important things than electoral considerations but one of these would be saving the economy and I would be very fearful of any other than Brian Lenihan to be entrusted with that task.
I do think a more candid and confident communications style is needed though, and a more radical approach than being shackled by conservatism. As I said on the other post, it’s a time for throwing out the rule book, not for making the minimum allowable substitutions..
James,
Your candour is refressing and a bit humbling too, especially to an old ‘hurler on the ditch’ like me. I agree with you about the importance of Lenihan’s role at the present time. Whatever mistakes he may make along the way, he’s definitely the sort you’d want around at a time of crisis. Pity the same can’t be said for most of the rest of them, of all parties. It seems as if they live in some kind of parallel universe in which vanity and the quest for power and personal aggrandisement supercede every other consideration and we, the citizens, are taken for fools.