02.04.07
Fine Gael
Note: Since we still await the “regional” editions of the ST online, here is the unedited offering from me this week. Typical – I stick my neck out for these guys and then what? spend the day being annoyed because they removed “Celtic and Christian” from the published version of the speech even as I listen to pundits on the radio DEFEND the term. Like WHAT Is the f*cking point defending FG if they won’t even defend themselves? WHAT IDIOT gave that piece of advice? PUKE.
OOPS!!! Turns out C&C not removed, just em, obscured….see here for more.
I have a confession to make: I have a chromosomal abnormality. Both my parents carry a recessive gene which combined to produce a severe defect in all their children. The result is a relatively common though socially unacceptable ailment which makes our lives extremely difficult. We are Fine Gael supporters. It’s a very distressing condition. Each day presents the challenge of dealing with derision and abuse from all quarters. Radio programmes, front page headlines, mockery in the pub : all assure us that we are a useless, incompetent bunch of misfits. We are left to gather in the privacy of our own homes, drinking Barry’s tea, bitterly confiding the latest humiliations and wondering where it all went wrong.
The last few weeks have been particularly trying. The broadsheet newspapers seem to contain nothing but criticism of Fine Gael and their partners in opposition, Labour.
The criticism falls into three categories. There are angry columnists, malevolent Press Barons and common or garden reporters infected with the toxic newsroom virus Fine Gaelitis. The first group, angry columnists, were out in force most recently in the ever earnest Irish Times. Last month, columns entitled “How Enda Kenny Blew It” by Fintan O’Toole or “Kenny in a state of paralysis” by John Waters lamented the failings of the Leader of the Opposition. Anyone would think he had just lost a General Election. Has he lost the election already or have the columnists lost their heads?
The articles are indicative of a deep frustration that many journalists have about Fine Gael. They last thing they want is Fianna Fail in power for another 5 years yet they despair of Fine Gael’s apparently amateurish behaviour. Waters identified that Fine Gael has a crippling fear of the media which destroys Kenny’s self-confidence. But given the constant disparagement he faces, can you blame him? Compare the main opposition party to the Fianna Fail machine and they look like children. Yet the criticism fails to take account of the hopelessly mismatched resources of both parties.
The Fianna Fail machine is not the Fianna Fail machine – it’s the Government machine. The confidence and security of almost 20 years in power shows. Fianna Fail Ministers have the use of half a dozen employees in their constituency offices, a departmental press office, the Fianna Fail press office and the Government Information Service, a slick operation which closely monitors and then refutes media commentary on government performance. Your taxes pay for hundreds of advisors, photographs, make-up, research, and secretaries requesting early releases from prison. Last year alone €5m was spent on 145 staff who work solely for the cabinet members. There is no way that the opposition, still wounded from the bloodbath which lost them many experienced voices in the last election can match this industry. A Fine Gael spokesperson has two staff members and depends upon a party wide policy unit and a press office, between them totalling twelve employees.
Still, there is nothing Fine Gael can do about this uneven playing field, and they will just have to get on with it. To those depressed and out-gunned front benchers I say, you have to possess a passion for social injustice that overcomes their spin doctors. If you had anger in your eyes and fire in your belly, this would beat the comfortable confidence of the incumbents.
Or would it? Ten days ago, Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd made another significant breakthrough in his tireless work to secure the safety of patients in nursing homes. He discovered that in 2004 a HSE inspector reported that such were the abuses taking place at St. Albert’s Nursing Home in Cork that no more sick or old people should be placed in its care. The HSE ignored their own inspector and continued to place and pay for public patients in the home. In Leas Cross the government claimed they didn’t know. In St. Albert’s they knew but did nothing. This story was of such significance that the Irish Independent put it on their front page on Friday 26th January.
Not once on that front page did the Irish Independent mention the source of the story : Fergus O’Dowd. This couldn’t have been an accident. Someone decided to drop him from the news report. Why? Was a conscious decision made to avoid any credit being given to the Fine Gael front bencher?
This is a very different and more powerful enemy than the well meaning advice from the Irish Times brigade. Inside the paper where the story continued, a dominant headline read “Strict new rules for nursing homes to protect residents” which outlined Mary Harney’s plans to prevent a repeat of the incident. You had to read closely to discover that the rules were only in draft form and have no effect.
You can just see Harney’s advisors dusting down some otherwise ignored memo from six months ago; “Here, announce this. That’ll take the shine off O’Dowd’s revelations” – which it did of course. Over to one side of the page, we finally read a true account of the Louth TD’s work which exposed the scandal. It seemed to me that the presentation of this story willfully and literally sidelined Fine Gael’s work. Either that or I too am suffering from the deep paranoia which afflicts well wishers of the second largest party in the country. Still, as someone once said, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t all out to get you.
We are all familiar with the threat made by senior executives of Independent Newspapers to John Bruton’s advisors in 1996 that Fine Gael would “lose INP as friends” if they didn’t act upon Tony O’Reilly’s request to assist his various businesses with particular problems. That threat was apparently carried out in 1997 when months of a continuous onslaught against the Rainbow government culminated in the infamous front page editorial headlined “It’s Payback Time” urging readers to reject the Fine Gael led government. That was nearly ten years ago, but sometimes you wonder if editorial policy at the Indo still follows that line.
This continuous negative attitude towards Fine Gael : even when they do something right : has created a newsroom culture where it is an accepted fact that the party are incompetent. Praise for Fine Gael comes rarely, is highly qualified and usually preceded by credibility-seeking mockery. Is it justified? Well, Fine Gael has its weaknesses. There is no doubt that Richard Bruton, Liam Twomey and the aforementioned O’Dowd are the only true grafters on the Front Bench. The rest of them could do with an adrenalin shot or a kick in the posterior : personally I’d favour the latter. Their press office lacks a PJ Mara-style figure with the authority to shake up the staff and lead the battle. But even if they did that, would it be a fair fight? The latest Irish Times/TNS polls show Fianna Fail and the PD’s just one point ahead of a Fine Gael-Labour coalition. The voters appear to be giving the opposition a chance. The question is, will the media?
Darren Mac an PhrÃora said,
February 4, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I don’t think that Enda Kenny is afraid of the media. He is right to conserve his energy. The election will be decided by the people who don’t watch current affairs and politics anyway on the tv.
Mark Waters said,
February 4, 2007 at 8:22 pm
What particularly galls me about the media on this is that they complain that “it’s all about personalities, why don’t they discuss the issues?” when it’s the journalists themselves who are dictating what gets highlighted and who love nothing better than a good old “clash of personalities”. It saves them having to do any real work.
I wouldn’t get too worked up about the “Celtic and Christian” thing. It’s a minor sideshow (says he as he shouts “roll up! roll up !”:)). As Darren says it’s all about conserving energy until people are actually listening. 2 to 3 weeks before the election is when things really get going despite the journalists continually announcing that the campaign starts NOW.
P O'Neill said,
February 4, 2007 at 8:27 pm
One thing that could shake the media up is if they knew contempt in which Fianna Fail hold them. Not Fine Gael — because the real contempt comes from knowing that you play someone like a violin any time you want. Not much respect in that relationship. The stunner here in the states with the libby trial has been all the side notes that have come out about media manipulation — cheney knowing which TV shows are best to go on in terms of “controlling message” (NBC’s Meet the Press), dumping all the bad news on a friday, making some reporters feel special with a “leak”, getting others to chase their tails with non-stories — and all the while despising the lot of them even as the meeja beg for more.
Crocodile said,
February 4, 2007 at 9:49 pm
The main reason that FG are getting a bashing from columnists – I don’t know about the behind-scenes diktats of antagonistic press barons – is that they are offering themselves as an alternative government without offering alternative policies. The only bit of articulate policy talk you hear from them is from Richard Bruton and he says nothing that could not come from the mouth of an FFer or PD. They’ve apparently bought into the notion that they need to be like the present crowd, only more so, and in a more honest, cuddly kind of way.
I had an interesting conversation the other day with an FG canvasser in my constituency. Everyone she’d met was well-disposed towards her, the party and Enda – but they were all going to vote for the Greens or the high-profile independent candidate, people who want to challenge some of the orthodoxies that FG buy into just as much as their ‘opponents’ do.
A more interesting story about how the media try to influence election results is their news agenda. Expect to see, between now and polling day: a rash of scare stories about the effects of an increase in taxes on business; virulent anti-benchmarking campaigns; daily crime ‘exclusives’. I don’t think the media really care what party’s in power, so long as the property supplements stay healthy.
Sarah said,
February 4, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Well our man GG got a great article in the SINDO Sports section today http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=37&si=1770205&issue_id=15221
and I do think that FG have taken the attitude that they are fighting the election on a constituency by constituency basis rather than a “national” election. I think all the comments above are accurate.
I suppose that regardless of particular criticisms one can make about FG we have to remember that we cannot become a one party state. There are genuine democratic issues at stake when one party is in power for so long. There MUST be change and there will be no change without an FG led government.
Darren Mac an PhrÃora said,
February 5, 2007 at 11:56 am
Sorry to rubbish your “all the above comments are accurate” statement Sarah but I think that Crocodile is wrong to say “The main reason that FG are getting a bashing from columnists – I don’t know about the behind-scenes diktats of antagonistic press barons – is that they are offering themselves as an alternative government without offering alternative policies.” The press-releases on the FG website are excellent, but the media often don’t quote them.
I remember reading an excellent one by Olwyn Enright but I don’t believe that the media covered it. Tony O’ Reilly still has issues with FG and Labour over that whole cable thing in ’97 but they will report on what sells them papers, even if they like to trash the opposition now and again.
Finally, I think that the oppossion should refrain from using the word “alternative” too much. FF and the PD’s.have an advantage because they are already in Govt.
Instead of demonstating how good the opposition are we should be focussing more (for those of us that are not) on how bad the Govt. is and demonstrating that through examples. Many ‘average Joes’, as we all know, can be fickel and open to sucumbing to FF/PD elecioneering even though they don’t like them.
Darren Mac an PhrÃora said,
February 5, 2007 at 11:58 am
Sorry, if that sounds despondent but I’m in a good mood because I got a letter published in the Indo today.
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=53&si=1770671&issue_id=15222
A Lurker said,
February 5, 2007 at 10:39 pm
I agree that the problem lies iwhere you have said “Richard Bruton, Liam Twomey and the aforementioned O’Dowd are the only true grafters on the Front Bench”
Honourable mention should also be given to Alan Shatter, even if he is no longer on the front bench. He wrote a opinion piece on Stamp Duty (and it read like he really did write it ) which was a pefect retort for what Brian Cowan said about “not wanting to interfere with the market”. YOU ALREADY ARE.
Where do you stand on the “attacking the Queen” idea … going for Bertie and the “so what have you done in all those years in power … based on what Karl Rove does “Attack the strength of your opponent”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/architect/interviews/slater.html
Mark Waters said,
February 6, 2007 at 9:01 am
Bernard Allen and Bernard Durkan also did really good work on e-voting. Their contributions were intelligent and well-informed, contrasting sharply with the government’s attempt to treat us like luddites if we didn’t give in and use their half-assed system. Bertie was trying to bully us into e-voting with his “laughing stock of Europe” and “stupid ‘aul pencils” remarks.
I don’t recall Allen and Durkan getting a whole lot of credit but I was impressed by their level of understanding of the issue which is a complex one for a politician and the public to grasp.
The country was very lucky to get out of e-voting in one piece. It was a close run thing and would have had serious repercussions if it had gone ahead.
Sarah said,
February 6, 2007 at 9:16 am
Well is this more evidence to back up my claim them? The Allen/Durkan work never registered with me, and in fact, I don’t know which portfolios either of these men represent. Is Allen Foreign Affairs? I know Enright is Education and Jim O’Keefe is Justice. And Olivia Mitchell is anti-traveller halting site woman and Transport (or is it environment? I know she comments on transport). But there must be loads of ammo in Education….and I want to see more of the terrier in Enright.
Mark Waters said,
February 6, 2007 at 10:44 pm
This post from Justin gives you the flavour. If Fine Gael are looking for an ad campaign they should just run the tape of this. There’s loads of this sort of stuff out there.
Allen is Foreign Affairs. Durkan is Communications.
Liana Merete said,
September 20, 2007 at 12:34 am
and they also said, that we couldn’t last togethe. Liana Merete.