A few months ago I wrote that a week is a long time in politics, the old saying, but for Fianna Fáil and in particular Fianna Fáil Councillors, TDs and MEPs this month has been a long time.
The present Fianna Fáil Government have gotten themselves into one mess after another. It’s the first time I have ever seen the grass roots of Fianna Fáil and even their own elected representatives giving out about the party. They seem to have lost the common touch. This is not the Fianna Fáil of old. Local election candidates are certainly very nervous about the forthcoming election because that could be the first test of this new Government under Brian Cowen, or the councillors are hoping we might have a general election over by then.
The debacle in relation to the medical cards, education and farming has certainly put awful pressure on Fianna Fáil councillors and TDs. On top of this, the Fianna Fáil councillors don't know whether they are going to be candidates or not with no selection conventions and no diktat from the top.
Certainly some of the older councillors must be worried whether they are going to get the nod. Rumour has it they have been searching every part of Co Mayo looking for young and vibrant candidates.
Interesting days ahead in FF.
It’s not all rosy in the garden for Fine Gael either. Wonderful opinion poll results for the party, yet Enda Kenny's own popularity has gone down at a time when the party has gone ahead of Fianna Fáil in opinion polls, which is good news for the party but not such good news for Enda. He needs to be looking over his shoulder at the young guns who have only one ambition and that's to be ministers, people like Leo Varadkar, Brian Hayes, Simon Coveney. Reading in the national papers recently with his breakfast mornings, these are good times and bad times for Enda Kenny.
The young guns, some of them, are in a hurry, and then there's also Richard Bruton, the finance spokesman for Fine Gael, whose star has risen in the last six months and has certainly outshone everybody else in Fine Gael. Again the recent poll in the Irish Times, showed that people would prefer Richard Bruton as leader of Fine Gael.
The next number of polls will be very interesting, especially how Fine Gael will react.
There is no doubt that if Fianna Fáil keep on making the errors they have made over the past few weeks they could be in trouble and some people are asking if they really want to be in government at this difficult time. They might be quite relieved to hand it over to Fine Gael for 15 to 18 months to try and bring the public finances back in order and that's not going to be easy for any government.
Some people in Fine Gael are saying that Fianna Fáil should be left to clean up the mess. They should not be in a hurry for an election in 18 months’ time. But then there is the danger that we could have both a recovery in our own economy and world economies and that danger is there for Fine Gael.
There is one place Fianna Fáil love to be and that’s in power and they will do anything, if there is an upturn in the economy, to retain power. With Fine Gael’s recent announcement about the pay deal it was interesting to see how Eamonn Gilmore and Labour distanced themselves from Fine Gael and they also were not happy about the soundings from the national conference that Richard Bruton would automatically be minister for finance if a new government was formed.
There is a long way to go in this game yet. We'll come back to this again.
