The Stupid Party

More shooting themselves in the foot from the official opposition.  John Deasy might be dismissed as a maverick, same as his father before him.  But Damien English, wading in to discuss a future leadership election in Fine Gael, no matter how "hypothetical", has made matters much worse.  If the party expresses doubt and equivocation it will transmit to the voters and play into the hands of Fianna Fáil, who must be delighted at this unforced bout of collective stupidity.  Fine Gael is in danger of making itself irrelevant before the campaign officially starts - just like in 2002. 

Fine Gael have issued a statement from English clarifying his comments.  I heard him on Morning Ireland and, if he is the future of the party, then it's all over.  His point was that whenever the party elects a new leader "down the line" they should skip a generation.  When bluntly asked "why?" he just waffled about "being a young TD".  He was quite bereft of a scintilla of an idea as to what difference in terms of policy, approach, image, mode of communication would make if such a generational shift in leadership were to happen.    And to top it all, he blames "bad journalism" for getting his message "misconstrued".  In short, he appears to be a total idiot.

Comments

[John Carroll]

Obviously the people of Meath have a different view on Damien than yourself. It was a Sam Smyth article in the Independent on Damien, which I think says enough about its level of objectivity. If you take a Sam Smyth article at face value, I would suggest that you apply your own words to yourself.

This is a media creation in a week of no political news, and one that will blow over in a few days with little impact on the party's electoral performance.

It is worth noting that all the news this week has been Fine Gael - the poster campaign on McDowell's incompetence, restorative justice, and this. It was worse when we were being ignored.