Maria Farrell of Crooked Timber links to Maurice Manning's article in yesterday's Irish Times marking Declan Costello's eightieth birthday. She refers to Costello's role in the authorship of "The Just Society" document that inspired many people who came to maturity in the mid 1960s to become politically active, presumably inspired by the party's new commitment to social justice and associated values.
Unlike the other main party whose programmes seem driven more by electoral vagaries and backroom deals with special interests, Fine Gael has long been a party of ideas – for better or worse. (For a party of ideology, try the PDs.) Costello was one of many unlikely politicians who have peopled Fine Gael’s senior positions and forced uncomfortable change on its rather conservative membership. I wonder what he thinks of Fine Gael today.
Fine Gael today is rather light on the ideas front and while it is becoming more credible as an electoral force, that credibility is derived from the fact that it is seen as being more electable than it has been for some time. This has as much to do with the exhaustion and bankruptcy of the ruling party as much as Fine Gael becoming better organised and, yes, more credible. Ideas have little role to play in the renascent official opposition. The horse race obsessions of Irish political punditry crowd out any considerations of the role of ideas. Ultimately, Fine Gael is a pragmatic party of government and wants to get back in the game. Nothing would please the average Fine Gael activist more than if the party was to become more consistently successful in elections than Fianna Fáil. This is why the same rather socially conservative activists have no problems with a full blown alliance with a party to its left.
The desire to emulate the success of its rival sometimes lets Fine Gael down as the party often rushes to announce foolish policies that they think might be popular. This happened under Michael Noonan's leadership and is still there to an extent, as Maria points out in her account of the recent Ard Fheis. Fine Gael just doesn't do the populist bit terribly well. The really "grown up questions" as Maria puts it, are not posed at all. Winning is everything. More worrying from my own perspective as a critical supporter of the Labour Party is that my lot seem prepared to go along with this. There's a paucity of ideas in the Labour ranks as well. There are rafts of policies and press statements but they just don't add up to a coherent vision of what the agenda for a reforming government should be. As far as the further left is concerned, don't hold your breath as this very good piece from the Cedar Lounge Revolution makes clear.
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