Most of the political commentary on the fallout from the 'Bertiegate' affair has focused on how the opposition's tactics backfired and gave the Ahern and Fianna Fáil a spectacular and unexpected bounce in the last couple of opinion polls. There is now a great deal of focus on the failures of the opposition. Stephen Collins in today's Irish Times remarks that in the Dáil last week the opposition seemed "deflated, with the more pessimistic despairing of ever getting their hands on the levers of power". Could this really be a turning point in the fortunes of the respective parties?
If that tuns out to be the case, then the opposition has indeed truly failed. Not because they exposed timidity or uncertainty in their ranks or that they were unexpectedly wrong-footed on the issue by the complex thought processes of the electorate. In terms of the Long Campaign, losing the odd skirmish because of poor tactics shouldn't really make all that much difference. However if the strategy is misconceived then you really are in trouble. Collins quotes a source described as "an experienced Labour politician":
Fine Gael and Labour have been working hard in opposition but we have adopted a risk-averse strategy on the assumption that power would fall into our laps as long as we didn't make mistakes. Now we know that that won't work
If I had a Euro for every time I made a similar remark in this blog I could afford to visit licensed premises tonight and spend a good few hours sampling public opinion and copious pints. Collins further remarks that the opposition "have spent a lot of time trying to prove that they will not increase taxes or do anything else to undermine Ireland's economic prosperity" but "what they have yet to do is offer a vision of society that is capable of winning the hearts and minds of all those disillusioned with how we have used our new-found wealth". There's plenty of other issues you could throw in as well. There is widespread anxiety that the basis of current prosperity could simply evaporate. Poverty and deprivation have not gone away.
If RTE's economics correspondent George Lee can make an impassioned plea for a fairer society on the Ryan Tubridy's radio programme and get an overwhelmingly positive public response, why can't opposition politicians do the same? There's no point in leaving everything to the short official three or four week general election campaign. What matters is the Long Campaign which should have stated the moment the current Dáil kicked off. It's not too late. It's time to take a few risks and go out and campaign with conviction. In particular I would urge the Labour Party to do this. There are a raft of good policies available that could add up to something approaching a vision for fairness, equality and the enhancement of democracy.
The biggest problem for Labour, in my opinion, is that they have linked so firmly with Fine Gael.
Labour is in a position to be a real campaigning party, highlighting issues of national and international importance. Labour Youth, for example, are active in campaigns such as Anti-War, Anti-Coca Cola and (I think) Anti-Nestle.
The (Senior) Labour Party, as Ireland's largest socialist group, should be positioning itself as an effective radical organisation which is capable of seeing the changes that Irish society needs, and then achieving them.
Fine Gael, on the other hand, has seen the success of Fianna Fail, and decide to focus on being the same, but different. Fine Gael's attempts to position themselves as a party who would do exactly what Fianna Fail do, but without the waste, corruption, or whatever the buzz-word of the week is, have left them in a very weak position. They highlight what Fianna Fail has done wrong, or failed to achieve, without having any proposals on what they would do.
Together with the Mullingar Accord strategy, this has served to almost neutralise any claim to difference that Labour have; while they are still "Left-wing", they are the left-wing of a centrist party which is struggling to find an identity of its own.
Posted by: Damien | October 21, 2006 at 12:24 PM