Dear politicians, please stop trying to be cool! We accept that you are inherently and utterly uncool. Why can’t you?

EVER wonder about the pose Leo Varadkar pulls each morning when he looks at himself in the mirror? Then look no further than Helen McEntee’s selfie of the cool dudes of Fine Gael letting rip at the weekend.

Eyebrows arched, nostrils slightly flared, lips clamped together in the barest suggestion of smile, Leo smoulders at the lens, making sure that the man captured in it looks his very best.

Movie fans might call it Leo’s Blue Steel moment, after the most well-known of the model pouts pioneered by the ridiculously good-looking fashionista, Derek Zoolander.

But looking like a bit of a vain prat in a widely disseminated selfie was probably the least excruciating part of the weekend’s outing as far as our image-conscious Taoiseach is concerned.

Being damned as ‘a t***er’ by Al Doyle, guitarist from the achingly hip LCD Soundsystem, who Leo and his best buddies saw play at the Olympia on Friday night, was far more disastrous from his point of view.

It’s definitely not the sort of reaction Leo wants reaching the ears of his trendy friends, Justin Trudeau and Monsieur Macron. Nor was it the result the Taoiseach imagined when he agreed to go backstage to get on down with the most right-on gunslingers to come out of Brooklyn this century.

Although the MCD concert promoter threw cold water on Al Doyle’s version of events, tweeting a picture of Leo and Paschal Donohoe happily posing with the rockers, it’s fair to say that no bromance flowered between the politicians and the performers.

Indeed, Helen McEntee’s getting involved in a Twitter storm with Al Doyle about the Repeal campaign only shattered Leo’s street cred even further.

Like all self-respecting rockers the members of LCD Soundsystem are foursquare behind the Right to Choose.

Leo, who is anxious to preserve his neutrality on the issue, walked away when Al faced up to him backstage, a tote bag bearing the ‘Repeal’ slogan hanging from his neck.

‘T***er,’ fired Al into the twittersphere. Later he tried to strike a more conciliatory note, tweeting: ‘It’s totally just my opinion that Leo Varadkar is a t***er. He just seemed like a bit of a t***er in the limited time I spent with him.’ Talk about rubbing salt into the wounds.

Meanwhile, Helen McEntee’s gamey attempts to defend her boss only made a bad situation worse. After moaning that their night out had descended into bitterness while arguing about Leo’s courage in calling a referendum, she earned nothing but a contemptuous: ‘Go f*** yourself ’ from the Irish electronic act Le Galaxie. The band later issued a tweet of apology, saying the reaction had been ‘impulsive, unnecessary and stupid’ but I guess it’s safe to say that the cool cats from Fine Gael won’t be troubling Glastonbury next year.

However, for a politician as astute as Leo Varadkar, who as we all know surrounds himself with expensive consultants and media managers, his obliviousness about how awkward and pathetic politicians appear when they try to appear cool is surprising.

Did he learn nothing from the lessons of Cool Britannia and the youthful Tony Blair’s misfired attempt to share in Britpop’s reflected glory?

Noel Gallagher summed up the backlash among the eclectic mix of pop stars, fashion designers, actors and millionaire businessmen who were invited to the famous drinks party at No.10.

Jaunty

‘When Tony Blair said he was courting the music business, idiots like me thought we could have a say, but it became a publicity stunt on his behalf,’ said Noel.

But cosying up to edgy celebrities, and looking more dorky than usual in the process, is a common pitfall for even cautious politicians.

There cannot be a politician more dour and less infected by joie de vivre than the UK’s Gordon Brown. What got into the Scottish son of a Presbyterian minister to proclaim, in the jaunty style of a 2fm disc jockey, that ‘the Arctic Monkeys really wake you up in the morning’?

Perhaps the same daft impetus that prompted David Cameron to urge his followers to ‘hug a hoodie’ in order to make the Tory party look cuddly on law and order.

Let’s face it: the last thing politicians are is cool, even if the self-aggrandising likes of Bob Geldof and Bono try to hoodwink us into thinking that rock stars and statesmen are natural bedfellows.

In Helen McEntee’s selfie, Leo, Paschal, Paschal’s wife Justine, Tom Neville TD and his Fair City actress girlfriend Jenny Dixon look like a bunch of accountants, letting off steam after filing the last of their clients’ annual tax returns.

Just a crowd of middle-class squares, that’s all.

The musicians from LCD Soundsystem must have groaned inwardly when they all trooped backstage, the mostly dyed blonde ladies wearing fancy earrings, the boys in their dark shirts and (probably) matching chinos.

As Al tellingly tweeted: ‘We should do our due diligence on any politico types that wanna come backstage. We didn’t in this case, and that was lax.’

But Leo and his entourage should also have done their research, rather than clamouring behind the scenes like thirsty groupies or teenagers, looking for a selfie with the band.

It’s not hard to guess why the good people of Castleknock vote Leo Varadkar into the Dáil year after year, or indeed why the majority of the Fine Gael organisations backed him for the party leadership.

But his having heard of LCD Soundsystem or his strutting his funky stuff with the likes of Al Doyle – who, arguably, most of his supporters have never heard of – has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Leo’s supporters admire his drive and undoubted cleverness. Those who backed his leadership bid believe he can turn the party into a more powerful force, and perhaps score a hat-trick of general election victories. His constituency supporters hope he will work hard on their behalf, and get things done on the local and national stage.

They believe he is dependable, will not baulk at endless meetings, and will never betray boredom or impatience while representing us abroad. They trust he will make sensible decisions in the national interest and strive to improve materially the lives of people. That he, in short, is the polar opposite of an artist or entertainer.

The same goes for Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Finance, and Helen McEntee, the Minister for European Affairs. Paschal’s old fogey image doesn’t do him any harm in his Phibsborough backyard, while newlywed Ms McEntee was hardly elected in Meath because of her cutting-edge Patti Smith personality.

Politicians should accept their limitations: they are never going to cut it with creative types or mouthy young rebels, and their trying to mix both worlds only highlights their neediness.

Red-faced Leo will get over his humiliation at being rejected by the uber-trendy LCD Soundsystem. After all, there are still plenty of musicians who would love to make his acquaintance. Billy Joel has just announced an Irish date for 2018. We’ll see you there, Leo.