Martin needs to realise nice guys finish second

MICHEÁL Martin needs to locate and engage with his inner Machiavelli if he is to make Taoiseach. For a party leader to attain the summit, somewhere within must lurk a scheming mind.

Beyond the routine set-piece Dáil events and endless meetings and media hubbub, there must be an overall medium-term fixed focus on achieving ultimate outright victory.

Strategic thinking is the vital prerequisite to power. Every action has to have a considered context of timing, based around a grand design to gain office.

Earlier this year, I wrote trenchantly that Fine Gael was sleepwalking, devoid of any strategy for the next election.

It was basking in the ‘minority’ ministerial moment, without regard for the platform, policies and campaign groundwork for the next election. Given that Enda Kenny wasn’t going to lead the next electoral battle, there was no point in him continuing – every day delayed exacted a price in postponed preparations.

Cold necessity eventually prevailed inside the governing party. Enda Kenny was ousted. Leo Varadkar’s team grabbed the levers. Each day now represents a building block towards gaining the most votes in the next general election. Every ministerial press release, constituency trip, appointment and Cabinet meeting venue is designed for an electoral edge.

Fine Gael has significantly upped its game. The signs are in the party’s maximum media attentiveness, constant availability, detailed execution of briefings and social media overload.

Ministers are all ‘on message’. Every nuance, from the Budget to Hurricane Ophelia, is grasped for political momentum.

This is a sea change from the past lethargy under Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan. Five years of draining austerity, national recovery and ultimately being rebuffed by voters took its toll in exhaustion.

The current state of ‘new politics’ is analogous to a hurling match where a handful of substitutes have transformed the dynamic, pace and score.

You can see where one side is dominating all over the pitch. It’s high time for Fianna Fáil to have that urgent side-line conversation and countenance those critical tactical changes.

Micheál Martin faces a singular electoral challenge: to be the largest party in the next Dáil. It’s a face-off contest between himself and Leo to lead the country. Never mind that he’s led the party from the oblivion of 19 to 44 TDs. That is history.

He doesn’t have to strive towards an overall majority, nor form a coalition – but he must get his party ahead of Fine Gael’s present 50 TDs.

He has one compelling circumstantial advantage: 58 deputies vote each week to sustain the Government in office (not power). And 55 deputies almost always vote against the Government in the lobbies. A majority is 79. Fianna Fáil’s 44 deputies determine the outcome of each Dáil vote. This Government’s life expectancy is in Martin’s control. But he gets only one shot at terminating Leo’s tenure. As Martin’s third election as leader, it’s win or bust.

Terms and conditions of the ‘supply and confidence’ deal have been mutually honoured. Fianna Fáil determined that a minimum of two budgets must elapse to confirm its commitment. Martin had his chance – ie. the Garda omnishambles

– but he declined the nuclear option. Instead, he chose to reiterate professions about national cohesion.

That window is now closed. Where’s his next best chance? Budgets no longer contain austerity. Budget 2019 is set to have several times more fiscal space than Budget 2018 – instead of €350m, perhaps in excess of €2bn, given growth forecasts and preceding balanced arithmetic. Capital spending is set to be significantly ramped up, with mega announcements in December for a decade of extra offbalance-sheet private/public partnership projects. There are still some budgetary banana skins evident ahead.

And Martin’s headaches are set to intensify. Fianna Fáil is doing a good job in shepherding Fine Gael in Government. Fianna Fáil’s influence over Leo includes tripling funding for the National Treatment Purchase Fund to ameliorate hospital inpatient waiting lists and reducing primary school pupil-teacher ratio, hiring 1,800 more teachers and special needs assistants.

There was a hand too in extending mortgage interest

relief. Fine Gael ministers willingly execute these Fianna Fáil ideas, claiming them as their own.

But Martin’s discomfort is going to grow. Opposition jibes about propping up Fine Gael in Government will intensify. He will have to see off accusations that his party is becoming Fine Gael’s conjoined twin.

Opponents will excoriate Fianna Fáil criticisms of Government as mere shadowboxing – all talk, no ousting.

Eventually he runs the risk of losing political identity.

So let’s chart the future. Imagine two years of benign populist budgets; unemployment reduces to 5.5pc; larger-scale housing supply materialises, easing pressures on home affordability/homelessness.

Throw into the mix that Gerry Adams is replaced as Sinn Féin leader by Mary Lou McDonald. You can also allow for public sector pay stability and a deeply divisive abortion referendum campaign.

The shadow over the landscape beyond 2020 and Brexit. Micheál Martin is a likeable, congenial, experienced, sincere, mature, articulate, caring politician.

He authentically carries middle Ireland’s less contentious mainstream characteristics of decency and fairness.

He’s clearly not as needy as Leo. His credentials and case for the job of Taoiseach is stronger than his combined frontbench. His demeanour represents his party’s best chance of power.

Sean Dorgan and Fianna Fáil’s organisation can deliver four extra seats in the capital – Dun Laoghaire (one out of four); Dublin South central (Senator Catherine Ardagh); Dublin north-west (Paul McAuliffe); Dublin central (extra seat). Additional ground war manoeuvres can provide second seats in five-seaters, if the same sense of belief exists as in Kildare last time. It’s a close match-up.

Martin’s middle-ground pitch in his ard fheis speech, was heavily reliant on attacking Leo’s Strategic Communications Unit.

No silver bullet has yet been locked and loaded. Renewal of the ‘confidence and supply’ beyond 2018 will render all Fianna Fáil criticisms as so much talk in the breeze.

The next electoral contests are the Presidential race in October 2018 and local and Euro elections in June 2019.

Which brings us back to where we started – I can’t see Martin’s core overarching strategy laying down how and when he can become Taoiseach.

Nice guys usually finish second. Leo looks deeply driven in his ESB high-viz jacket at the frontlines.

His Machiavellian traits abound.