Colette Browne:
Martin must treat Varadkar’s letter with derision and give him both guns.
ARE the leaders of the country’s two biggest parties serious politicians or bickering pen pals, because their recent exchange of idiotic correspondence suggests the latter rather than the former.
Traditionally, a ‘Dear John’ letter was a missive penned by a woman to her romantic partner to inform him he was dumped because she had found another lover. In this country, we may now have to coin the phrase the ‘Dear Micheál’ letter to describe protracted efforts by Fine Gael politicians to annul their marriage of convenience with Fianna Fáil.
If Leo Varadkar really wanted to extend the ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement with Fianna Fáil, then why not pick up the phone, or set up a WhatsApp group, rather than send a press release masquerading as a letter to Micheál Martin?
Over the course of 10 pages, which includes a six-page appendix, Mr Varadkar waxes lyrical about all of Fine Gael’s many achievements in office – with the crises in health and housing meriting a mere two sentences out of all of that.
However, fear not, echoing Bertie Ahern and his “lots done, more to do” slogan, Mr Varadkar concedes that “without doubt, there is more to do” in those areas. How gracious of him.
The line being trotted out by Fine Gael is that Mr Varadkar is just doing the responsible thing and trying to nail down the confidence and supply arrangement in the interest of national stability.
But, when trying to convince a longstanding ‘frenemy’ to continue with a fractious relationship that is causing them serious (opinion poll) damage, it is inadvisable for the opening salvo to be a paean to how utterly fantastic you are. Doing that, generally, results in bitter words and, occasionally, physical violence.
So, you would have to be particularly gormless to believe Mr Varadkar sent his self-congratulatory screed with the intention of doing anything other than enraging the Fianna Fáil leader – particularly when talks, between both parties, on the Budget start today.
The fact that there are now senior people within Fine Gael on the national airwaves trying to do exactly that, is indicative of their low opinion of the public’s intelligence.
In reality, the letter oozes with so much condescension and arrogance that Mr Martin would have been well within his rights to send a pithy three-letter response – PFO.
Or, because it is a well-known truism that you don’t feed the trolls, Mr Martin could have ignored it out of hand; said it wasn’t a serious letter and he didn’t want the taxpayer to incur the cost of the postage stamp that would have been necessitated by a response.
You know, made a joke of it. Because it is a joke. The nakedly self-aggrandising content of a letter that is supposed to be a document displaying a deeply held eagerness to compromise and do a deal.
Regrettably, Mr Martin doesn’t do humour. Or witty one-liners. Or acerbic put-downs. If it’s not earnest and dour, then it doesn’t come within his political lexicon.
Instead of treating Mr Varadkar’s letter with the derision it deserves, and making Mr Varadkar look amateur and foolish in the process, he opted to pen his own wordy, boring treatise on the confidence and supply deal in response.
He informs Mr Varadkar that while his letter “lists the ongoing implementation of the 2016 confidence and supply arrangement, as well as Programme for Government and other general activity. This is an incomplete picture” because it is plain to see “there are still serious deficiencies, particularly regarding the emergency in housing and the crisis in our health service”. Really going for the jugular there, Micheál. A record, and ever-growing, number of homeless children and families euphemised away as “serious deficiencies”.
Why not be bolder? Why not be plainer? Why not be more explicit? Why not be more engaging?
Why does Mr Martin believe that in order to be a serious politician, he has to be so serious all the time? If he believes
Mr Martin’s response to this nonsense from Mr Varadkar just makes him look weak – and heaps humiliation upon humiliation for his party. He appears so terrified at the prospect of an election that Fine Gael is walking all over him
that Mr Varadkar is taking the proverbial, and he does, then why not say so – in one or two headline-grabbing lines, instead of over three dull pages?
Is Mr Martin so desperate to avoid an election that he is willing to endure every provocation, no matter how overt, from Mr Varadkar? Is he willing to turn the other cheek whenever he is attacked?
Because, his response to this nonsense from Mr Varadkar just makes him look weak – and heaps humiliation upon humiliation for his party. Fine Gael ministers have done everything other than smear their faces with paint and start yelling war cries, yet Mr Martin steadfastly refuses to gear up for battle.
IN his determination to try to reinvent Fianna Fáil as the ‘Really Sensible Party’, he seems to believe that he has to exude the persona of exasperated school marm in all of his dealings with young pup Leo.
When the irascible Leo does something that irritates him he just counts to 10, thinks of his happy place, and refuses to rise to the bait.
His response letter actually states that Mr Varadkar has been droning on about extending the supply and confidence deal for a full eight months.
So why has he devoted an entire letter to addressing something that he has previously and comprehensively dealt with? Doesn’t he have anything better to do with his time?
What he should really do is let Leo have it. Give him both guns – and not in some bland, sleep-inducing memo. Get tough and give him some real targets to meet in the negotiations for Budget 2019.
Non-negotiable targets on housing and health that must be met or he will pull support for the Government. If housing and health is so important to Fianna Fáil, then ensure there is some kind of negative consequence for the Government’s persistent failures.
Mr Martin’s problem is that he appears so terrified of the prospect of an election being called, and so averse to contesting one, that Fine Gael is walking all over him. And, if he allows that to continue for much longer, then the prospect of a stomping Fine Gael victory will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.