Call for national government is a sure sign of bad politics

LAST week, the gyrations of the Green Party reminded us of the difference between Platonists and Aristotelians in the practice of politics.

Regular readers will remember my eccentric but self-evident belief we are born either Platonists or Aristotelians.

Check it out.

Plato believed man was naturally good and could create a perfect society.

Conversely, Aristotle believed man was flawed and so his political systems would be flawed, too.

This philosophical difference comes to a head in practical politics over the issue of compromise.

Compromise is the coping stone of democracy — dictators don’t have to compromise.

Aristotelians are comfortable with compromise, but Platonists find it difficult to dilute their pure ideals.

The greatest Aristotelian politician of modern times was Lyndon B Johnson, whose civil rights campaign was a classic of political cunning and the art of compromise.

Daniel O’Connell was also an Aristotelian, whereas the romantic Young Irelanders were Platonists.

O’Connell proceeded in a logical sequence, building sinew along the way.

First, he tackled the Church of Ireland problem, particularly that of tithes.

After that he smashed the sectarian fetters that had been put on Catholic education institutions and freedom of association.

Building on these victories he went for

Catholic Emancipation — then pressed Peel for advantages like Maynooth College’s invaluable grant.

Repeal was the logical end point of his gradual campaign of liberalisation, but he wasn’t willing to shed innocent blood for it.

Unlike the Young Irelanders, who wanted utopia in one go, O’Connell knew when to compromise.

In my view, the best political party would have idealistic Platonic aims, but be run by Aristotelians, who by compromising could achieve some of them.

Coming out of the election, the Green Party seemed to fit that bill perfectly — at first sight.

Eamon Ryan is an experienced, pragmatic politician in the general Aristotelian tradition.

Both FF and FG respected him and were likely to give him big concessions.

But the SF surge meant an influx of inexperienced TDs in the Platonic mode and thus a general pain.

By general pain I mean that during the policy talks some long-term problems with the Greens surfaced.

Paradoxically, the main problem with the Greens is they stand for good stuff.

Accordingly, most people find themselves nodding furiously in favour of what Greens are saying.

But this pious agreement poses problems, presciently summed up by the late Stuart Hall, founder of the Open University, in a talk to RTE producers years ago.

We invited Stuart Hall, a brilliant Caribbean-born Marxist, because he had no time for sacred cows — including the posh sacred cows of the BBC.

Hall did not disappoint. He told us sardonically that if we wanted to do a safe programme we should choose the environment — after all, who is in favour of polluting the environment?

Such programmes, he said, were just exercises in being smug — we did not have a word then for being PC — and fell short of the truth.

Hall did not have to add that programmes about the environment would not be so popular if they told the public the true cost in terms of their pay packets.

To persuade the public to accept some of that cost calls for the highest arts of political compromise.

The Greens’ problem with hard choices — senior hurling, in Seamus Brennan’s phrase — surfaced in John Gormley’s political breakdown in the Cowen cabinet in 2010 during the banking crisis.

He told the Dail: “I warn those other parties that they should know when they enter government during this crisis, they will be entering an asylum.”

The quote is from

Mary Minihan’s book on the Greens, A Deal With

The Devil, whose Platonic title sums up the snobby notion that the normal compromises of politics amount to an ‘asylum’ or a ‘deal with the devil’.

Still, I hoped for the best when Ryan, FG and FF seemed willing to grant the wish of Majority Ireland by entering a stable, long-term three-party coalition.

But there were warning signs of protracted policywonking. John Drennan reported a FF negotiator saying: “The Greens are the best option, but they are talking us to death.”

Fine Gael also warned: “The Greens are in real danger of talking themselves out of government.”

At one point I remarked the hapless FF and FG negotiators reminded me of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, emerging from the jungle intoning: “The horror! The horror!”

Last weekend, however, on The Week in Politics,

Jim O’Callaghan of Fianna Fail suddenly called for a national government — and did a volte face on his previous opposition to Sinn Fein in government.

The effect of his double intervention was to weaken the negotiating position of his leader Micheal Martin — while also giving Green foot-draggers the perfect excuse to get out of government.

O’Callaghan’s shock intervention came as a godsend to Sinn Fein who know that Martin represents Majority Ireland’s rejection of them — hence their endless and obsessive attacks on him.

Caretaker Labour leader Brendan Howlin also hailed the notion of a national government (in advance of anything the new leader might have to say) by mawkishly telling us that it was “a way of respecting SF’s mandate”.

It seems to me that those in favour of a national government, whether in the Greens, Labour Party or Fianna

Fail, have one thing in common. They are fragmenting forces inside their own parties.

The Foolish Faction in Fianna Fail is the worst of all because it is confused and contradictory reaction to reverses only benefits Fianna Fail’s main rival — Sinn Fein

As I said, Fianna Fail is a naturally Aristotelian party which normally would have grasped that Majority Ireland wants a FF, FG, Green coalition.

But the Foolish Faction in Fianna Fail does not care what Majority Ireland wants. To make matters worse, it doesn’t even know what it wants itself.

At the first FF meeting after the election, deputies overwhelmingly supported Martin’s (and O’Callaghan’s) position of excluding SF.

Last Thursday week, however, a group of dissidents began to criticise Martin for excluding Sinn Fein, cravenly advocating “talks” but not sharing power with SF. Talk about having it both ways.

Coincidentally, the dissidents were foreshadowing Jim O’Callaghan’s volte face on The Week in Politics, in which he implicitly criticised Martin for excluding Sinn Fein.

The Foolish Faction in FF has many motives, but its internal backstabbing is destroying Fianna Fail.

The faction can’t seem to grasp that what annoys them most about Martin — his rejection of Sinn Fein — is that battered party’s biggest attraction for Majority Ireland.

Compared with the contradictory convolutions of FF’s Foolish Faction, the Greens look almost as disciplined as Sinn Fein.

‘Martin’s hard rejection of SF is his party’s biggest plus with the voters of Majority Ireland’