Trumpish Leo plays a dangerous game
MAYBE it was a coincidence that the news of Leo Varadkar’s criticism of journalists broke on the day RTÉ broadcast a documentary on Denis O’Brien. But two days before, at a private lunch in New York, he had doubted the value of investigative journalism and the honesty of political reporters.
I really don’t mind him censuring the media. But I do worry about the judgment of a Taoiseach endorsing Donald Trump’s view of journalists while questioning my integrity.
If I’m a liar with a laptop then the Taoiseach is a wastrel with a company credit card – he spent €5m setting up a Special Communication Unit (SCU).
Lest we forget, the SCU was Team Leo’s mission to flatter and present the Taoiseach in the most favourable light – all funded by Irish taxpayers.
And a key role of the SCU was to persuade taxpayers that public funds spent praising the Taoiseach was value for money.
Ultimately, the Taoiseach is responsible for squandering taxpayers’ cash on the now-defunct spin unit.
He personally chose to depict political journalists as gossips trivialising the news and investigative reporters as sloppy trollops making errors.
A finger-wagging Mr Varadkar told his audience in New York that Irish journalists had made mistakes – as if errors were unique to the media. And when they blunder, Irish journalists face potentially ruinous consequences from some of the most punishing defamation laws in the western world. But when when it comes to making gauche public pronouncements, the Taoiseach has been there before, again in tandem with Donald Trump.
Varadkar has been trying to forget his gaffe on St Patrick’s Day when he claimed to have helped President Trump in securing planning permission at his Doonbeg golf resort.
Inexperience was the excuse for the Taoiseach’s uncouth remarks in Washington. In a similar spirit, his youthful exuberance was given as the explanation given for a giddy ‘Love, Actually’ outburst on his first visit to Downing Street.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Varadkar publicly endorsed President Trump’s view on journalists.
His quote in Davos suggests that Mr Varadkar distrusts the media and he is disappointed that journalists do not represent him as he sees himself.
These embarrassments invariably happen when Vardkar lets his guard down, when he is enjoying himself abroad. Intelligent people learn from their mistakes. So the Taoiseach must think these spontaneous outbursts of candour portray him as he wants to be seen by the world.
His attack on the Irish media in New York was ignorant and arrogant: does he really believe that the water and homeless crises in Ireland are natural disasters that he and his government are powerless to influence?
VARDKAR has played a key role in governments since 2011 and therefore he must take collective responsibility for the sorry state of our public services with their litany of failings. Why do we have water rationing in the wettest country in Western Europe – and does he forget the monumental incompetence and €2bn that was wasted in setting up Irish Water?
Why do we have a homelessness crisis after seven years of Varadkar in Fine Gael-dominated administrations?
Why is the health service still in perpetual calamity seven years after the deputy leader of Fine Gael promised to fix it?
And who can forget that two governments led by the party of law and order presided over a crisis in policing?
Team Leo tells the Taoiseach that he is still basking in the reflected glory of the recent abortion referendum.
And he expects that popularity to follow him into an election, probably early next year.
His electoral strategy is likely to be based on comparing his relative youth and modernity with his stale principal rival.
Yet that strategy could backfire – especially if Irish voters start to see Donald Trump as having a guiding hand on the Taoiseach’s shoulder.