Leo’s faddishness a distraction from his real failures

LEO VARADKAR has an unbridled political neediness that is now becoming a maddening distraction. He seems utterly obsessed with what psychologists call the lookingglass self – the convincing concept that we all depend on others to create the preferred image of ourselves based on the affirmation of others.

The needier we are, the more we want others to tell us how good or smart we appear, the more we crave approval.

So it’s not good enough just to meet and greet the young, charming, liberal Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in the normal kind of way. The fancy red socks have to be flashed and the fitness and the jogging have to be put on display to encourage that extra helping of fondness.

In Downing Street it was Love, Actually, star-struck innocence and beaming smiles to ensure he was wrapped in affection.

Washington required a flight-offancy fairytale about a bogus intervention on President Donal Trump’s planning problem at Doonbeg.

And then in New York this week it required a stunning, unprovoked, third-man tackle on the media at a private do for young Irish people to ensure he continues to bask in the admiration to which he’s now so clearly addicted.

VARADKAR sided with Donald Trump’s ‘enemy of the people’ characterisation of the media at a time when grieving families were experiencing the agonies of tragedy and loss following the murders of five people, four journalists and a sales assistant, at a newspaper in Maryland.

All that razzle-dazzle, that supercool, modern, unashamed colour and shape-throwing, that healthy living and 21st century persona, all that demonstrable youth and confidence has now become the beall and end-all.

Substantive politics has been taken out of the back seat and put into the boot.

What’s politics got to do with it anyway? And who’s going to hit him now with all that going for him, and he holding his liberal credentials in his arms?

The whole thing is one big threecard trick.

It’s a diversion from gross failings during his watch as Taoiseach and, previously, as a minister.

His rise to the Taoiseach’s office was marked by failure to make any difference in the three government departments in which he served, most notably in health.

Who can recall that he also served as minister in both transport, tourism and sport and also in social protection?

In July, 2014, he took over what Brian Cowen famously called Angola and fought the bad fight as health minister for less than two years, to May 2016.

During that time waiting lists smashed through the 500,000 barrier, nearly 30% higher than when he set about the task of creating a healthier Ireland. And now as Taoiseach his burdensome neediness is becoming increasing weary as he fails to address political challenges all around him.

LIKE a high-maintenance partner or friend, his preening self-regard and attention-seeking has become an exhausting energy sapper as real issues like the abuse of hundreds of women, victims of a flawed cervical cancer screening system, slip away into neglect.

Temporary public relations hits are prioritised as mothers, wives, partners – fellow human beings – struggle with terminal diagnoses, the results of a botched setup presided over by Varadkar as head of Government.

Smear tests analyses that should have been completed by the end of May haven’t even started. And the HSE stands accused of failing to cooperate fully with the lawfully established Scally Scoping Inquiry.

His Government is, so far, a study in defeat – an unmistakable flop in the only areas of public policy that really matter, health and shelter.

Today there are nearly 600,000 of our people on waiting lists, outpatients and in-patients.

Over 140,000 out-patients have been waiting for more than a year, including little children bent over, contorted and screaming in agony, the victims of scoliosis. Not exactly a demonstation of Love, Actually by Leo and the lads for people with no other options, is it?

Meanwhile, Leo flashes the red socks while 10,000 people, including nearly 4,000 children, are homeless.

The Taoiseach clearly has his needs. But so do we.

And so far, he’s failing magnificently, to provide them despite an economy approaching warp speed and maxing out as it approaches full employment.

If he can’t fix our problems now, then when?