Joined-up thinking will cost a Lotto cash

Around 500 years of brotherly love, peace and democracy in Switzerland produced the cuckoo clock. But a war of independence, a civil war and an economic war then intermittent terrorism over 98 years coaxed Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to coalesce.

An FF/FG pact is an inconvenient truth for die-hards in both Civil War parties. But the Pollyanna in all of us sees this Republic as forever young and always on the right side of history.

This fusion is also the ultimate test of character for Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin – and each of them is the best leader available to their parties.

Both have recognised the monumental responsibilities of leading this country through a plague of disease and into the deepest economic depression in modern history – together the equivalent of a world war.

Truth is that neither leader has a plausible plan to lead us out of the current political crisis. And the document used by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to lure the smaller parties runs to 24-pages – has a simple message: austerity is now the economic policy that dare not speak its name.

Unemployment is vaulting to 25 per cent. Healthcare, or Sláintecare, is finding new ways of spending more money. To solve the housing crisis ‘the State will be a bidder at the centre of the housing market’. Affordable healthcare, housing, education, childcare and disability services are promised in a ‘new national social contract’.

And it gets even better! All of the aforementioned promises come with triple whammy of really big promises: no hike in income tax; no increase in Universal Social

Charge; no welfare cuts.

To pay for it all, I assume the new government has squirrelled away enormous deposits of rare minerals and vast reserves of gold and natural gas.

One can only assume that Leo and Micheál’s document is not a sendup HAVING wallowed in every campaign since President Jimmy Carter’s in 1976, I plan to cover the US presidential election in November. It is the most eagerly anticipated – and deeply dreaded – political showdown in generations.

The most electrifying result in my US friends’ lives was the election of Trump in 2016. The Donald was typecast for the title role (played by Marlon Brando) in the 1963 film The Ugly American.

Going into summer 2020, we really are looking at a new world order: plagues of locusts in Africa, a pandemic of a killer disease fuelling economic and political crises across the world.

We have new rules and some very scary new leaders. Watch your step – and wash your hands… for a reality television show – or an April Fool’s Day joke now 18 days past its punchline.

If only the Green Party, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats refused to join Leo and Micheál because their document could put Ireland in hock for a generation.

It would surely signal a new sophistication and political maturity if the small parties want to stop the two big ones from pawning the national family jewels.

But I suspect they want the two big parties to fail and then present themselves as saviours. If the new government implements the content of their new document they will have to borrow billions and billions to deliver their promises. They can hike indirect taxes on alcohol, cigarettes and other items mostly enjoyed by OAPs. Maybe the new government will target petrol and other luxuries to prime the inflation pump.

But who cares? If Leo and Micheál can deliver on their non-costed promises, living in Ireland will be like winning the Lotto every day.

A JOKE from lockdown America: ‘What did the television sitcom Friends and Abraham Lincoln have in common? Both were shot before a live audience.’