I’ll miss Leo but I think he’ll miss me even more
WHATEVER about Leo Varadkar’s political legacy, I have to admit I’ll miss him in certain ways. I’ll miss his presence in the Dáil where he was a civilising influence, able to conduct a debate with courtesy and to calmly disembowel his opponents’ logic. Against his unflappable demeanour, Mary Lou McDonald’s screeching outrage and Richard Boyd Barrett’s barracking disappointment can seem to be high on the juvenile belief that the solution to homelessness lies in thundering rhetoric.
Leo’s ability to sum up a development in the North, in EU negotiations or, latterly, in the war in Gaza with a pithy observation or sardonic remark is also a loss. His ease with international affairs was refreshing; he helped bring the world into our sitting rooms, shifting our focus from domestic problems.
Maybe it sealed his downfall, the suspicion that he’d rather be flexing on the world stage than grappling with housing and health or campaigning at doorsteps for referendums. Whatever, I’ll miss him, even if I strongly suspect that Leo may miss me even more.
For I wonder will the long, lazy days he has hankered for ever since he grew jaded and his heart was no longer in Dáil Éireann seem quite so appealing in a few months’ time when he has nothing in his diary or on his phone?
As a true-blue political nerd, Leo has few other interests or accomplishments to fill his days.
True, he has taken up the gym and concert-going but they are not exactly full-time occupations; they won’t stop him leaning more and more on Matt for news of the big bad world every evening.
HE claims Matt is delighted at his resignation but perhaps Matt should be careful what he wishes for. A 45-year-old partner, bursting with vitality, bone-idle or tinkering with his memoir, could be the kiss of death for a relationship rather than a new lease of life.
True they have no money worries or family responsibilities and, at 45, Leo is the perfect age for a career pivot.
But what job doesn’t pale in comparison to that of taoiseach, the highest office in the land? And what course of study can hold a candle to law and medicine, which Leo has already tried his hand at?
His stock is high in Brussels and farther afield, which may open up opportunities in the UN
or in Europe. But these posts require soft people skills, which Leo does not have in abundance. When it came to Anglo-Irish relations, he had no interest in getting to know Orangemen or finding out what made them tick. He is not a natural diplomat.
INSTINCTIVELY he recoils from pressing the flesh or oozing public bonhomie, which most public-facing roles in the private sector absolutely require. Working internationally would also demand that he get to grips with a new staff and assistants which is challenging when you are not a pack animal and you don’t have special advisers or loyalists who know your personality quirks to smooth your way.
Good luck to Leo in finding a new purpose in life as he retreats from the cosy familiarity of the Dáil, the applause of his constituency supporters, the charm of his inner circle and his love-hate relationship with the electorate.
May he never find out the meaning of the proverb ‘faraway hills are green’.