Leo vs Simon
The next Fine Gael leader could well end up as the Taoiseach so this will be an important political race, writes
APPARENTLY no one really cares who the next leader of Fine Gael will be. Apparently it doesn’t really matter who gets the job.
It’s not clear, because the commentators such as Vincent Browne never said so, whether the Fine Gael contest doesn’t matter because the contestants are ideologically indistinguishable, or that the focus on personality is in some way superficial and has no impact on government, or maybe it doesn’t matter because who we choose as Taoiseach doesn’t really matter.
Whatever they mean, they are wrong.
We can overplay the impact of leaders, because any leader is constrained by the circumstances they are in. Any new Fine Gael leader won’t suddenly be able to ignore the demands of Fianna Fail or the independents.
Nor will they magically find the challenges of Brexit or housing disappear. But the identity of the Taoiseach does matter — and the fact that the people making complaints of the coverage of the Fine Gael leadership are also people who complain about Enda Kenny’s performance should show them that even they think it matters.
The Fine Gael leader could well be the next Taoiseach, and Taoisigh set the agenda for the government. If he (and it will be a he) does a very good job, Fine Gael could find itself re-elected.
It matters because ideologically the two contenders — Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney — are quite different. Not Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair different, but they do emphasise different visions which will influence how they perform in the job.
The personality of the Taoiseach also matters — a leader’s personality determines how they operate and how they react to events. Fred Greenstein, a specialist in US presidents, identified a number of traits that affect performance.
Some leaders have good political instincts, some are good communicators, some are good organisers, some have vision, people deal with problems and process information differently, and some leaders have better emotional intelligence.
How a leader performs depends on these. Contrast the abrasive, take-it-or-leave-it style of Albert Reynolds with that of Bertie Ahern, who was more compromising and more likely to find a solution. Reynolds led two very short-lived governments, whereas Ahern was Taoiseach for more than a decade.
Now while we can go overboard on the personal details of leaders, and sometimes become fixated by what they do in their spare time, being aware of their differences is something that the public should want to recognise.
There isn’t one stand-out candidate; both Varadkar and Coveney have their strengths and weaknesses. But they are undeniably different.
Coveney appears to be the safe choice for Fine Gael. He appears more socially conservative than Varadkar. He is more obviously old-school, with family connections to the party and a base in the Munster heartland.
But Coveney is probably in the Just Society camp of the party — the side that moved towards social democracy in the 1960s, which came to a highpoint under Garret FitzGerald in the early 1980s. In interviews he gives the impression of a patrician One Nation Tory politician, who knows that the lower orders suffer and knows also what’s best for them.
He is not a conviction politician. By his own admission he is a politician who likes to find compromise and secure a workable deal rather than an ideologically pure one.
So he brought in policies on rent control that his party would normally rail against. Critics might say this leads to fudge, such as in how water charges have been pushed to the long grass.
Defenders might point out that Fine Gael had effectively no choice, and starting a row on this issue would yield nothing.
Fine Gael under Coveney would see the State as a driver of economic growth, and his willingness to engage in big infrastructural plans hardly marks him out on the right. He’d compete with Fianna Fail and most of the other parties on the centre ground. Essentially they’d be competing on competence.
Varadkar came to prominence as an articulate TD who was willing to say what he thought.
He is a better communicator than Coveney, who has had to teach himself public speaking. Varadkar also has a good instinct for what the public think. He will rarely say anything damaging, though his willingness to criticise his own party may make him less popular among the membership.
Varadkar a not a partisan Fine Gaeler. He was willing to praise Mary Harney when she was in Health, where most in opposition instinctively criticise government. And when criticising Brian Cowen, he revealed what he thinks of the social democratic wing of his own party: “You’re no Sean Lemass, you’re no Jack Lynch, you’re no John Bruton, you’re a Garret FitzGerald. You’ve tripled the national debt, you’ve officially destroyed the country.”
This must have upset the acolytes of St Garret.
It is hard to point to significant ministerial successes for either man. Some argue than Coveney is better able to deliver, but Varadkar has been moved around departments so frequently he can hardly be blamed for not having put his name on specific policy initiatives. It is also said that Varadkar is more brusque, less good at small talk, which might make for a more confrontational style in government.
Varadkar is willing to quote Adam Smith, and emphasises the need for the private sector to create wealth if anyone is going to redistribute it. He was ideologically attracted to Fine Gael by its emphasis on personal responsibility, and what he saw as Fianna Fail’s willingness to buy itself out of problems.
Fine Gael under Varadkar would put clear blue water between Fine Gael and the other parties, leaving a clearer left-right divide in the party system.
Whoever Fine Gael appoints will have an impact on the chances of any Fine Gael TD to save their seats or even grow the party, but it has an impact beyond just that; the identity and personality of the new leader is of all our concern.
‘You’re no Sean Lemass, you’re no Jack Lynch, you’re no John Bruton — you’re a Garret FitzGerald’