All due respect, Leo, you got no idea what it’s like to be No.1
...so for starters let’s see how you get on with these five little problems
LEO Varadkar will soon take the glory and honour that come with becoming the 14th premier of Ireland.
He will assume the responsibility, pressure and opprobrium that also accompany the great office.
The Minister for Social Protection surprised many with the military precision that he brought to his leadership campaign. He showed that, unlike his elitist opponent Simon Coveney, he did not believe he was entitled to votes just because he made speeches about himself. Varadkar displayed the previously hidden skills of a ruthless political operator. He displayed the sometimes neglected political skill of counting votes.
Leo can search for counsel from predecessors of what it is like to be boss, but he will find few better than that given by TV mobster Tony Soprano. Replying to a subordinate about his mantle, Tony said: ‘All due respect, you got no f***ing idea what it’s like to be Number One. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other f***ing thing. It’s too much to deal with almost. And in the end, you’re completely alone with it all.’
Leo will have to deal with the following five priorities to determine whether he becomes the Don or just another body in a dumpster.
1. BATTLES IN THE BACKROOM
ENDA Kenny took over the leadership of a demoralised party in 2002. He had the humility to let brilliant people help him rebuild the party.
In the election of 2002, Fine Gael had lost 23 seats. In 2016, the party lost 26. Last year, the party ran an awful campaign that was detached from common concerns. There have been reports and hand-wringing but because of the stasis around the leadership there has been no reform. Varadkar must share responsibility for that disaster.
The party structure needs to be torn down and rebuilt. PR guru Mark Mortell is unlikely to be recalled after the debacle of 2016. But EU Commissioner Phil Hogan, who has campaigned for Varadkar, could lend his expertise. General Secretary Tom Curran was at the centre of a humiliating and financially ruinous court battle with former TD John Perry. He is said to be first in Varadkar’s firing line.
Broke, decayed and rudderless, this organisation, which Varadkar will rely on to be re-elected, will have to be revived. He needs fresh young candidates in Tipperary (there is no Fine Gael Oireachtas representative there for the first time). There are many other constituencies where new candidates are required – and urgently, given the precarious Dáil arrangement.
Wounds must be healed between high-profile constituency colleagues, like Eoghan Murphy and Kate O’Connell in Dublin Bay South. And Varadkar will need to do more to help his running mate (Senator Catherine Noone) in Dublin West than he did in 2016. Taoisigh must bring in running mates.
2. THE CABINET CANDIDATES
THE Cabinet that Varadkar inherits is stale and marked with the failures of Enda Kenny’s hopeless second term. This first decision will set the tone. The 38-year-old Taoiseach, who will become one of world’s first openly gay leaders, will be expected to have a youthful Cabinet with an acceptable gender blend. Frances Fitzgerald will be helped by gender but not by age (she is 66). She will surely be moved out of Justice. It is unfortunate for her that her demotion will be necessitated if the Garda Commissioner is to be fired.
Charlie Flanagan is only 60 but has that image of a man in a grey suit. He too is in danger, if only to free up a place. Simon Coveney will be kept in his Housing portfolio (where he hasn’t had any real success). Simon Harris will be kept in Health, which is considered worse punishment than demotion. Eoghan Murphy will come in and one of Regina Doherty or Helen McEntee will too.
Varadkar has already indicated there will be no Brexit Minister – this is political suicide and he will have to rethink that.
This Government is tired and discredited. I don’t believe minimal change is an option for Varadkar – if he wants to be re-elected, he will have to wield the knife.
3. THOSE FRISKY FIANNA FáILERS
DESPITE his youth, Varadkar is a Fine Gael diehard, which means he holds a healthy contempt for Fianna Fáil. Yet Varadkar was a cheerleader for coalition with Fianna Fáil a year ago. Realism will dictate his early manoeuvres on the old enemy. He needs to cohabit with them in the ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement while he rebuilds the party. He has already spoken to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, below, and assured him that there will be no early election.
Prepare for a long, laboured divorce, where fabricated and real disputes will lead to an election in the autumn of 2018. Senior figures in Fianna Fáil say that they are looking forward with Varadkar – for a while. After the parody of a Government that we have had under Kenny, Fianna Fáil believe that we might see some work done and some meaningful legislation produced.
But both Leo and FF will be eying the prize, securing the position of largest party after the next election, whenever that is. The phoney war is therefore over and the real battle is about to commence.
4. LEO’S TEMPESTUOUS TEMPERAMENT
VARADKAR has a temperament issue. He has said some crazy things. In March 2010, when he was trying to attack Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s Cabinet reshuffle, he managed to attack a Fine Gael deity, Garrett FitzGerald. ‘The Taoiseach (Cowen) is no Seán Lemass, Jack Lynch or John Bruton,’ Varadkar said. ‘He is a Garret FitzGerald. He has trebled the national debt and effectively destroyed the country.’ He predicted that the reshuffle would prove to be Cowen’s final act ‘so he should enjoy writing boring articles in the Irish Times in a few years’. Garrett spent his dotage writing for the Irish Times. All searingly accurate but utterly misplaced for a future Taoiseach. After a trip abroad in February 2009, in one sentence he admitted his craven desire for the perks of the Taoiseach’s
office, insulted Mongolia and Russia, displayed an undignified familiarity with rhyming slang and a tendency for toilet humour.
He said: ‘I really can’t wait to get the keys to one of those government jets. My bowels aren’t feeling the Mae West today. Not sure whether to blame the Mongolian food or Aeroflot.’
Pretty funny, but such carrying-on could cause an international incident in the top job.
He loses his temper when contradicted or criticised. Take the final hustings debate with Simon Coveney last Sunday. Varadkar’s team told journalists that Leo would be statesman-like and sanguine when the inevitable attacks came.
But when he was accused of being uncaring, he snapped, saying that when a person in his own party made such accusations it was ‘divisive and it’s dishonest and it’s not a good way to seek a mandate’.
As a minister, it might be okay to not suffer fools. As a Taoiseach, it’s a flaw to be exploited.
5. THOSE PESKY POLICIES
VARADKAR has come across as to the right of Genghis Khan in the leadership campaign, talking about representing people who get up early in the morning. As far back as 2008, he advocated paying unemployed foreign nationals to go home. His recent policy to publish the names of social welfare fraudsters is simply nasty.
Ireland does not do political extremes of left or right. Fine Gael bombed in 2016 because of a manifesto with milder right-wing notions. Varadkar may be overcompensating for his perceived liberal social policies.
But even in the area of social policy he is muddled, as he admitted at a press conference two weeks ago. When asked about the Eighth Amendment he said: ‘I am somebody who has had an evolving view on this issue, I have changed my mind a few times. I find it difficult, I struggle with it.
‘I certainly would be in favour of removing the Eighth Amendment. I think it should be deleted and I am in favour, in a personal view, of abortion in certain circumstances (fatal foetal abnormalities, rape). I personally would not favour abortion on request.’
Like every other senior politician, he is bottling the abortion issue. Such muddled thinking will not endear him to anybody.
Fine Gael’s brand has taken a severe battering in the last year. After a calamitous general election, it needs to gain an identity quickly. Varadkar needs to decide what that is and communicate it clearly, because currently nobody else seems to know.