Fitzgerald is the author of her own misfortunes

NONE of the party leaders want an election before Christmas, but going to the polls in early spring would suit the Taoiseach more than the others. A short, sharp phoney war would blur the memories of voters who question whether Frances Fitzgerald’s wounded pride is worth the cost of taking the country into a general election.

And despite the Taoiseach’s chivalry to a dame in distress, how could he refuse if Fitzgerald offered to stand down in the national interest?

The earliest indications are that her resignation would be the most popular option with the public.

But she has achieved the second highest political office in the land, when her most notable political talents are empathy and a fidelity to feminism at a time when fewer women were in public life.

So the Tánaiste is likely to see any argument to sacrifice her career for the party’s good as another setback for all women everywhere.

By the time we get to campaigning, Fitzgerald, and the now infamous email about Maurice McCabe, will be a distant curiosity and the Tánaiste judged to be ‘not guilty, by reason of diminished reasoning’.

Fitzgerald’s blind loyalty to Nóirín O’Sullivan, despite glaring evidence of the former commissioner’s unfitness for the job, was frankly embarrassing.

It was also unlikely for a bluestocking Fine Gael minister like Fitzgerald to be Nóirín O’Sullivan’s very best friend and a bosom buddy to whistleblower McCabe.

People can either be on Team Nóirín or on Team Maurice: it is impossible to be best friend to both. The Tánaiste wanted the best of both worlds.

Leo Varadkar could not credibly say his deputy leader deserves to hold her office when he has exonerated her on the McCabe email by way of a thinly disguised fool’s pardon.

FRANCES Fitzgerald has been extremely lucky in politics, retaining the post of Tánaiste after her party’s change of leader this summer. Luck aside, Varadkar has few options now that her (and his) political survival is threatened. He does not want his term as Taoiseach to be the shortest in history (he was only elected in June). His ambition is to serve three successful terms, retire before he is 50 and become a wealthy investor of impeccable taste.

His future could hang on Fitzgerald’s political reputation.

Yet the Tánaiste will quickly become irrelevant as issues rage and diminish in the white heat of a general election campaign.

Others will be asking why the current minister for justice, Charlie Flanagan, didn’t inform the Taoiseach about the same email coming into his possession.

Maybe that explains Flanagan’s over-excited defence of his own reputation in the Dáil, when no one had accused him of anything – and why others may now seek rational explanations from him.

But then Flanagan, Fitzgerald and other ministers are in the mature wing of Fine Gael and not in the Leo-Eoghan-Paschal loop that now calls the shots.

While an early election might suit Fine Gael, nobody really knows. The dynamics of campaigning distorts issues and electioneering for all the parties and independents.

Politicians who claim that nobody wants an election rarely consult the voters they claim to be quoting – and that includes Fine Gaelers who think Fitzgerald’s resignation would sort it all out.

Once the campaign is raging, most voters will have forgotten how they got there, and why they are taking sides in the argument.

Any hopes that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil could secure another confidence-and-supply arrangement will be impossible after the fall of the current agreement.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are likely to increase their number of TDs – around 60 each – while support for Sinn Féin and the independents falls.

Fianna Fáil’s best hope to be in government after the next election is as the senior partner in a coalition with Sinn Féin, although that would not be an acceptable solution for Micheal Martin.

He believes Sinn Féin is not fit to be in government, and that judgment would continue even after Mary Lou McDonald replaces Gerry Adams as leader.

If Martin’s view prevails, Fianna Fáil will not be in office after the next election, although it is difficult to see Fine Gael joining forces with Sinn Féin in a coalition.

SHOULD that be the outcome, Fitzgerald and McDonald could argue over which of them is grand enough, yet sufficiently revolutionary, to take on the role of Countess Markievicz. After voting to accept a junior position in a coalition last weekend, Sinn Féin couldn’t believe its luck when a potential opportunity came so soon.

Independents can do little to sway events leading to the calling of an election, and they are likely to have less influence on any outcome, according to opinion polls.

The query, ‘How did Leo Varadkar’s government fall?’ will eventually become a pub quiz question. And, I suspect, it will baffle as many in future pub quizzes as were mystified by events in Leinster House last week.

To quote Churchill: ‘It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…’

I WAS delighted to see Chris Donoghue move from stressful Communicorp to the relative peace of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

After finishing his Sunday programme on Newstalk last week, Chris put his underpants on over his trousers and became a special adviser to Simon Coveney.