If Varadkar really wants to win next time out, he’ll drop Donohoe and Coveney
HERBERT ASQUITH may have been an indecisive war leader but he was prepared to hurt the feelings of powerful, titled colleagues to create an effective government. Becoming British prime minister in 1908 at a time of momentous change, he brought two ambitious men into his first cabinet who were to have great influence on Irish, as well as British, history: David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. Asquith’s formation of this pivotal government inspires admiration at brave cabinet formation, tinged with delight at the reaction of his ludicrously titled Liberal colleagues. Asquith sacked the Earl of Portsmouth; the first Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Tweedmouth and the Lord President of the Council, Lord Elgin.
After the slaughter, Lord Elgin wrote to Lord Tweedmouth: ‘I venture to think that even a prime minister may have some regard for the usages common among gentlemen... I feel that even a housemaid gets a better warning.’
Even Asquith, ousted for indecisiveness in World War I, understood a vital tenet of domestic rule: you must end the careers of other politicians without sentiment.
Yes, successful leaders, must tread carefully while they gain strength. Margaret Thatcher had to wait until after the Falklands War before she could begin easing out bumptious ‘wets’ and get in hungry ministers who shared her ideology. Bertie Ahern was at the zenith of his power when he shifted Charlie McCreevy to Europe in 2004 and moved towards a more (he claimed) ‘socialist’ government.
YOU can argue about the results but, good or bad, the historic results were what these leaders wanted. Next month will mark the fifth anniversary of Leo Varadkar becoming Taoiseach. Now Tánaiste Varadkar will be Taoiseach again in December, when he swaps jobs with Micheál Martin. Even in June 2017 Varadkar disappointed with the conservatism of his cabinet. There we may see the seeds of Vardkar’s now deeply entrenched timidness.
Eoghan Murphy had been the trigger man in the campaign of insurrection against predecessor Enda Kenny. Murphy was very much the Che Guevara to Varadkar’s Fidel Castro. But when he swapped combat fatigues for business suit and was brought from the battlefield to cabinet room, el Che Murphy was a catastrophe. Murphy, whose struggles at the Housing Department fatally damaged Varadkar’s government, was dropped from cabinet. Yet, with Murphy and in the ruthless dismissal of other former lieutenants, Michael D’Arcy and John Paul Phelan, Varadkar has shown the ability to treat colleagues like the aforementioned ‘housemaids’.
As Tánaiste, Varadkar still commands the power to appoint his portion of the cabinet. Varadkar’s Cabinet is uninspiring. Of the five (other) Fine Gael Cabinet Ministers – Simon Coveney, Paschal Donohoe, Heather Humphreys and Simon Harris – four are Enda Kenny people. Even his only promotion, Helen McEntee, a progressive minister in terms of youth and gender is not as adventurous a Varadkar appointment as would at first appear. McEntee is a dynasty Fine Gael politician.
Between now and December Varadkar has career-defining manpower decisions to make. Will he take the road of Asquith, Thatcher and Ahern?
If he doesn’t take the knife to his ministerial line-up, it will be the surest sign that he intends to take the other route: that of meek submission to an electoral defeat and a whimpering slope off into the private sector.
That would see him make minimal changes to his cabinet and junior ministerial line-up and create no new enemies. For two years he would go through the governmental motions that will serve only to burnish his post-politics CV.
Indeed, there are many traditional reasons to avoid a Night of the Long Knives. None of them stand up to scrutiny, and most certainly don’t overcome the reasons for a purge.
I spoke to a substantial number of current and former members of the Fine Gael parliamentary party this week. They note that: Simon Coveney has been in Cabinet for 11 years and Paschal Donohoe for eight. The pair occupy the most prestigious and powerful Cabinet roles of Foreign Affairs and Finance. Neither has an arguable chance of being leader of Fine Gael. Mr Coveney has been damaged by a series of controversies at his department. And he has been sullied by Fine Gael’s electoral failings in Munster.
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ASCHAL DONOHOE is unpopular in the Fine Gael parliamentary party, as a Finance Minister usually is in straitened financial times and economic upheaval. But what surprised me in those discussions with Fine Gael was the visceral condemnation for Donohoe over his performance as the party’s director of elections in the 2020 general election. Ultimately, an electoral failure is the leader’s but Varadkar has lost none of his Teflon skills and has successfully blamed failed candidate selection and election logistics on Donohoe.
The Departments of Finance and Foreign Affairs which, dispiritingly, Donohoe and Coveney occupied before the election were responsible for the ludicrous belief that Brexit, predominately a British domestic concern, would be a central issue in the election. Donohoe and Coveney were largely responsible for putting Brexit at the centre of their campaign.
Coveney and Donohoe must be sent to the backbenches if Fine Gael is to progress, that is clear from those Fine Gael briefings. What is also clear is that the traditionally overriding reason for avoiding such ruthlessness – fear of reprisal – does not exist. You would be lucky to find three strong Coveney supporters in the parliamentary party and you’d find precisely zero Donohoe supporters.
Fine Gael TDs believe that Dún Laoghaire newcomer Jennifer Carroll MacNeill deserves promotion. Tiktok specialist Simon Harris must be brought into a more senior role and the deadwood needs to go.
Of course, all of this fantasy cabinet reimagining is only necessary because this Government is too passive to deal with the one issue that will cost them (and us): housing. But an injection of fresh personnel, fresh thinking could bring momentum.
All seems calm across the Cabinet table, where Fianna Fáil believe the eternally indecisive Micheál Martin will not make any significant changes in his Cabinet in December. However, he has an inarguable explanation for his continuing meekness: there was incredible upheaval in Fianna Fáil in the summer of 2020, after the administration was formed. There were three Fianna Fáil agriculture ministers in the space of six weeks. And there were two chief whips in that period.
Nevertheless, for the current chief whip, Jack Chambers, to be promoted to full Cabinet would not only rejuvenate Government, it would create a genuine competitor with incoming finance minister Michael McGrath for leadership.
We know Martin is allergic to change, but what of Varadkar? What is holding him back? He is currently the most interesting personality in Irish politics – and has been for years. But there has been no adventure and little achievement during his five years at the top of Fine Gael. Yes, he has been weakened by electoral failures and controversies but come the autumn he must regain momentum and show leadership. He must show that he is not bedazzled by powerful, egotistical ministers and that he is truly a disruptor who will cast aside political tradition and cause something to happen.
Asquith showed political élan. Reading about politics you will find yourself routinely returning to this period: for, however unwelcome, it was our history too. That Liberal government, with Lloyd George and Churchill, was responsible for decisions – social welfare, women’s suffrage (which Asquith, in fact, opposed) and World War I – that changed our world forever. Their political lineage stretched back to the age of Gladstone and Asquith first rose to prominence as a junior counsel defending our great hero Charles Stewart Parnell against false court accusations of inciting political murder.
Varadkar should keep in mind Parnell’s exhortation to the Irish nation and incorporate it when considering all those opposing innovative action: ‘No man has the right to say… Thus far shalt thou go and no further.’