The joy of vagueness

Fine Gael and Labour have vested interests in concealing what they might do in government – that is if they know

Now we know. Fine Gael and Labour are against the wastage of public money. Very against. So against that they will order ministers in their new government not to waste public funds. The would-be Taoiseach (Enda Kenny, a former teacher) and the would-be Tánaiste (Pat Rabbitte, a former trade union official) would have a more “hands-on” involvement in supervising spending estimates – we are invited to believe that these two, who have had no previous experience in managing anything (aside from brief and inconsequential ministerial responsibilities) would save the country billions. They want more adequate project management for infrastructural ventures. They want private executives in senior jobs in the public service (who do they think would be interested?).

The announcement of these breathtaking proposals on Tuesday, 14 March, is, so far, the only policy proposal published in the names of these two putative government partners. We don't know their policy on taxation or on public spending generally, we do not know what they would do to fix the health system, to make the education system more fair, what they would do on housing, whether they would allow the US military to use Shannon as a stop-over, whether they would allow the CIA to use Shannon to facilitate the illegal kidnappings of terrorist suspects and their transport to god-knows-where.

The absence of policy proposals is not an oversight – it is quite calculated. Vagueness assists them right now and vagueness is what we will get, disguised amid bluster.

Vagueness suits them because they appeal to constituencies with different interests and concerns. What would attract one would alienate the other. So better to be vague. Anyway, specifics of any kind will alienate somebody, somebody likely to defect from Fianna Fáil in 2000. So better to be vague.

There is the further problem that specifics now would leave time for the evaluation of such specifics and that might prove unkind. Better to wait until into a general election campaign when the noise of the campaign would drown analysis.
There is the further problem that any good idea might be “stolen” and implemented by the sitting Government and that wouldn't do. Too bad about the public interest.

And the final problem: working out policy specifics is very burdensome. It involves hard choices and hard decisions and there is no kudos for that while in opposition. In government the civil servants bear the burden of analysis and policy formulation.

Essentially Fine Gael and Labour are offering just more of the same. Yes, they will promise more efficient government (although what credibility that has is questionable, since, however bad the present lot are, at least they have the benefit of several years experience in government). Labour will promise a fairer society, but will lack the will to take the decisions to bring that about. The sad reality is there is no divergence of policy between the parties nowadays, aside from the Socialist Party of Joe Higgins and perhaps Sinn Féin (although that is very questionable). Politics is now all about office, not about doing anything, certainly not about changing anything.

We are in for a long campaign and, were the media to play its adversarial role, the consensus might be subverted. Parties might be forced to face hard decisions and hard issues. But, more likely, the election will be suffocated in the usual trivia: who is likely to get the last seat in Meath East or Laois Offaly?

There are serious issues: the huge inequality in health welfare (by far the biggest issue in health); the inequalities arising from the educational system and what needs to be done to rectify those; the massive problem of sexual crime; the carnage on the roads; the huge problem of suicide; the necessity for housing for those on the housing waiting lists; the continued neglect of the Traveller community; issues on foreign policy and on immigration policy.

A few weeks ago Michael McDowell observed that the political agenda was now being set by the media, the media which is dominated by a few major conglomerates with clear vested interests. It is essential that too be subverted in the next 15 months.

vincent browne