Rabbitte opts for musical chairs over left politics
On RTÉ's Questions and Answers programme on Monday (23 May), Pat Rabbitte was almost pallid. Not once did he score a "hit" on fellow panelist, Brian Cowen, the Minister for Finance. There was a now familiar "inhalation of statesmanship", conveying pomposity by someone who used to be entertaining and daring.
He seems almost overwhelmed by leadership, by the realisation that he has one shot at senior cabinet office (he was a mere junior light in the 1994-1997 Rainbow) and if he gets this wrong, it is over for him politically, as he sees it. It is for this reason he views the pact with Fine Gael as essential.
Labour could opt to go it alone, to play to the left wing constituency, to build that constituency and extend it to include the Greens, Sinn Féin (eventually) and the left-leaning Independent TDs (it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that this cohort could win 50 seats in the next general election and 65 seats in the election after that). But that would be a long term strategy or at least a two-Dáil strategy and by the election after next, (2012), Pat Rabbitte will be 65 and, in his eyes (now), too old for office.
Leaving open the option to ally again with Fianna Fáil he sees (probably correctly) as an electoral liability. Anybody thinking of switching to Labour is unlikely to be enthused by the prospect that their vote might return Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach.
But not many would-be or actual Labour supporters are likely to be excited by the prospect of their vote resulting in Enda Kenny becoming Taoiseach. While Fine Gael present a harmless image in opposition, it is well appreciated that in power Fine Gael will not be able to restrain its law and order impulse when the occasion demands (as inevitably it will) and unlikely to offend in any fundamental way the strong economic vested interests it represents.
It means that, while there may be a raft of "ethical" legislation and a little more of the social/liberal agenda (if there is anything left to that, perhaps same-sex marriage?), nothing fundamental will change. There will be a little more redistribution of wealth and income than there is now with Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, a little more investment in health and education but not so much as to make any real difference. Some of the more egregious tax loopholes will be closed, although on his performance on Questions and Answers, Pat Rabbitte would soft-pedal on that too. The main thing would be a change of faces, but even that prospect is not compelling.
At its Tralee conference, Labour will be enraptured (again) by the passion of Michael D Higgins, but opt for the dull vision of someone who has so often reinvented himself politically – Labour, Sinn Féin the Workers Party, The Workers Party, Democratic Left, Labour and, inevitably soon, Fine Gael-lite. A few will leave for Seamus Healy's new left alliance or Joe Higgins's Socialist Party. Most will settle for musical chairs politics or at least the hope of musical chairs politics.
Vincent Browne