For those of you who might scoff at this finely-tuned aesthete getting involved in the world of politics might I refer you to my piece back in October about how Boris and the Brexit debacle would play out in the UK. Read it and marvel at my prescience:
https://ardmayle.blogspot.com/2019/10/some-sporting-and-political-soothsaying.html
But let’s move on. What the fuck is going to happen here now with the deadly impasse thrown up by the General Election. Here’s what I think, based on three premises.
Premise 1: Eamon Ryan is a nice middle-class lad who would be quite comfortable going into a coalition with FF and FG. FG are his social peers who eat in the same restaurants, enjoy muesli for breakfast, and watch Leinster at the RDS. He could just about endure the more horny-handed FFers. However he’s not thick. He knows that such a coalition would give him a few cabinet seats in the short-term but would annihilate the Green Party in the long term - especially where the younger vote is concerned. Think of the party that once was Labour.
Premise 2: Micheal Martin is a man at the end of his tether. He’s history unless he can cobble together a coalition that will allow him to become Taoiseach. He knows that even if he becomes Taoiseach he’s finished but he doesn’t care - give him a couple of years and he’ll die happy.
Premise 3: Leo is brighter than Micheal and he knows full well the gig is up - for the time being. He relishes the idea of a shaky coalition between SF/FF/Greens with FG on the opposition benches taking pot shots at the shaky edifice. All the while intimating that the adults in the room are ready to take over again when the nation comes to its senses.
So there will be a coalition between the Greens, SF and FF. FF will use the Greens as prophylactic saying it would only touch SF with the Greens interposing their bodies. And of course that it is doing it for the sake of the country because there is no other solution. The Greens can say they are abiding by the desire for change which they could not do if bound to FF and FG. So they can hang on to their core vote.
This coalition will not live long of course. SF and FF will never endure each other for five years and SF know full well that an election will serve them far better than it will FF. Michael Martin may become Taoiseach (or rotating Taoiseach with Mary Lou) but it will be a Pyrrhic victory for him and possibly fatal for FF.
This whole theory is of course based on Eamon Ryan thinking long-term instead of short-term. History (as the cliche has it) will judge him harshly if he sells the Green out for a mess of pottage.
