One of the curiosities of the current election campaign has been the strategy pursued by the Coalition in its quest for re-election.
Having governed on a platform of ‘sound money’ – or austerity/probity, if you like – for the previous four and a half years, every day of the campaign so far has been marked by a plethora of promises and/or the launch of some expensive new initiative or other.
Not to mention the extraordinary 12 billion euro which mysteriously appeared the very day after the election was called!
The backdrop to this is the received political wisdom that the last FG/Labour Coalition lost the 1997 General Election by going to the country too soon and allowing itself to be outbid and outmanoeuvred due to its relatively prudent manifesto.
However, this doesn’t factor in the country’s then mixed opinion of John Bruton as Taoiseach, his occasionally clumsy handling of the Peace Process, and Michael Noonan’s extremely unsympathetic dealings with Brigid McCole and her family in very distressful circumstances.
Political analysis tends to be dominated by ‘post facto’ reasoning and the commentariat in this country is a small grouping, as conservative and timid as the established political parties themselves, and inclined to repeating its narrow opinions as self-evident fact.
With this in mind, the Coalition have delayed the election until virtually the last possible minute, thrown economic sense to the wind in a blizzard of promises and has now resorted to attacking their opponents as poll after poll shows the electorate’s resistance to being bought off once again with their own money.
As the old adage says: when you’re explaining, you’re losing. Enda Kenny this weekend described critics of the Coalition as “whingers” and Brendan Howlin recently castigated dissenters from his economic policy as “wolf criers”, both of which evoke memories of Bertie Aherne’s unfortunate put-down of unsympathetic commentators as ‘cribbers and criers who might like to consider suicide as an alternative’.
With only 4 days to go to polling day, in one of the hackneyed cliches beloved of Irish politicians – if this government aspires to continuing in office, then there really is a serious job of work to be done’!