Political favours

That a week is a long time in politics is a truism. So what does that make of a fortnight? Truly, the landscape has changed utterly. The end of an era has sprung upon us. Ye know not the day nor the hour. Gambles fell apart. Bluffs were called. Obduracy brought down a Taoiseach and a Government. The judiciary were unwilling guests at the feast. The clergy even more so.

What a soap. Top ratings on the box. What a plot. You couldn’t have scripted it better. At the time of writing, nothing is finalised. I would guess that things will be a lot clearer by the time you get to read this. But given the form of the last few weeks, I won’t be betting on it!

When the dust has settled, and the whole kit and caboodle have buckled down to work, the population may be forgiven for asking some small favours of the politicians . . .

The first is that they concentrate on the task in hand, and forget about the plots and postures. The second is that they do so with some sense of humility and dignity. The third is that they keep themselves to themselves for a while.

No offence, but the entire country is a bit jaded with worrying about politicians and what they get up to at the moment, and it would be nice not to have to think about them until the new year.

What I’m talking about is the possibility of an air of quiet industry in the Dail. Most of the population are more than smart enough to work out who has done what and why. They don’t need it writ in big bold print for them every time a Minister farts. So how about desisting from giving all those political journalists anything to write about. No more signals. No more spins. No more sources close to this person or that. As tired as we are of politicians and their carry on, we are all a lot more tired of political journalists.

Enough is enough! He laughed.

The new leader of Fianna Fail, and the Labour leader, have both spoken of consensus, transparency and accountability. And they are right. It is proper that public policy and systems should be open to examination and question, and where necessary, to change.

But it would not be amiss to also speak of modesty and generosity and the ability to listen without judgement. In the heel of the hunt, we’re all here for the short haul. Life goes on in our absence. The fate of Albert Reynolds, a hero one day and a villain the next, should be a salutary one for all his peers. It could happen to a bishop and, as it so happens, it did.

Of course, I recognise that the politicians live a most stressful and precarious life. An election marks someone’s failure just as surely as it marks another’s success. It wouldn’t be the life for me, and that’s for sure. I understand why there is this compulsion to draw attention to themselves.

But you know how we all feel when confronted by a child which demands attention, and just won’t get out of your face. Inevitably we wonder what is dysfunctional in her/his background at all at all. Well, I think that every voter reacts in a comparable way when a politician keeps popping up and going on about how “I’m doing this and I’m doing that”.

A decent level of restraint would be much appreciated. Keep the head down and get on with the work. And the positive spin-off is that the stridency of the opposition will appear all the more unnecessary.

Because, for all the rather petty banana-skins, the last government was a good one. Indeed, overall it was very effective and got through a huge amount of work. The real big stuff is probably still to come.

Which begs a question: what about the opposition?

That’s unanswerable as I write, because it is still unclear who will fulfil that role. But based on the inspired guesswork of the last two days, it will probably be the same as before. They have a lot of thinking to do. Some greatly enhanced their reputations in the last days of the Reynolds government, others did not. It’s hard to establish why, and to be honest, I don’t have to. But they must, if they want to follow through on the results of the Cork by-elections whenever the next general election comes about.

H H H H H

In the last Whole Hog I wrote about the risks to the world ecology from leaky Russian nuclear reactors. That’s not the only threat. Last week the Irish Times published a feature by David Horovitz on the scale of Israel’s nuclear capacity to make war.

The article referred to information published in the respected military magazine Jane’s Intelligence Review. Using accurate photographs from French and Russian satellites, Jane’s specified seven key sites and described the function of each.

According to the article’s author Howard Haugh, Israel has 200 warheads and includes practical and strategic weaponry - gravity bombs, missiles, artillery shells, landmines and demolition devices.

Needless to say, this does not please Israel’s Arab neighbours, who argue (to Israel’s embarrassment) that the country should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open all its sites to inspection.

Well, you can see their point. A peace process is underway. On the other hand, the Israelis point to their restraint during the Gulf War as evidence of their commitment to peace.

Still, it’s a notoriously unstable region, and the recent reports that the Greeks and the Turks are posturing at one another over sea rights, and the Syrians and Iraqis are getting very uncomfortable at Turkish irrigation projects that threaten their water from the Euphrates, would not exactly raise your hopes that a dreadful mistake will always prove avoidable.

H H H H H

It makes you come over all Green and pacific (This is not to be taken as a reference to Sinn Fein!).

No, it refers to environmentalism. And if mere survival seems the only reason to think about conservation, a recent report published by Friends of the Earth in the UK might make you think again.

They reckon that more than 700,000 jobs could be created in the UK by 2010 if Britain shifted to a “greener” economy. The report sets out to dispel the myth that protecting the environment is an expensive luxury, and cites examples from the US and northern Europe. And not only would jobs be created, the taxpayers would benefit too.

It sounds like it could be a mighty good idea. I think we might return to this in the New Year, eh?