Fine Gael the second largest Irish political party was founded in 1933 and since then have never achieved over 40 per cent of the vote at an Irish general election. This is in contrast to Fianna Fail who have often achieved a majority in General Elections and who in recent years have been in government with coalition partnerships with smaller parties and Independents.
The death of Fianna Fail TD Seamus Brennan was a real blow to the party with the resultant by-election taking place during the most turbulent economic time for the Irish state.
The Fine Gael “celebrity” canditate George Lee who was a TV and radio economist working as Economics Editor for RTE the state broadcaster. He was highly critical of the Fianna Fail led government before being announced as the Fine Gael candidate in the by-election that took place last summer.
He took over 50 per cent of the vote and was a major boost to Fine Gael who saw themselves as the next government. The only thing stopping them was that a general election would be three years away unless they could topple the government in the meantime.
Fat chance of that happening as the government parties knew that they would be ravaged at the polls unless they actually fixed the economic problem turning themselves into heroes in time for the next general election in 2012.
The real opposition to the current government is the Labour Party which will most likely benefit from George Lee’s resignation with the election of Alex White next June.
Meanwhile back in Chateau Fine Gael, the Blueshirts as they are known in Irish politics – due to their association with Facism during the 1930′s – have met and have total confidence with the Ted and Dougal like leadership of Enda Kenny and Richard Bruton. Really they have no one else as they suffered a brain drain of good leaders out of the party in recent years. It’s difficult to re-appoint ex leaders who have failed before.
As Richard Bruton left the Dail yesterday he gave photographers a glimpse of the important documentation under his arm, yes details of how Deputy Labour Party leader Harriot Harmon has been nominated “Rear of the year”. My God Ted. Dreams and reality.
The Irish Independent reports:
Notes from a scandal: How Bruton hit a bum note
Lise Hand – Irish Independent
Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton took centre-stage outside Leinster House yesterday amid the continuing fallout from George Lee’s shock departure– but unbeknownst to the deputy leader, so did his handful of documents.
It turns out that Fine Gael’s finance spokesman also has an interest in
figures that aren’t of the numerical kind. For prominent among his visible
notes was a print-out of a story with the headline: “Harriet Harman in
the running for ‘Rear of the Year’ Award.”The story explained how Britain’s Labour Party Deputy Leader — a staunch
feminist, “who wants pictures of Page 3 girls banned from the workplace
to protect the sensitivity of some staff” — is an unlikely candidate
for the honour.Fine Gael staffers were at a loss as to how this page came to be there, and Mr
Bruton was unreachable for an explanation — although one insider suggested: “I
think it’s one of the policy papers that George submitted to Richard.”Also among the papers was a second document, entitled Fine Gael Front Bench
Meeting.Richard had obviously taken notes during the hasty party think-in about how to
handle the George Lee debacle, with keynote phrases scribbled onto the page
including: “Acted honour-ably”; “FG has a problem to manage”
and “FG has a robust policy platform”.All of these phrases popped up in the course of Richard’s interview on the
plinth — although one word scribbled on the paper did not: ‘Saipan’.Perhaps Richard decided that comparing Enda to Mick McCarthy, while George got
to be Roy Keane, would be an own-goal too far.
We couldn’t get a photo of Enda Kenny but Fotolia who supply our photos managed to find a more intelligent animal:)
