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Finagle’s new party first came out on Wednesday in an all-in-one sequined nightclub outfit.
This innovative development should have sparked epic scenes. It was totally historical.
But hardly anyone noticed.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael performing in concert after a century of difference, who would have ever thought of it?
The last pair of them waved the lashes coming at the closest available talent. Waving bouquets scented with blossoming humility as she hung scandalous promises and muttered nothing sweet in small impressionable ears.
“Would you like to be buried with our people?”
Because that is what invariably happens to smaller parties when they are driven crazy by fast-talking political aggressors and offer an exciting and rewarding future. They bury themselves.
But surely one (or more) of them may think it’s worth the trip anyway. It is the world.
In the same way that Fianna Fáil is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is Fine Gael and the two will never meet. That has been the path of the Irish political world for its 98 years of dominance: high loyalty to one side or the other, with all other parties caught in the rift.
All that changed Tuesday night, when a century of tribal certainties was easily ignored, surprising political observers, but hardly registering with the pesky ones.
Most people have much more urgent business to worry about.
Intractable politics of the Civil War versus a global pandemic?
An old argument for struggle and development versus the pressing reality of life and death?
Do not answer.
In a brief joint statement by their two party leaders who broadly share the same political perspective but who have inherited opposing stories, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael stated that they were willing to work together in government if they could attract another partner to join the company and give them the numbers required for a stable administration.
It’s easy to get your heels out of old grooves when power is at stake and a pandemic breaks out. Covid-19 brought them together.
Although for Micheál Martin of Fianna Fáil, who knows this represents his last chance to become a taoiseach, there is much more at stake than for the outgoing leader of Taoiseach and Fine Gael Leo Varadkar.
But they are trying to do it.
Hence the shameless courtship of Greens, Social Democrats, and the Labor Party on Wednesday. The politics of the Civil War did not end with a bang, or a moan, but with a whirlwind.
The high representatives of the two parties began their offensive charm on the waves at breakfast time and continued for the rest of the day.
Dara Calleary and Michael McGrath of Fianna Fáil were the first to emerge from the traps. A confrontation with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would be “absolutely historic,” said Dara. I was being very optimistic.
The deal would be sent to the smaller parties “in hopes of opening a conversation” about the government’s formation.
It is a “high-level document,” Michael marveled. “It is a base document that will be the basis of a discussion. . . it’s really designed to form the basis of a government program. “
Charlie Flanagan, Fine Gael’s Minister of Justice, was at one of the slot machines mid-morning with his colleague Richard Bruton.
Charlie continued on “equality of authority” between the parties and “equality of ministers”. But he did not say which of the current ministers would have to be expelled to guarantee this esteem parity.
“All we have is a frame and a handshake,” he added.
You also had to contemplate “the arc of challenge,” Charlie continued, speaking about the commitment the new government would have to the needs of the suburban belt generation.
Bruton leads a “reference group” and they are busy with “seven key tests” and 10 priorities, which are also pillars. They became “missions” in the afternoon when they realized the details of the document.
It is a slim volume, a kind of reverse manifest. A retrospective look at what both parties would have promised if they had known that the elections would have had a pear shape.
“There is no going back to the old way of doing things,” they promised at the beginning of their plan designed to dazzle potential partners.
But they loved the old way. If it was so bad, why did they follow him?
The smaller parts responded immediately by playing hard to get there.
“An” unencoded, purely aspirational document that will require detailed scrutiny, “sniffed Alan Kelly of Labor. The Greens and Social Democrats weren’t impressed either. Why would they want to be buried with either side?
But the promises are very impressive. Maybe one of them will collapse.
“I think it is obvious, really. I very much appreciate the proposed agreement between the two historical enemies,” Flanagan cooed.
Great, the three little ones answered with studied indifference. Leave it with us and we’ll think about it. Contact you later.
If they decide against it, the other two can go back to the old hostilities and protest that they did their best to form a government but got nowhere and should be given credit for that.
And they should be given credit for taking the plunge and probably altering much of their primary support.
But as it emerged Wednesday from medical experts regarding those over 70, cocoon is recommended but not required.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the Finagle party for now, are learning that the cocoon is not mandatory for them either.
The big reveal is even more shocking in the fact that it is not the most shocking.
Like when the Wizard of Oz was revealed to be a big phony: all that noise and fury for so many years, and then the screens fade and everyone wonders what all the fuss was about.
Even the pigs did not bother to fly and hell did not freeze.
A new story is unfolding.
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