A spinner who has mastered the conjurer’s art of misdirection

At the Fine Gael strategy meeting on Monday, Michael Noonan gave a master class in political communications. Combining intellectual ballast, whimsy, wit and folksiness (the always-handy hurling metaphor), his utterances were received by the media in the supine manner of a dog with paws aloft getting its belly scratched.

Noonan’s skills at finding the bon mot was summed up by this construct: “I’m not a martinet. I’m not ideological on these issues. I was just good at arithmetic when I was in primary school.”

The first sentence is true. The second sentence is not (of course he is ideological on these issues). The third may be true but not quite as true as him saying he was just good at English and drama when he was at primary school.

For it is not maths that has elevated Noonan’s reputation as Minister for Finance into the stratosphere.

Rather, it’s his political nous, his vast experience, a well-honed sense of timing and facility with language.

When you canvass TDs and Senators in Leinster House, friend and foe, they point to Noonan as the lodestar of the Coalition. The residual doubt that lingered about Enda Kenny as Taoiseach revolved around his poor grasp of economics. That responsibility was wholly delegated to Noonan, who has projected a cool and calm authority.

The strange thing is that when you strip out the semantics, a cold analysis of his
2½ years as Minister for Finance reveals a patchy record, with some undoubted successes, but also policy failures.

Yet the assessments of Noonan have been consistently laudatory – somehow amnesia sets in for the failures.

Chutzpah
The biggest setback was the breakthrough that wasn't on retrospective bank recapitalisation. The Government claimed a significant advance at an EU summit in June 2012, and Noonan, along with Brendan Howlin, quickly convened a press conference. It was an exercise in chutzpah and Noonan didn't demur when figures of €60 billion were bandied about by reporters. The message was that at the very least €30 billion injected into the banks by Irish taxpayers was now in play.

The clear impression was that the deal was in the bag.

“What’s the minimum you will be looking for?” asked a journalist.

“It’s clear you’ve never been to the Fair of Glin or sold a calf,” Noonan riposted. “Sure, if I told them [the EU] the minimum, that’s what they would give me.”

Sublime stuff. Pity nobody checked later to see if any of it was real. It quickly fizzled out but with no political repercussion, no talk of U-turns or flip-flops.

The trick Noonan used was the magician’s one of misdirection.

When something does not work he ramps up the rhetoric on an alternative initiative. For over a year he used this strategy as he switched focus from bank recapitalisation to the promissory note.

It is true that a deal did eventuate on the promissory note (for the former Anglo Irish Bank). Without any doubt that and the popular political decision to liquidate IRBC were massive achievements.

But was it as lustrous as he claimed? In folksy mode (and you can still hear him say it in your head) he said it would be worth “about a billion a year”. But the billion a year has yet to show itself.

Moreover, the losses being transferred to Nama may be larger than anticipated, thus reducing the net benefit to more prosaic levels.

There have been other examples of so-so performances.

He quickly threw in the towel on another of the Government’s crusades – to tackle the extravagant pay levels of senior bankers and did not adopt the recommendations of the Mercer report.

Despite the constant refrain of urgency, it is clear he has not tackled mortgage arrears. The disclosure last month that banks defined legal threats to distressed mortgage holders as debt restructuring offers should have been politically damaging for him.

So, how does he gloss over shortcomings with such aplomb?

He has a fantastic sense of what is demanded by the occasion. His first major public appearance as a young minister for justice in the coalition government of 1982 was to disclose the clandestine and illegal phone tapping of journalists Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold. His press conference was commanding and memorable, marking him out as one to watch.

He became Fine Gael leader at the wrong time and, besides, did not possess the energy or appetite for all the demands of the job. But late in his career he has been able to employ his experience and savvy to formidable effect in the finance portfolio. He is well suited to it.

He has been sparing in his public appearances. Kenny and he both share an aversion to long one-on-one interviews or being involved in television debates. So his rare appearances – soft interviews in the main – become like Apple events in Cupertino, anticipated, hyped and with a frisson of drama as the Oracle speaks.

Joins the dots
People sometimes forget that finance was split into two by the Coalition. As a point of fact, the real activist has been Howlin but his task is the unloved and unrewarding one of imposing a slew of unpopular cuts, while Noonan joins the dots of a preordained four-year plan set out by the troika.

Howlin has taken a lot of flak despite some major achievements; Noonan has taken most of the glory despite some major failures.

It boils down to one fundamental political skill. He is a great spinner. And like all great spinners, Noonan has the knack of appearing completely unspun.