Fine Gael shows its poker face

The stack of chips on Fine Gael's side might have been dwindling in the last few months as it has folded on deal after deal in the face of the Opposition, especially Fianna Fáil.

But it too has a poker face and it was inevitable that at some stage it was going to call Fianna Fáil’s bluff.

And that happened late last night as Fine Gael finally showed that it has a poker face, and is prepared to face Fianna Fáil down.

The net issue was on the cap for temporary rent controls which will be introduced in key cities. Fine Gael insisted that the figure could not go lower than 4 per cent. Fianna Fáil wanted the cap to be reduced to 2 per cent.

Rent control talks break down without agreement

---

Miriam Lord: Two parties circle each other to square rent issue

---

Approval of rental strategy hangs in balance, says Micheál Martin

---

Simon Coveney plays hardball with Fianna Fáil over rent cap

---

It also wanted measure to be extended beyond Dublin and Cork to other major cities. Strangely, too, it wanted (yet more) tax incentives for landlords.

Okay, the scrap between Simon Coveney and Barry Cowen Wednesday night was hardly bare-knuckle fighting, but, a bloody victory in a scrap was important for Fine Gael for two reasons.

The first was in relation to the issue itself. Coveney and his people argued that they spent months researching this issue and that the Minister did not pluck the 4 per cent figure from his back pocket as he walked into Government Buildings on Tuesday.

The corollary of this was that Fianna Fáil, well, kind of did - and was flexing its muscles for show-off reasons.

The second reason was that the lobby fodder that comprises the Fine Gael back benches had got a little tired watching their senior colleagues bend over backwards to Fianna Fáil on every issue.

The arrangement between both parties, to them, was beginning to look like the arrangement a cuckoo makes with a sparrow when it deposits its egg into the sparrow’s nest. The sparrow is driven to exhaustion feeding the every-hungry chick. And the reward it gets at the end? Being booted out of the nest.

It is our political lead today. I know it is not very Irish Times, but the best way to describe the rhetoric last night was "fightin' talk". Cowen was digging his heels in. Enda Kelly told the Fine Gael parliamentary party that he would collapse the scrum rather than cede to Fianna Fáil's push.

For Fianna Fáil, the options narrowed down. It could get a few watered down concessions, but do a climbdown on the main point (the rent control limits). That was a compromise so far.

So the deal looks like it is in tatters this morning. But not at the expense of Fine Gael’s reputation, according to some happy campers from that party I spoke to Wednesday night.

Aleppo

We tend to wear blinkers when writing about politics. But there is one ongoing event that runs through the course of all our daily lives. It is like the thread of a spider’s web. It is always there but we don’t always notice it, just when a particular angle of light catches it, we are reminded once again of the heartbreak.

And that is the ongoing ravaging of Syria, and the city of Aleppo.

To even begin analysing the whys and wherefores, the rights and wrongs of the conflict, is like going down the rabbit hole. There is blame on every side including that of Western countries which have made some disastrous decisions on where to place their support and who to arm.

But the bulk of the blame lies with the Assad regime and with their Russian sponsors, who believes the best way of winning a war is by reducing everything to flat earth.

And now we seem to be near the endgame in Aleppo, where Syrian government forces now seem poised to take the city. The last strongholds in eastern Aleppo have been subject to intense bombardment. And the civilian toll is just unimaginable, both in displacement and in deaths and injuries. In the space of five years, a city with 21st century health facilities now administers medical aid to the injured in conditions that were more familiar in the Middle Ages.

I watched a video last night of what Aleppo looked like before the war, a modern, prosperous and bustling city with orange groves and pretty public areas.

Let’s hope the ceasefire that has been announced is real and those civilians who are trapped (over 50,000 people according to local reports) will be given safe passage and will not be hand-picked as happened in Srebrenica over 20 years ago.

The ripples of this conflict has spread across the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic, as thousands take to the seas in leaky boats, not knowing if they will drown or be left to live in refugee camps.

There was a potent reminder of the crisis with RTÉ's excellent The Crossing documentary this week. We got the political reminders on the nasty side, with the rise of anti-immigrant movements throughout the Western world.

Here is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic's report assessing the latest developments in Syria.