ANALYSIS:GEORGE LEE'S arrival on the political scene last May gave Enda Kenny a crucial morale boost that helped him lead Fine Gael to its first victory over Fianna Fáil in a national election. Lee's stunning departure from politics yesterday could have serious implications for Kenny's leadership, writes STEPHEN COLLINS
In Leinster House yesterday, politicians of all parties were privately scathing about Lee’s decision to abandon his seat in the Dáil, after only eight months, but the political consequences of the decision will be felt most keenly by Kenny.
“Never in the history of Irish politics has a rattle been thrown out of a pram with such petulance,” remarked a seasoned Fianna Fáil adviser within minutes of Lee’s extraordinary interview with Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One.
That, however, is not the way the public is likely to view the episode, and just as Kenny reaped the benefit of Lee’s media stardom last summer, he must now suffer the consequences of the star’s inability to cope with the world of everyday politics.
The Lee bombshell has come after a bad few weeks for the Fine Gael leader. An uninspiring performance by Kenny on The Late Late Showwas following by a woefully inadequate interview on Newstalk where he refused, or was unable to say, what Fine Gael policy was on water charges.
Kenny acknowledged his poor media performances to his frontbench colleagues. The move was typical of his lack of ego and goes a long way to explain why he has been such a popular and effective party manager. While some people in Fine Gael question his effectiveness he has no personal enemies and that is an enduring strength.
However, the inept media outings, coming on top of another relatively poor performance in the latest Irish Timesopinion poll, generated mutterings in recent weeks among some Fine Gael backbenchers about his leadership. There was no plot against Kenny but Lee's departure has now put it up to Fine Gael TDs to either rally around their leader or tell him it is time to go.
Lee himself pointedly referred to “mutterings” about Kenny’s leadership in one of his many media appearances yesterday and remarked that his going could be a catalyst for the leader’s departure. The issue is something the party will have to deal with immediately. The worst possible outcome for Fine Gael of Lee’s departure would be if it opened a leadership wound that festered until the next election. If Fine Gael TDs want to realise their ambition of getting into power they will have to either back Kenny decisively or sack him. The prospect of another family war in the party, as happened in the run-up to the 2002 election that almost destroyed Fine Gael, is something they have to avert at all costs.
“Enda’s strength has been to bring the family together and heal the wounds,” remarked one of Fine Gael’s brightest young stars, Leo Varadkar, in the wake of Lee’s departure. The question now is whether that strength is enough to outweigh Kenny’s continuing failure to connect with a major portion of the electorate.
At this stage the only possible rival for Kenny is the party deputy leader, Richard Bruton. A party spokesman said yesterday that “Richard has only ever offered strong and consistent” support to his leader. Unless that position changes there will be no change of leadership in Fine Gael.
While at least some senior people on the party front bench would like to see Bruton offering a challenge, he has given no indication that he will do so.
Whatever happens at leadership level in Fine Gael, Lee’s decision to quit politics astonished everybody in politics. “It beggars belief,” said the party’s youngest TD, Lucinda Creighton, and that view was widely shared across the party divide in Leinster House.
While many in politics could understand Lee’s frustration at not having as much influence as he would have liked on party policy, there was no sympathy for his decision to quit politics altogether after such a short time in the Dáil.
“If he really wanted a platform for his views on economic policy he could have moved to the Independent benches in the Dáil and attacked the policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. By opting out he has let down the people who elected him,” remarked one TD.
One of the problems is that Lee did not seem to have much idea from the start about the nature of political life. He was actually given a much bigger role in his party and the Dáil from the beginning than many experienced TDs, never mind first-term deputies.
While his profile was not as big as what he was used to as RTÉ’s economics correspondent, the attention he generated still made him the envy of many colleagues.
The only similar instance of such a quick disillusionment with politics that anybody could recall was Liam Skelly, who was elected to the Dáil in the Dublin West byelection of 1982 and quickly moved to the margins of the party. He lost the whip but remained in the Dáil and unsuccessfully contested the 1987 election as an Independent.
A more similar episode was the election of an unemployed workers’ candidate, Jack Murphy, in the general election of 1957. After a frustrating year as an Independent he resigned his seat and emigrated to England. He had nothing like Lee’s advantages and profile but was similarly lost in Leinster House.
Most members of the Dáil, and any other parliament, instinctively know what the great Victorian writer Anthony Trollope was getting at when he wrote, “It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters MP written after his name.” Trollope tried and failed to get elected to the House of Commons in 1868 but he never lost his love of politics or his respect for its practitioners, as a succession of great novels testified.
While Lee’s decision to abandon the Dáil will be generally taken as an indictment of the political system, it is probably more of a reflection of his own unsuitability for the political life. That, though, will be little consolation for Enda Kenny.
Stephen Collins is Political Editor