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You are > Home > What’s so unthinkable about a Taoiseach from the West?
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
What’s so unthinkable about a Taoiseach from the West?
By James Laffey
THE Dublin media have it in for Enda Kenny, of that there is no doubt.
The headline on the front of the Daily Mail on the day after the leadership heave said a lot about our Dublin-centric national media. Entitled ‘The Loser’, the newspaper pontificated about Kenny’s inability to lead a bitterly divided party whose credibility was now shot to pieces. Similarly, the political sage that is Ray Darcy suggested on his radio show on Today FM that he might leave the country now that Enda Kenny had been returned as Fine Gael leader. What is it with the Dublin media and Enda Kenny?
Richard Bruton behaved like a prize idiot for most of last week yet only The Star was willing to give him the sort of reputational kicking he deserved for a leadership challenge that was as clumsy as it was ill-timed. Bruton, like George Lee before him, was the darling of the Dublin media, yet when it came to the crunch he was found to be hopelessly wanting in political nous.
Anyone with a modicum of pride in the West of Ireland will have been pleased to see Enda Kenny returned as Fine Gael leader on Thursday evening.
This is not about parochialism or small-town loyalty; this is about the basic right of a person from the West of Ireland to aspire to the highest political office in the land, irrespective of their political allegiances. There is no other country on earth where the media of a capital city can hold so much sway over public opinion when it comes to selecting out political leaders.
Take, for instance, the United States presidential election. The current incumbent is from Chicago (via Hawaii) and the two previous presidents came from Texas and far-flung Arkansas, states that could not be further – geographically or politically – from the electoral powerhouse that is Washington DC.
Yet here in little old Ireland we are getting hang-ups about whether a man from Co Mayo can properly understand the needs of that great metropolis that is Dublin – a ‘city’ that is really little more than an overgrown town. Talk about getting above ourselves!
Enda Kenny deserves to be leader of Fine Gael on the basis that he has brought the party from the point of ruination to the cusp of Government. He has made occasional blunders along the way – most notably the Sinn Féin gaffe on the Late Late Show and the more recent fiasco on the News At One – but what political leader doesn’t occasionally put their foot in it?
The problem with the Dublin-centric national media is that they really don’t know what they want in a future Taoiseach – other than an ability to “relate” to Dublin voters. Well, we had a man who could “relate” to Dublin voters.
He was a Dubliner through and through, had charisma to burn and was always good for a bland photo-shoot with a few of Dublin’s finest top models. His name was Bertie Ahern and he ran the country into the ground while lining his pockets with bloated wages, lavish expense accounts and tax-free book deals.
If Bertie Ahern – a Dubliner with charisma – is the national media’s answer to our leadership conundrum than give me Enda Kenny every time. And, no, this is not a political statement.
It’s simply about having pride in one’s region, and standing up for the place in which you were born and raised.
The truth is that if Enda Kenny does not become Taoiseach after the next general election it will be several generations – if ever – before the West of Ireland has a potential party leader again.
The only person on the Fianna Fáil side who might elbow his way to the front of the queue is Eamon O Cuiv – a man whose commitment to Co Mayo and the wider western region is without question – but his prospects of promotion to the top job in Fianna Fáil are unlikely.
Therefore, it’s Enda Kenny or bust for the people of the West of Ireland. And if we allow ourselves to be swayed by a Dublin media whose idea of a political hero is some overpaid egotist from RTE we’re all on the high road to political isolation.
Enda Kenny’s leadership should not be the subject of a battle between urban and rural but, unfortunately, that is the way it is being played out in the Dublin media. Certain elements of Fine Gael fell into the trap – including one or two with links to the West who should have known better – and they discovered that Kenny had more staying power than their erstwhile hero George Lee.
The challenge for Enda Kenny in the coming months is to ensure that he does not commit any gaffes that give fuel to the anti-western bias that clearly exists on the other side of the Shannon. It seems pathetic that we should be talking in these terms but unfortunately the events of the past week leave us with no option but to assume that large sections of the Dublin media want Enda Kenny out at all costs. Why else the disparaging headline on the front of the Daily Mai
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