Tough choices ahead for Labour

Gilmore’s Labour can smell blood. Buoyed by positive poll results they are planning their rise to power and realising that their pool of potentially electable candidates is not as deep or as rich as they might wish it to be.
Head office will remember Clare with great fondness thanks to the election of Dr Bhamjee following the spring tide victory of 1992 but, unfortunately for Councillor Paschal Fitzgerald, they are now regarding the county as a potential seat once again. As a result loud media rumblings have begun to echo with celebrity choices suggested and potential candidates leaking from the woodwork.
This will be both frustrating and disappointing for Councillor Fitzgerald who has put in the time on the council and stood for Labour in past general elections. He will feel that he deserves a shot at the election in which he actually stands a chance but, realistically, head office will be of a very different opinion. It is very likely that, as tickets are assembled come the time for votes to be cast, he will find himself supplanted.
Far from suggesting any kind of bleeding heart attitude with regard to Councillor Fitzgerald or those like him around the country, I believe that Labour should stand the strongest candidates they can in the next election. What the party must avoid at all costs is any attempt at parachuting in ‘celebrity’ or ‘big name’ candidates in place of competent, able individuals.
Paschal Fitzgerald was quoted in this paper regarding Fine Gael’s disastrous standing of George Lee in Dublin but while he was correct in stating that Lee lasted only nine months, he was slightly off the point in his inference that this was an affliction that might affect all celebrity candidates.
Mr George Lee entered the political scene with one intention, it seems to me, and that was self-aggrandisement. He saw himself in the finance portfolio at the very least, if not in Enda Kenny’s position, ludicrous as this desire was.
Donald Trump recently visited Scotland in an attempt to pressurise a Scottish community into bowing to his will and allow the development of a major golf resort.
While there, he spoke openly about his potential candidacy for the position of US president. Either of the major parties in the US would be very unwise to get involved with him because he, like most inflated celebrity egos, would come with a massive team of his own and an agenda so self-centred it would almost immediately neutralise party policy.
What Labour needs in Clare is a credible candidate, one with a history within the party and a passion for the ideals on which the party was formed. The trouble is that the party no longer seems to know what these ideals are. It has morphed, like so many other parties, into a centrist shadow of its former self with all the commitment to a functional socialism as a philanderer to fidelity on the night of his third wedding.
If I can offer some advice to readers at this point, don’t ask a member of the modern Irish Labour Party for directions as they generally seem to have difficulty distinguishing left from right.
The scourging the taxpayer has taken at the pillar of state-sponsored capitalism in the last years should present the Labour Party in Ireland with an ideal opportunity come the next election. Added to this the political reality on the ground in Clare should make the constituency a very viable potential hunting ground. The toxic pall hanging over Fianna Fáil will hit even in this stronghold of the Soldiers of Destiny.
Tony Killeen scrapped in last time around and given the disappointment Timmy Dooley has been, his re-election is not to be taken as a guaranteed outcome. On the other side of the fence Fine Gael should retain their seats given the backlash against the government and the Carey machine. There is the potential for an independent to sneak a seat but if voters consider their strategic best interests this will not occur. All things considered Labour have a chance; if they stand a credible, articulate and believable candidate.
This leaves us with the question of who? It cannot be Councillor Fitzgerald whose taste for populism makes him a far more suitable councillor than TD. The Labour Party has a nice stretch of time to make the decision but not too much.
Springing a surprise from the box too close to the time will smack of complacency and make the voters feel unappreciated, displacing Councillor Fitzgerald will look cutthroat and power hungry. The party is facing a tough choice and it needs to make some careful decisions.
Whether this happens remains to be seen but unfortunately whatever the outcome the people of Clare will likely end up disappointed. They may be presented and elect a viable Labour candidate only to find that same person neutered and denatured by the Labour Party itself or coalition partners Fine Gael.
It is even possible that Eamon Gilmore might not learn from the mistakes of the Greens and lead his directionless gang into a union with Fianna Fáil.
The next election in Ireland will be a very interesting one and could mark a real change in the electoral habits of the Irish public.
Whether the Labour Party is any position to exploit this when the time comes remains to be seen. What they must do in the run up to the vote is offer the voters of County Clare and Ireland credible candidates and realistic policies based on ideals that, at the moment at least, they seem to have forgotten or wish to ignore.