In the past few weeks we have seen a shrewd and careful attempt by the senior Government party to frame the political context for the next election. Having suffered a series of terrifying polls before Christmas, Fine Gael’s politicians and party managers have obviously been busy strategising (and focus-grouping) better lines of attack in their re-election campaign.
Until last autumn Fine Gael may have felt entitled to assume that a dramatic recovery in the economy would of itself have ensured their re-election. The mauling that they and Labour received in the local elections and the dramatic drop they suffered in polls in the latter half of 2014 put paid to that notion.
The Fine Gael strategy now is to warn repeatedly of instability, to intensify attacks on both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin and to claim that Fine Gael and Labour will have the numbers to return to government, if need be with some Independents.
At Fine Gael’s national conference two weeks ago in Castlebar and in other speeches since, Ministers have fired cleverly scripted soundbites at both Opposition parties.
"Fine Gael is the only party we can trust to preserve and retain [the] recovery," Leo Varadkar claimed. He subsequently added: "In Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin we have two very damaged parties: one which undermined the country through sheer incompetence, and another which undermined the country deliberately and by design. Neither can be trusted."
In his star turn at the conference, Minister of State Simon Harris said the Government were like good mechanics. "We've fixed the Irish car, we've taken it out of the ditch, we've put it on the road, Now we're ready for the next part of the journey. The last thing we can afford is to give the car back to the people who crashed it."
This strategy of warnings of economic chaos if new drivers are let at the wheel is not original, although no less effective for that. The new Fine Gael soundbites echo the language being used daily now by Conservative ministers in the British election campaign.
Indeed, on the same weekend as Fine Gael gathered in Castlebar the Conservatives launched a political ad depicting Labour leader Ed Miliband as a learner driver who would crash Britain’s recovering economy.
The precise make-up of the alternative majority at Westminster is a little uncertain but the choice in Britain is clearly between a David Cameron-led government or a Miliband-led left government. The options for the Republic’s next government are less clear-cut however.
Binary choice
Part of Fine Gael re-election strategy therefore is also is to try to frame our next election as binary. The real choice, Fine Gael Ministers repeatedly claim, is between a Fine Gael-led government or a Sinn Féin-led one. Fine Gael is hoping this suggestion not only sidelines Fianna Fáil but also heightens the spectre of a Sinn Féin government which upsets middle- class and middle-ground voters.
The collateral consequence, of course, is that it bulks up Sinn Féin on the left of the political spectrum.
Another difficulty for the “Fine Gael versus Sinn Féin” face-off that Fine Gael prefers to present, however, is the view offered by myself and most other pundits – and supported by the bookies – that on current polling the most likely government after the next election is a coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
Fine Gael has deployed their biggest beast, Michael Noonan, in an effort to debunk this suggestion.
Noonan, who seldom intervenes in purely political matters, has been out frequently in recent weeks trying to suggest that a mild improvement in the polls could see Fine Gael and Labour return to government with the support of some what he called “like-minded Independents”.
About a dozen current Independent TDs are either of the Fine Gael gene pool or could otherwise comfortably support a Fine Gael-Labour government. Scanning the constituencies one can also identify a number of Independent councillors elected with large votes last June who are well positioned to win Dáil seats and who might fit into to Noonan’s “like-minded” category. The other unknown is how well Lucinda Creighton’s new party might do.
Creightonite deputies
The difficulty for the Noonan scenario however is that these I
ndependents or Creightonite deputies will be elected at the expense of sitting Fine Gael or Labour deputies. The other difficulty is that even if the economic recovery saves enough Fine Gael seats necessary for the Noonan calculations it is unlikely to save enough Labour seats.
A Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil coalition remains the most likely outcome of the next election. Indeed, unless the polls change significantly over the next year those two parties combined may even need Labour and/or “like-minded” Independents to have a working majority.
Twitter: @noelwhelan