Angela's ashes bury Kenny's illusion
Last Friday night,RTE's Six-One News gave Sharon Ni Bheolain a script which
began as follows: "The German chancellor Angela Merkel appears to have created
confusion around Irish hopes for a deal on bank debt." But of course, it was
Enda Kenny and not Angela Merkel who had created the confusion.
RTE News helped Kenny spread that confusion for the past five months. Every
second bulletin seemed to begin with gung-ho stories about the bank debt deal
from Sean Whelan, Paul Cunningham, and somewhat more restrained reports from
Tony Connolly. Even even after Merkel dropped her bombshell on Friday afternoon,
RTE News failed to come to terms with the fall-out.
Friday's bulletin was full of fudge. We were told the Taoiseach felt it was
"better not to be fixated on dates". Sean Whelan asked rhetorically how
concerned should we be -- apparently not that much. Paul Cunningham said he'd
been told (presumably by the Taoiseach's staff) that Merkel's statement merely
concerned Spain.
To give him his due, Tony Connolly courageously pulled the plug on that one.
He told Sharon Ni Bheolain that Merkel was not just talking about Spain. And to
give Sharon her due, she believed Tony and took no nonsense from Noonan in a
follow-up interview.
RTE was not alone in falling for the Kenny spin. Even the normally shrewd
Irish Examiner told us on Friday morning that "EU leaders bicker but debt deal
moves closer". And all day Friday no print political correspondent told any
radio show that the Taoiseach's five-month campaign for a bank debt deal was as
dead as the dodo.
The pundits had no excuse for this evasion. Because Derek Scally had burst
the balloon on Kenny's bank debt bluster the previous day (Thursday) in the
Irish Times. The hammer-blow heading on what was clearly a well-sourced story
said it all: "Germans say no deal agreed on Irish debt."
Scally, who is totally trustworthy on all things German, got the goods from
one of Dr Merkel's senior officials. He told Scally that
last June's meeting of the European council of EU leaders "did not involve a
deadline for Irish debt relief or even the nature of any possible relief". And
while Merkel's mouthpiece delicately did not mention the Taoiseach by name, he
said anyone who thought differently was suffering from an "illusion".
Last Thursday morning anyone with a political antenna knew that Scally's
story would stand up. But still Thursday and Friday passed in a kind of media
blackout about the bad news from Europe. None of the pundits on RTE's or
Newstalk's shows came out cleanly to say the bank debt deal was dead.
But on Friday afternoon, Angela Merkel gave the political correspondents a
reality check they could no longer ignore. She told a press conference that the
European Stability Mechanism fund would not be used to take over liability from
member states such as Spain for past bank rescues. It was all over.
But not for RTE News. As we have seen, they tried to keep the five-month
fudge from melting up to the last minute. Admittedly, even if RTE had called in
the print political correspondents it is doubtful that cheerleading crew would
have been willing to reverse their credulous coverage over the past five
months.
Credulous hardly covers it. Last June, Enda Kenny began a personal PR
campaign, promising bank debt relief on the basis of nothing more than verbals
from a few EU ministers. At the same time he ignored consistently negative
signals from the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who faces an election next
year.
Eamon Gilmore, the leader of the Labour Party, backed the Taoiseach to the
hilt in selling the vapoury verbals of a few EU ministers. Last June, Gilmore
described the deal that never was as a "gamechanger". Last Thursday, Gamechanger
Gilmore was still telling a still credulous media that any talk to the contrary
was so much "noise".
The political correspondents' lack of scepticism about the bank debt deal
over the past five months was shameful. It was caused by two factors: groupthink
and a reluctance to challenge the RTE News agenda. Common sense should have told
the political pundits that Merkel could not deliver without going down at
home.
Led by what I call RTE Rabbitte, most of the media let Kenny and Gilmore get
away with murder.
Giving Gilmore an easy ride is now second nature to RTE. That is why, two
weeks ago, it buried our front-page story which proved that James Reilly had
kept Gilmore in the loop leading up to the shafting of Roisin Shortall.
Since he became Taoiseach, each major move made by Enda Kenny has been a
fresh mistake. He should not have gone into government with Labour without
laying down the law on the public sector unions. He should not have wasted his
massive majority but used it forcefully to challenge the degrading Croke Park
deal. He should not have become a prisoner of a personal PR machine. Time the
political correspondents took off the rose-tinted spectacles.
* * *
Politically, Gene Kerrigan and myself hardly agree on the time of day. But we
have one thing in common: crime fiction. He writes it and I read it. A lot of
it.
Six years ago when I read his The Midnight Choir I knew the Crime Writers'
Association would soon have to give him at least a silver dagger, like George
Pelecanos (The Way Home), Peter Hoeg (Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow) and Scott
Turow's (Presumed Innocent).
But last Thursday the CWA gave Gene the coveted Gold Dagger for The Rage.
This puts him in a pantheon of authors whose classics line my shelves. Eric
Ambler's Passage of Arms, John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,
James Lee Burke's Sunset Limited.
Madeleine Keane, our books editor, can confirm I had a premonition. Last
Wednesday, the day before the CWA announcement, I emailed her asking if I could
do a crime round-up to plug Gene Kerrigan. Pity I didn't call Paddy Power
too.
But I'm glad Gene is not giving up the day job. At my age I need all the
aggravation I can get to keep me sharp. As you can see from what follows. * *
*
Last week, demented by love of Posy and Dolly, my two terriers, and in a
ham-fisted attempt at humour, I stupidly wrote that councillor Richard Humphreys
had described remarks by councillor Victor Boyhan, during a debate on the new
Dun Laoghaire beach laws, as "Stalinist". Naturally Humphreys said nothing of
the sort.
Although he has not asked me to apologise, I am anxious to do so. Not least
because when he is not talking about dogs, Richard Humphreys is one of the
people in public life I most admire. He has been particularly prescient on
Northern Ireland.
That is why I helped launch his book Countdown to Unity: Debating Irish
Reunification, one of the few works on modern Irish politics worth reading as we
come up to the commemorations. And that's why I hope he's in the Dail by
2016.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/angelas-ashes-bury-kennys-illusion-3266227.html