Speaking plainly, Brian looks every inch a leader
But if he wants a cabinet designed to face a recession, Cowen will have to wield the axe, says Brendan O'Connor
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Sunday April 06 2008
The texts and the phone calls were coming in thick and fast about the shock news the other day.
The gist of them all was the same: "What's this we hear about you being Taoiseach?" The confusion was understandable.
Word had got out that a big fat ignorant culchie with, according to some reports, a face like a burst slipper, or according to other versions, a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, who was loyal to Bertie to the end, had been made Taoiseach, and naturally people assumed it was me.
Obviously I pointed out the truth was that an interesting looking, not conventionally good looking but strangely attractive and charming and funny, if in a gruff masculine way, guy had been made Taoiseach. And that the confusion with me was understandable.
It is entirely fitting at this time that we should opt for a more homely, culchie Taoiseach, rather than the glitzy, celebrity Taoiseach we have enjoyed up to now. Bertie, the VIP Taoiseach, with his boyband son-in-law, celebrity authoress daughter, glamourpuss girlfriends, or glamourpuss girlfriend anyway, was a fitting top man for the boom.
But these are serious times and we have no need now for the superficial glamour and good looks of the Ahern dynasty. It's a time for plain speaking and a plain man.
Fine Gael kicked off the Cowen era in typically upbeat and constructive fashion with thrusting young Leo Varadkar suggesting that with Cowen in charge, the last person to leave the country should turn off the light -- yet more proof, as if more proof were needed, that a whole political party can be afflicted with clinical depression. Maybe while he's at it Leo might flick the switch for Fine Gael as well.
Back in the real world there was much speculation this weekend about Brian Cowen's new cabinet.
Rumour has it that in order to show that he is not afraid to face up to the grim times ahead, Cowen is going to fill the whole cabinet with the aesthetically challenged.
"Good looking people would be sending out the wrong message right now", said a source. "If this cabinet wants to be taken seriously at a time like this there is no room for flashy, good-looking people. Besides which, Cowen is very much of the opinion that the Taoiseach should be the best-looking man in the cabinet. This will limit his choices severely."
Hence there is talk that some cabinet favourites may even have to be dropped for being too handsome.
"In the real world, Dermot Ahern is about a 2", said the source, "but in politics he'd rate as about a 7. He's also too well groomed for a recession cabinet. Willie O'Dea, on the other hand, is very, shall we say, 'interesting' looking.
"What with his being vertically challenged too, don't be surprised if he makes Tanaiste."
Micheal "Duckface" Martin is said to be good for a top job as well. The Lenihan boys, who are regarded as the Baldwins of Dail Eireann, could be sent to the back benches in a shock move. "Even the ginger one has kind of grown into himself," said the source. "And they have both lost a bit of weight. So they could be out."
The source refused to comment on speculation that Cowen might cross the floor and ask Dr James Reilly to take a cabinet seat, while coyly admitting, "he would certainly have the kind of look we're after."
