Labour's integrity deserts them abroad, just as at home
The last thing Eamon Gilmore's party seem willing to do is reform public sector salaries, writes Anne Harris
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KNOWING who your friends are and knowing who your enemies are would seem to be basic survival skills. In life as in politics. The fact that, on the evidence of this last week, our leaders can't tell the difference doesn't augur well for their survival -- or, more importantly, ours.
For two weeks the country distracted itself with visitors and visionaries, and who can blame us? Displacement is a normal response to impossible situations. But there was a hard core of reality too. The British Queen and her ministers extended a hand of friendship. You could say they put their mouth where they had already put their money at the time of the bailout. And Eamon Gilmore seemed buoyed by signals sent out by Cameron and Hague about some sort of western seaboard alliance. The kind of thing that would give the Labour leader a bit of ballast when next he met the Germans or the French.
And as though to steady further the national nerves, that marvellous woman Sharon Bowles MEP, chairwoman of the Economic and Monetary Affairs committee of the European Parliament, came here to tell us that our resentment of the terms of the bailout was justified, saying that we should not be forced to change our corporation tax, as we had already "taken one for the team" by accepting the bailout in the first place.
So what did our Irishmen abroad do this last week? Eamon Gilmore went to Paris and emerged from meetings to
tell us that he now understood the worries of the French small and medium businesses. And he thought they understood us and our position on our corporation tax.
And after that we saw Michael Noonan gazing up at Christine Lagarde like a lap dog indicating its willingness to do her bidding. Which is to support her for the top job at the IMF: which we are doing because we are complete and utter fools.
For your information, Eamon, the French small and medium businesses do not give a fig for us or our corporation tax. Nor does their government. Just as during the Second World War when all they cared about was the coffee in their cup and the sugar in their coffee, now all they care about is corporation tax and the quality of their life.
The French don't care about anybody but the French. And the only people they kowtow to are the Germans. They always did and they always will. And when it all falls down (like it did with Vichy) they will say they (the Germans) made us do it.
The Labour Party are not ingenues. They have been around the block and they should know all about the malice of time and chance and the French.
But why should we be surprised that their integrity deserts them abroad, when they have colluded in a deeply compromised relationship at home: their folie a trois with the national interest on one side and their public sector sweethearts on the side?
Take their opposition to Richard Bruton last week. Bruton, as Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, decided in the interest of "competitiveness" -- or in other words, in the interests of keeping Frankfurt happy -- to cut the pay of some of the lowest paid in the land. There might perhaps be some justification for this if all things were equal. But they most certainly are not. All things are in fact deeply unequal. They are rapidly becoming as unequal as they were in Ceaucescu's Rumania.
The Labour Party moved swiftly, making pious sounds about the lowest paid in the tourism and hospitality industry. But it was more like TS Eliot's last temptation, the greatest treason "to do the right deed for the wrong reason". They did it in order to head off even a putative move on public sector pay. Not by Labour, not by Fine Gael, but perhaps by the Troika.
Not alone is the gap between public sector pay and private sector pay widening so rapidly that now the average public sector pay is 46 per cent higher than the private sector, but in order to maintain this shocking differential, our Government is stealing from our pensions.
And, as Eddie Hobbs warns, will soon start stealing from our savings.
The tragedy is the private sector has become inured to the abuse which our new Government, like some new and wicked stepmother, is inflicting, and, victim-style, just rolls with the punches.
Despite all their talk about reforming the public service, the last thing the Labour Party seem willing to do is challenge public sector pay.
Taking on social welfare fraud among repatriated immigrants is not going to test the political resolve of anybody. But taking on the huge pay differential between public and private sector requires courage and encore de courage. The Labour Party has no stomach for any fight, we have seen in the last week.
But they should not get too secure in their comfy offices.
The irony is that if a week is a long time in politics, four years can be quite a short time. Their commitment to the public sector is a commitment to the short term: the money is going to run out. They are merely ensuring that next time round there will be a massive swing to Sinn Fein, who are clever, and subtle, and endlessly capable of re-inventing themselves.
It all comes back to knowing who your friends really are. Eamon Gilmore and Michael Noonan, no more than Brian Cowen and Micheal Martin, are not at home in Europe. Despite the last 30 years of Treaties, we are not Europeans. As David Cameron reminded us, we speak English and are, in most respects, culturally Anglo-Saxon. So in that spirit, I suggest we could do worse than reflect on a great Anglo-Saxon poet on friendship.
"If the while I think on thee dear friend.
All losses are restored, all sorrows end."
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