AFTER a long season of Callan’s Kicks on the radio, I took a full week off politics.
It takes some doing in this age and requires ignoring most of the news and turning off social media.
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Although BBC breaking news alerts did keep the phone hopping with such hot topics as Iran’s new President and Israeli parliamentary maths.
The Euros proved a useful distraction and the volume of content from the tournament alone from Covid outbreaks to “political” rainbows is like a methadone dose for any news junkie. Still, it’s a fresh perspective gained to step away, even for a short week.
Opinion polls have revealed some interesting trends. Sinn Fein has significantly grown its support since the election and Fine Gael’s pandemic bounce is fading fast.
Fianna Fail, now equal to the vote it received last year, is far from finished and Micheal Martin has recovered from a terrible start as Taoiseach.
At 49 per cent, his approval rating is surprisingly high given the abuse he has sustained from his own party and a broadly negative commentary on his tenure to date. It seems like FF and Fine Gael will be back on level pegging by the time Martin hands over the Taoiseach’s office to Varadkar at the end of 2022.
Can we trust the latest surveys? These are the only findings since the exit poll on election day 2020 that we can have any faith in, as they were conducted on doorsteps for the first time since the pandemic hit.
Another interesting stat is that the Green party is holding fast to its level of support despite an avalanche of internal strife and media damnation.
The protests of farmers are perhaps exaggerating the strength of the Green party’s input in environmental policy, despite valid complaints that new climate action laws are merely aspirational.
Eamon Ryan will be pleased with the poll and can look forward to a quiet summer after seeing off Hazel Chu’s attempt to win the by-election nomination in his own backyard.
The hot take from polls is that the Shinners are now fully mainstream. It coincides with a period that sees them as the accidental grown ups in Northern Ireland’s political maelstrom.
The party is fairly certain to be the biggest party in elections up North next year since it’s hard to see the DUP recover credibility among ordinary decent unionists defecting to the Alliance party.
That would help their case as a future Government down south no end. The significant thing about the huge level of support for SF in the south is that the mood in the country is generally positive and hopeful.
This would normally benefit the governing parties, and may be responsible for Fianna Fail’s recovery, but despite a spending boom and a glowing summer mood, it is Sinn Fein who is doing the best. The answer is in housing.
With only three and a half years to a General Election at most, housing is certain to remain the burning issue and there is no sign of the coalition changing tack in the meantime.
Leo Varadkar’s glib attitude on the housing crisis has shown that ten years in Cabinet has not improved his astonishing lack of empathy on the matter. Housing remains his achilles heel.
On Covid restrictions too, Varadkar has long given up on being a straight-talker in media, instead preferring to sow acres of confusion. Why is he saying unvaccinated people under 30 can travel abroad, against the advice of scientists and public health people not just in Ireland but all over Europe?
Why is he so anxious to get people back into offices by August, despite talking up working from home laws only a few weeks ago? The FG boss sounds more like someone lobbying for the big beasts of his business portfolio than a leader with any interest in wooing voters.
His speech on a united Ireland again shows he is often motivated by stirring up a reaction from social media. Having listened to Varadkar in the media this week after stepping away for a few days, the Tanaiste strikes me as someone who’s thoroughly bored with politics and his current gig.
His main rival for the party leadership, Simon Coveney, is by contrast showing keen interest in his job. The Minister for Foreign Affairs is very busy on UN Security Council and European Union business and racking up plenty of air miles.
This is a man with clear ambitions who seems very eager to build a big political future for himself — in anywhere but Ireland.
Overall, despite fears of the Delta variant, the country is booming.
You can see this through obvious signs of inflation – petrol prices, barbers’ rates higher, there are bars in Dublin serving seven euro pints outdoors and the price of everything from broadband to building is shooting up.
Normally the Government of the day would benefit from this spend-happy mood, but instead it’s the party promising people houses.
WAITING AT 40 IS AN EASY JAB
IT’s now three weeks since I registered for the Covid vaccine and I’m feeling like a forgotten kid who’s last to be picked for lunch break footie. Where’s me bleedin appointment?
Feeling convinced the HSE has forgotten me, it was somewhat reassuring to text around to my fellow 40-year-olds and hear they’re also waiting unhappily for the jab.
The gap between registering and vaccinating for the other age groups before us was gleefully short, so forgive us for grumbling.
It doesn’t help that having registered and given up various details to the “online portal”, you can’t log in again to see where things stand as there’s no account as such to see the progress.
What’s also enraging is that the Government is now offering jabs to the over 50s who didn’t bother to register the first time around.
They can look up local pharmacies in their county, book a slot and walk in for a Johnson and Johnson jab all week.
While the rest of us wait and refresh our phones, searching for that golden HSE appointment text. At a minimum it will now be at least a month between registering and getting the jab.
Which kicks us into the back end of July for the second dose, meaning it will be mid-August before we reach full immunity. If there’s one light at the end of the tunnel, it’s that us 40ers are told there’s a shedload of Pfizer waiting for us when the time comes.
More importantly, we’re able to sigh sagely at those in their 30s who were thrilled to see their ages called this week for registering.
How wise we are now to open a Werther’s Original and tell those 30-something scamps their joy is misplaced. The wait goes on.
MICHEAL’S DIARY
HALLO diary, I notice Leo is getting all excited cos Love Island is coming back again.
He thinks this will do his self-satisfaction ratings the world of good once the world focuses on eejits who gym until their brains rot rather than anything of substance. The Love Island going on in Leo’s head for the last four years has meant that he has little interest in looking into anything that doesn’t cast his reflection.
I worry about the state of the world when Love Island is the focus to be honest now. All these airheads walking around like the world owes them a favour, desperate to be famous without working too hard. They’re worse than the Blueshirts. Arrah, sure Fine Gael’s front bench is like Love Island with their shirts on and minus all the steroids. Well, most of them anyway. And like the show, they throw in the desperate ones who haven’t a hope and are only there to provide a few laughs, like yer wan Emer Higgins. Her gig is to make FG housing policy sound reasonable.
Poor girleen. It would be like us in FF appointing someone whose sole job is to defend Bertie’s yellow suit. Poor wee Higgins records herself on her phone yapping about the Shinners with a wide-eyed look on her face as though she’s just eaten the latest homeless figures and they’re not going down the right way. I feel sorry for her to be honest. She has the worst job in Irish politics since the poor intern who used to have to carry Michael Noonan’s lunch to him.
Three times a day. Then help wind him afterwards. God above, it’s at times like these the inflated salary, expenses and pensions we’re on are only half worth it. Mise le meas, Micheál.
OH UEFA, EUR’ NOT A PRIDE AND JOY
UEFA turned down a request from the Mayor of Munich to light up its Bayern stadium in the rainbow colours for tonight’s Germany match against Hungary. The pro-LGBT move during Pride Month was deemed “political” after a series of recent homophobic laws passed by Hungary’s government.
The move to block the stadium was an ugly reminder that such a great tournament is run by a bunch of slugs.
Uefa also threatened to investigate German keeper Manuel Neuer for wearing a rainbow armband at the Portugal game before dropping the probe after a slew of derision.
This time they’ve bowed to the homophobic bile coming from Hungary’s Government and blocked the gesture in Munich. The German city is an exceptionally gay-friendly destination in the heart of Catholic Bavaria, a broadly conservative State where attitudes have moved in recent years.
Germany only legalised same-sex marriage in 2017 and the country’s captain Neuer is the most prominent LGBT advocate in sport, having first donned the rainbow band in January while captaining Bayern.
‘CONCERN’
Donnelly says it’s too early to say if Delta variant rise will stop reopenings
MIXED BAG
Met Eireann say temps to hit 20C but scattered showers expected in places
booze tube
Sheridan gave Ian Bailey camera to film himself but captured his drinking
PUP FRAUD
Jihadi suspects using Covid welfare payments to fund Islamic terror abroad
TRAGIC CASE
Liability admitted in case of couple ‘wrongly advised’ to terminate pregnancy
city blaze
Emergency services rush to massive fire at community centre in south Dublin
Uefa had a chance here to make a big stand in football which remains behind the real world on LGBT rights and acceptance.
This bodes badly for the next major tournament. Fifa brings the World Cup to Qatar next year, a country where male homosexuality is illegal and carries a three year jail sentence and technically the death penalty for gay Muslims.
It’s also illegal to campaign for LGBT rights there, meaning Neuer could actually be arrested for sporting a rainbow armband in Qatar at World Cup ’22. Good times.
