It’s Dáil over for deluded Joanie, bar the voting

FUNNY lot, politicians. Given that it takes a particular type to get involved in the electoral game in the first place, the one thing that can be said with absolute certainty is that they’re not like the rest of us.

I’ve never bought into the notion that all of them are in it for personal advancement or to line their own pockets, although some undoubtedly are. Actually, I’m more than happy to accept that a small proportion of public representatives genuinely care about their fellow man and want to make society a better place for everyone.

Regardless of party affiliation, however, what virtually every single one of them has in common is a large ego and vast reserves of vanity. It just goes with the territory. By its very nature, politics attracts the sort of people who enjoy being in charge and telling others what to do.

They are drawn to it like moths to a flame, especially the ones who’ve convinced themselves that they have a duty to ‘serve’ because they know better than the rest of us. I’m firmly of the opinion that they reckon they are doing us all a favour.

It is for the same reasons that so few of them realise when the game is up and it is time to get off the stage.

Of course, the fact that they’re invariably surrounded by yes-men, lackeys and other assorted lickspittle hardly helps matters.

Show me a politician and, nine times out of ten, I’ll show you someone who’s incapable of quitting while they are ahead. The reason so many parliamentary careers end in failure or humiliation is because few of the players are ever willing to bow out gracefully.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, it is only TDs who know they haven’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of being re- elected that ever stand aside voluntarily. The rest of them end up being dragged kicking and screaming from Leinster House.

We witnessed a couple of prime examples over the weekend of senior politicians who just can’t let go. At 72, Michael Noonan has seen more than most of his parliamentary peers.

He’s been leader of the Opposition in his day, of course, although perhaps the least said about that the better. But his ministerial CV stretches back to the early Eighties when he held the Justice portfolio at the height of the IRA’s terror campaign.

Yet now he insists he wants to stay on as Finance Minister for ‘at least the first half of the next administration’, even though his health problems have been well documented.

Meanwhile, depending on which version is the latest, 64-year-old Enda Kenny will either step down at some stage during the next Dáil term or else serve a full five-year term.

The one certain thing is that he is planning to lead the next government at an age when most men’s thoughts turn to improving their golf swing.

TO be fair to them both, each has a plausible reason for wanting to remain in office. Even if the economic recovery has yet to filter down to the man in the street, it is understandable that Messrs Kenny and Noonan want to be around to accept the plaudits if and when it does.

Of course, the Taoiseach has the added motivation of wanting to write himself into the history books by becoming the first Fine Gael party leader to have won two consecutive general elections.

Against that backdrop comes the extraordinary intervention by the increasingly ludicrous Joan Burton. I’ve always found it difficult to take her seriously, but it is becoming virtually impossible nowadays.

According to reports over the week- end, the Labour leader is now suggesting that she intends outlasting Mr Kenny at the forefront of the parliamentary fray.

‘I am a late arrival on the political scene so I don’t have the many, many decades that he has had – but my appetite for politics is as strong as ever,’ she was quoted as saying.

Time is all relative, of course. While the Taoiseach might be eligible for the Dáil equivalent of a gold watch after clocking up 40 years of continuous service, Joanie is hardly the new kid on the block. It is almost a quarter of a century since she was first elected and, save for a five-year break after she lost her seat in 1997, we’ve been listening to her pretty much ever since.

Besides, La Burton is kidding herself if she thinks she is going to be any sort of a serious contributor to public life after the election. Her comments acknowledged that her fate ‘depends on the will of the people’, granted, but even to be considering a future in politics is deluded. It also raises serious concerns about her judgment if she really believes what she is saying. Due to a string of broken promises and the shameless betrayal of its traditional voters, the simple fact of the matter is that Labour will be slaughtered on polling day.

The only regrettable thing about that is that Sinn Féin will be the most likely beneficiaries.

So you can rest assured that La Burton won’t be leading any party into the 32nd Dáil, let alone taking a seat next to the next taoiseach on the government benches. Frankly, she’ll be doing well to even hang on to her seat in Dublin West.

The game is over for Joanie, but noone appears to have broken the news to her. I wonder if she has ever seen Gloria Swanson’s portrayal of faded actress Norma Desmond in the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard?

With a slight tweak, Norma’s bestknown line could have been written for her: ‘I am big. It’s my support base that got small.’