Tom Kelly in the Ir News re UK PM's mate's smear email

[paddypastit]

Quick plea please?

Could anyone with IN subscriber access paste up Tom Kelly's piece this morning "Dirty tricks in politics entirely unsurprising"

Thanks

[Minder]

You dont need subscriber access for this one Paddy........




THERE is a farcical element to the furore over the emails sent by former British prime ministerial advisor Damien McBride to another former ministerial advisor, Derek Draper, and it has little to do with the content of the emails.

Both men are first-class eejits playing at politics and getting swept away by their inflated sense of self-importance. A disease all too common among political advisors.

A quick scan of CVs much closer to home and one would think that advisors were responsible for every decision ever made by a minister.

I once asked the late Paddy O'Hanlon if he would ever return to front-line politics. He said no because 'politics is a like a cancer which eats away and exposes the weaknesses of the person drawn to politics whether it's power, corruption, drink, sex, gambling or ego'.

He was right. Paddy's analysis on the pitfall of politics underscores the view of Enoch Powell who said that nearly all political careers end in failure.

Most political careers do have ignominious endings due to the destructive nature of a politician's arrogance and self-belief which motivates and serves well an early political career but often blurs good judgment in later life.

The biggest mistake most politicians make is staying on beyond their sell-by date. The biggest mistake most political advisors make is believing they are politicians.

The past 20 years has seen the growth of the plastic politician. It's been the era of the test-tube candidate with people proffering themselves for office with very little track record or footprint made in the real world.

These are the political equivalents of laboratory rats – they have no distinguishing features and often look and sound the same even when they are in different political parties.

The Labour front bench is proliferated with them, which is why most people don't find them very memorable. David Cameron, George Osborne and co are the same. They are usually photogenic, personality-free zones.

The Lib Dems are not immune, having ditched the experienced Menzies Campbell and bypassed the intelligent Vince Cable, opting for a kind of labra-doodle, cross-breed spawned of Blair and Cameron in the body of Nick Clegg.

Politicians like Clegg nearly have to invent something interesting to get noticed. Remember Clegg's multi-amorous leg-overs and William Hague's '15 pints a night' claim.

So regarding unfounded allegations about Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne or anyone else, who cares?

McBride's crime was that he was caught. The righteous indignation by outraged Tories and some Labour Luddites who suggest that smearing tactics are never discussed as part of a campaign or strategy is complete bullshit.

Nor is it true that such tactics first emerged during the Blair years under the stewardship of the prince of the black arts  Peter Mandelson. They have been tactically used by political systems the world over for centuries. Books have been written about it and political careers have been made and destroyed by it.

The medium used to leak and expose the smear tactics is being talked up by some as a demonstration of the increasing influence of the new media such as blogging, twittering etc. Yes, there is a role for such media but often its influence – like the importance of special advisors – is over-inflated. You would not use a wind-up gramophone if you had an iPod, nor would you use a choke in a car if you had automatic transmission.

New media provides technology to spread news in format to new audiences but it also allows a lot of uninformed commentary by ill-informed commentators to go unchallenged or monitored.

The emails exchanged between McBride and Draper was more than banter between mates, it was clearly the formation of some tactics. The accessing of these emails by a blogger by whatever source is irrelevant. It was a scoop.

To bring the scoop to the wider public could not solely be done with the use of blogging – otherwise it would have remained little more than gossipy tittle-tattle amongst nerdy, politically interested techies.

The story was brought to the public through the mainstream press. Once in the real world, the closeted world of the test-tube politics was shattered but no-one was surprised.

[paddypastit]

Minder,

Thanks - I can only get the first paragraph and then it is 'login' or 'subscribe'. I'm in Dublin.

Anyway - thanks.