As Lucinda Creighton was announcing her new party on Friday – or rather announcing that she would announce a new party in eight weeks time – I happened to be reading one of the books I got for Christmas, Des O’Malley’s memoir Conduct Unbecoming.
After some poor reviews and indifferent word of mouth, I hadn’t been expecting much from it, but I found it a much better read than I had expected. The reliably curmudgeonly O’Malley is suitably waspish about many of the political figures he met during a long career, so there are plenty of memorable and funny one-liners
Like all autobiography it is to an extent self-serving, but at least O’Malley is able to admit some of his mistakes – not all politicians get even that far!
However, if she hasn’t already, Lucinda Creighton would be well advised to have a read, as one of the more interesting aspects is O’Malley’s account of setting up his new party, the Progressive Democrats, 30 years ago. While Creighton appears keen to avoid comparisons with the PDs, there are important lessons to be learned here.
For starters, there is the question of opinion polls. Some sections of the media have been obsessively hyping up the demand for a new party, as shown in opinion polls. But O’Malley relates that a poll in April 1985 found that 39% of voters would support a new party being established with him as leader. All well and good, but in their first electoral outing in 1987, the PDs won 12% of the vote – a very good result, but where did the other 27% of the electorate who favoured an O’Malley led party go? Food for thought for the Rebooters.
Recruitment of high-profile members, particularly TDs and Senators, is obviously a key target for any new party. But O’Malley sounds a note of caution, saying there were some people he didn’t want to join the PDs. “I didn’t want the party to be a refuge for all sorts of oddballs from other parties and organisations”. Anyone attending PD conferences down the years might be forgiven for wondering how successful he was in this, but the point is a valid one. A new party may appear like a lifeboat for political careers in danger of sinking. O’Malley relates a phone call from Joan FitzGerald, wife of then Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, warning him to be careful of recruiting Fine Gael TD Michael Keating (who went on to have a ‘colourful’ business career after he left politics). Not only was the warning ignored, Keating was made deputy leader of the party, a decision O’Malley now regards as a mistake.
The third potential difficulty is money. O’Malley relates his fundraising efforts, and explicitly states that new rules about accepting donations makes the establishment of a new party far more difficult today. While donations above a certain limit are banned, State funding takes up the slack – for existing parties. New entrants get nothing, making challenging the status quo extremely difficult. The rules are there for a good reason – to prevent parties being beholden to wealthy individuals or interests. But, O’Malley argues, they are “essentially anti-democratic” as they “act as a barrier to newcomers in the world of electoral politics”.
Creighton has spoken about getting a million euro in small donations from members of the public – it’s a tall order, but seems to be the only way around the problem.
Finally, we come to the question of the personality of the leader. O’Malley frankly states that he “was probably not the best choice as party leader”, as he didn’t enjoy the limelight, and didn’t really have the personality for the role. Deputy Creighton doesn’t appear to suffer unduly from the first difficulty; only time will tell about the second.
David McCullagh | @mcculld
