The man or the moment – or the woman or the moment, for that matter? Which is it? Is it the talent and strength of character of the individual political leader who bends events into the shape and direction they have chosen, or is it that the time for these events has come, and the individual leader happens to be the lucky recipient of plaudits for things over which they have little control?
It’s always been an area of argument. Take the south of Ireland. There’s talk about a possible general election – probably only talk, but talk none the less. Why? Because Leo and Simon are popularly seen, on both sides of the border, as having played a Brexit blinder. They have stood up for the backstop, they have stood up to the Brits, they have ensured that we in the north are not yet again left behind. Which is one way of looking at it.
The other way is that Leo and Simon got lucky, whereas Brian and Brian got unlucky. You remember Brian and Brian. The Taoiseach Brian Cowen and the Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan were in charge when Ireland’s Celtic Tiger got suddenly sick and died. The EU troika came to town and loaded Ireland with enormous debts in return for shoring up the Irish banks. So was it really Brian and Brian’s fault that the tiger breathed its last, or were they the unlucky duo who were left holding the parcel which the EU planked on their unhappy laps? Was it all Brian and Brian’s fault, or was it that Brian and Brian were unlucky enough to be in office when the storm came raging in?
I think it’s well to remember this when we rub our hands and murmur approvingly, as Theresa May and the UK thrash and twist on the end of the EU line. It’s good, almost hilarious, to hear prominent Brits complain about the prospect of taking orders from a foreign institution, since that’s what Ireland’s been doing for several centuries, courtesy of Her Majesty’s government. And it’s even better to see the south of Ireland and the EU stick firmly by the backstop, despite Boris and Nigel and Jacob (even the names give them away) insisting that this is something up with which they will not put.
But if you keep in mind the time of the troika, you’ll realize that Leo and Simon just happened to be lucky. The EU looks after the EU’s interests, and insisting on a backstop suits the EU’s interests – and, of course, those of the south of Ireland. This time Ireland north and south got an exhilarating boost from the EU; back in 2008, the south of Ireland got a fearful kicking from the EU.
So let’s not canonize Leo and Simon just yet a while. Had events shaped themselves otherwise, we could be mixing the tar and bagging the feathers for the pair of them.
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