Ivan tells the committee he was just doing his job

Ivan Yates reminds me of Boris Johnson. He blunders from one career to another, he has a sense of humour even if it is coarse, and there appears to be no tight corner which he’s incapable of getting out of, usually with stuffed pockets.

  I remember being interviewed by Ivan about my Martin McGuinness book. In no time he had me talking about everything but the book. I left the Newstalk studio cursing myself for wasting the precious few publicity moments.  At the Oireachtas Media Committee yesterday, Yates told TDs and Senators that he deliberately didn’t tell his podcast mate Matt Cooper about training up Jim Gavin in media skills because he didn’t want his podcast mate  to be’conflicted’. He also told the committee that you couldn’t police every possible conflict of interests – and he’s right on that one. Every journalist would need to post where they came from, their family connections, their friends, if they now were or ever had been a member of a political party.    In short, Ivan Cooper is a man who knows a few media tricks and wiles. 

Which makes it all the more surprising that he made a total hames of training up Jim Gavin. Gavin had many heroic qualities – his unsurpassed role as Dublin managar (six All-Ireland wins) , his aviation expertise, his unassuming manner. It’s the last of those that Yates made a bollix of. Instead of sharpening while retaining that quiet, deadly manner, Yates appears to have encouraged Gavin to be shouty and sharp-elbowed. Big mistake. Gavin wasn’t comfortable, kept getting more and more uncomfortable,and eventually blew up.

It was at this point that Yates offered his famous ‘Smear the bejasus out of her’ advice, which was sound advice. Smearing is a major ingredient in political interaction. If Catherine Connolly had had the bejasus smeared out of her, she’d have lost the presidential election. So what happened?  Yates, in a schoolboy blunder,  announced smearing as a campaign tactic, and it boomeranged as public sympathy swung in behind Catherine Connolly. Smearing only works if you keep your trap shut about it. Once you announce you’re going to use it, smearing blows right back in your face. 

The dark arts of politics are called ‘dark’ because they live in the dark, are invisible to the naked eye. Ivan, stupidly, appears to have forgotten that basic media fact. If I ever go into politics, remind me not to hire Ivan.