This article first appeared in the 6 April Irish Mail on Sunday:

Richard Delevan

Once upon a time, everybody liked the old boss. He had emotional intelligence, a touch of glamour and a talent for outfoxing adversaries so successful that the very idea of outright opposition seemed pointless, frivolous, and churlish. People were prosperous and proud of their country for the first time in many years. It was a Golden Age.

Then one day, people weren’t as happy. There were rumours and questions no one wanted to answer. But the boss was still clever enough to go when it was still up to him.

His lieutenant, the comparatively dour finance minister, had hung in there, waiting. He knew this day would come, and he was ready. No one dared oppose him.

He was different. A more private sort. A family man. Earnest. Grit instead of gloss. A real man, not somebody who spent more on cosmetics in a year than most people pay on a mortgage.

And though some worried that the summery Golden Age had ripened into autumn there was an outpouring of goodwill. The honeymoon. Then, the frost.

The tale of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown is not yet a year old. Now Gordon Brown is reputed to be sleeplessly wandering No 10 at night, bitten his nails til they bleed. His party has gone from 10 points ahead of the opposition to nearly 20 points behind. Brown’s approval rating is as now as low as John Major’s was, right before he was booted out of office. If an election were held today, David Cameron would have a 100-seat majority.

But Brian Cowen will want to watch the spooky parallels between the rise of Brown and the rise of Biffo. Or it could quite easily be déjà vu all over again.

It started well for Gordon Brown. Each month brought a new crisis to test his mettle. He mastered them in turn, while the opposition leader David Cameron seemed to go from sure-footed comer to cack-handed wannabe.

Failed terrorist attacks in June were handled with steely steadfastness. July brought floods, during which the government’s performance – contrasted by many with the rank incompetence on the other side of the Atlantic following Hurricane Katrina – was widely praised. (Cameron was off in Africa, a gap-year do-gooder dilettante.) August brought an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, which did not become a crisis – 72% of people surveyed told pollsters they were more or less happy with the government’s handling of the situation.

He wasn’t just seen as capable, a serious man for serious times. As Brown became better known, people also warmed to him, despite his reputation for being dour. The “would like to have a pint with him” number climbed to 43%.

On September 13 it came to a crashing halt when Northern Rock collapsed. His greatest strength – management of the economy – became his greatest weakness.

The credit crunch may not have been of Gordon Brown’s making, but the sudden failure of a major bank was made far worse by the poor crisis management. No one seemed to be in charge. “Spin” – consistent, confident communications – may have helped calm people. Instead every newspaper in the world splashed pictures of scared old ladies queuing to fetch their savings.

The finance minister of Britain’s Goldilocks economy and London’s surprising re-emergence as the global financial capital turned into the prime minister who oversaw the first run on a British bank in 150 years. Prince into frog.

The pictures were bad enough. Worse was that no one seemed to be in charge. Depositors, who wanted reassurance, were given confusing mixed messages about whether their money was safe.

Brian Cowen should take the possibility of an Irish bank going to the wall at least as seriously public as UCD economist Morgan Kelly, who predicted that Ireland would wind up performing similar financial CPR. Kelly, no doubt scolded for “talking down the economy” has since downplayed his remarks as “spouting off”, but concerns remain.

Cowen can argue that the possibility of a bank bailout was too remote to be taken seriously – or, say, as unlikely as a 20% decline in Irish house prices or Bear Stearns collapsing and being sold for less money than Barack Obama has raised for his campaign – but in that unlikely event, would he be prepared to prop up a local bank using the full faith and credit of the Irish government?

In that event or some other unforeseen financial meltdown, Cowen will need to be as clear and steadfast as Bertie was muddy and flexibile. And perform better rhetorically than he did during the Northern Rock crisis.

While at an EU finance ministers’ meeting in Portugal on September 14, Cowen told RTÉ that Irish deposits in Northern Rock were “guaranteed”, which wasn’t true. Had the Bank of England not stepped in and offered an actual guarantee of all deposits, Cowen would have had a lot more explaining to do about his mis-speaking, because it might have cast doubt over his financial expertise and judgment when speaking in a crisis.

Then there’s succession. As any member of a Fianna Fail cumann or the Corleone Family knows, real power can’t be given; it can only be taken. So a question mark over Cowen’s authority will hover until he wins his own mandate. Winning the Lisbon Treaty referendum or holding his own in the local elections won’t be enough, either.

Bertie’s political body was still warm when Fine Gael started raising this issue – people voted for Bertie Ahern, not Brian Cowen. And whatever confidence Cowen’s surrogates express out loud about his legitimacy, or whisper about how Fianna Fail learned under Charlie Haughey in 1989 that the public won’t reward calling an early election, it will still be an issue.

Following Northern Rock, Gordon Brown allowed talk of an early election to reach a fever pitch. Cameron’s approval ratings were headed south, and it looked like the moment to strike. So when the Conservatives went into the party conference, they nervously wondered if the pleasant David Cameron was the right man to lead them into battle.

To the surprise of many, Cameron gave a superb speech that not only silenced doubters of his leadership in his party but left many Tory activists saying, bring it on. To make matters worse, Brown dithered until the last moment before deciding not to call a snap election. It made Brown look not only indecisive, but weak.

Finally, Fianna Fail unity looks intact now. But for how long?

The main reason that Bertie Ahern was able to maintain a stable hold on power for so long was his mastery of the internal politics of Fianna Fail. The country-and-western set of Albert Reynolds and the Drumcondra mafia may not have been easy allies at all times, but there was a remarkable lack of open sniping.

There seems little risk to Cowen at the moment of an open split, but only time will tell whether his ability to keep the various strands of the party together is the match of his soon-to-be-former boss.

Gordon Brown’s experience to date, where the factions within his own party are rumbling ominously, suggests that the honeymoon – inside one’s party as well as in the wider political world – lasts only as long as people are feeling secure about the economy.

Brian Cowen should enjoy his time in the sun, and wished the best. But the startling decline of Gordon Brown after an auspicious start suggests that happily ever after is something you get only in fairy tales.

www.richarddelevan.com

ENDS