A lot of people seemed to get quite annoyed by the images of Leo Varadkar swimming in the sea on Christmas Day. They seemed affronted by the many pictures in circulation of his relatively buff and youthful torso after he got out of the sea -though his torso, it has to be said, was in the ha’penny place next to that of his partner Matt. “I don’t need to see the Taoiseach in his togs,” was a typical comment someone crossly made to me.
But what harm was it really? Obviously we don’t want a Putin type in charge, and we don’t need to see Leo wrestling a bear while topless. But is there anything wrong with seeing some pictures of our leader that project youth and virility, and the kind of vitality that people feel when they get out of a cold sea?
He had that slightly mad grin and the shining eyes that people get after they’ve immersed in cold water. And he didn’t look hunted or tetchy or defensive, as many people have observed he has seemed in recent weeks, as the Government has dissolved into a crabby and cranky endgame. Leo Varadkar is our youngest ever Taoiseach, and without being ageist, that is probably something to celebrate and embrace. It’s part of his brand and part of our brand as a nation, and it chimes with a certain moment in time internationally. But it probably doesn’t help Varadkar’s youthful political brand if he is going around the place like a cantankerous auld fellah, cranky and downbeat.
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A dip in the cold sea can often seem like some form of cleansing or benediction, a lot of people use the word “reset” about a cold dip. And perhaps it is not too much to hope that Varadkar will have emerged from the sea on Christmas Day feeling rebooted, the smile put back on his face, with more of a sense of optimism.
There is little sense of optimism in this country as we head into 2020. It is almost like the neuroplasticity of the collective psyche has been moulded by a catastrophic economic crash, followed by the calamity that was Brexit. The latter was something that was completely out of our control, but will potentially damage us more than it damages the ones who chose it. Politically, our outlook can tend towards the pessimistic these days. Even when seemingly good things happen, we wait for the other shoe to drop, for the sting in the tail. We almost embrace bad news, while disbelieving good news. And while Leo Varadkar has a lot on his plate, perhaps he should focus a bit more on providing an antidote to this gloominess, by presenting a more cheerful, optimistic face to the country.
Of course Fine Gael would argue that if they dared to be upbeat they’d be accused of not caring about homelessness and the health crisis. And they would no doubt blame the media too for focusing excessively on bad news and on everything that is wrong. But then, that is the kind of courage you need to be a good leader, you need to be able to go against the general mood, and set a new mood, a new tone. Things were not perfect by any stretch when John F Kennedy led America, but as we look back now the mood we overwhelmingly associate with his era is one of hope and optimism, of the torch being passed to a new generation.
Emmanuel Macron is another of the current youthful new generation of leaders that includes Leo Varadkar and the likes of Justin Trudeau, and like Leo, Macron is a politician, who for a long time didn’t really seem like a politician. Macron won power by disrupting national politics in France, much like how Varadkar, along with Phil Hogan, took a disruptive approach to the FG leadership contest.
Macron says that being a political leader is a form of prostitution, that seduction is the job. And Leo Varadkar might do well to bear that in mind as we head into an election in the New Year. We do not warm to a leader who seems tetchy with us, who sometimes seems to see us as an irritation. While it’s true that people like Varadkar for being a straight talker, who tells it like it is, a small bit of seduction, a little bit of wooing, some sense that he actually likes us and enjoys leading us, might not go astray either.
Varadkar might do well to emulate Macron’s focus on optimism and national pride. National pride gets a bad name these days, but Irish people love being Irish, and we love this country. A leader who could tap into that strand in our psyche, without unleashing the unhealthier side of nationalism, would probably do well.
According to this year’s excellent biography of Macron by Sophie Pedder, in college Macron was a theatrical type, a bon vivant who drank in seedy bars. His friends mostly expected him to become a playwright. But instead he took his storytelling to the national stage. Pedder points out that Macron sees politics as a mystical business. He captured the imagination of the French by evoking their collective narratives, dreams and heroism, by reminding them of their cultural heritage and their intellectual tradition. But equally she points out that Macron needs to curb his Jupiterian urges. Macron can tend towards thinking that France has a monarch-shaped hole in its psyche, and that he is the kind of philosopher king that they secretly crave.
But Macron probably has a point. Varadkar would do well to remember that people in general, and Irish people especially, like to be led. We don’t always remember the reigns of Charlie Haughey or Bertie Ahern fondly, and yet there is something in us that likes a chieftain.
You suspect that at this particular point in time in Ireland, someone who managed to tell a new story to the nation could do very well in a general election. Macron’s narrative was to try to counter the ennui that he felt had become a way of life in France (Macron, hilariously, blames this ennui on the French love of postmodernism).
There is perhaps a slight sense that ennui has become a way of life in Ireland too, and maybe instead of railing against that, and railing against an ungrateful public and an ungrateful media, a good leader would counter the ennui with a new story, one of hope, modernity, a sense of a new phase in Irish life.
Varadkar has actually already overseen a passing of the torch in this country, ushering in quite radical change in the area of gay rights and abortion. Those issues mightn’t butter too many parsnips on the doorsteps. But, in an era when elections are won with simplistic three-word phrases, a general narrative of optimism and modernisation could be the kind of simple message that could mobilise huge swathes of voters.
And, just maybe, a young, fit leader, grinning like a maniac, among his people, next to his boyfriend, getting out of a cold sea on Christmas morning is the kind of feelgood imagery that Leo Varadkar should be embracing right now.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Brendan O'Connor: 'Will dip in the sea put Leo in the mood for seduction?'
Brendan O'Connor: 'Will dip in the sea put Leo in the mood for seduction?'
A lot of people seemed to get quite annoyed by the images of Leo Varadkar swimming in the sea on Christmas Day. They seemed affronted by the many pictures in circulation of his relatively buff and youthful torso after he got out of the sea -though his torso, it has to be said, was in the ha’penny place next to that of his partner Matt. “I don’t need to see the Taoiseach in his togs,” was a typical comment someone crossly made to me.
But what harm was it really? Obviously we don’t want a Putin type in charge, and we don’t need to see Leo wrestling a bear while topless. But is there anything wrong with seeing some pictures of our leader that project youth and virility, and the kind of vitality that people feel when they get out of a cold sea?
He had that slightly mad grin and the shining eyes that people get after they’ve immersed in cold water. And he didn’t look hunted or tetchy or defensive, as many people have observed he has seemed in recent weeks, as the Government has dissolved into a crabby and cranky endgame. Leo Varadkar is our youngest ever Taoiseach, and without being ageist, that is probably something to celebrate and embrace. It’s part of his brand and part of our brand as a nation, and it chimes with a certain moment in time internationally. But it probably doesn’t help Varadkar’s youthful political brand if he is going around the place like a cantankerous auld fellah, cranky and downbeat.
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A dip in the cold sea can often seem like some form of cleansing or benediction, a lot of people use the word “reset” about a cold dip. And perhaps it is not too much to hope that Varadkar will have emerged from the sea on Christmas Day feeling rebooted, the smile put back on his face, with more of a sense of optimism.
There is little sense of optimism in this country as we head into 2020. It is almost like the neuroplasticity of the collective psyche has been moulded by a catastrophic economic crash, followed by the calamity that was Brexit. The latter was something that was completely out of our control, but will potentially damage us more than it damages the ones who chose it. Politically, our outlook can tend towards the pessimistic these days. Even when seemingly good things happen, we wait for the other shoe to drop, for the sting in the tail. We almost embrace bad news, while disbelieving good news. And while Leo Varadkar has a lot on his plate, perhaps he should focus a bit more on providing an antidote to this gloominess, by presenting a more cheerful, optimistic face to the country.
Of course Fine Gael would argue that if they dared to be upbeat they’d be accused of not caring about homelessness and the health crisis. And they would no doubt blame the media too for focusing excessively on bad news and on everything that is wrong. But then, that is the kind of courage you need to be a good leader, you need to be able to go against the general mood, and set a new mood, a new tone. Things were not perfect by any stretch when John F Kennedy led America, but as we look back now the mood we overwhelmingly associate with his era is one of hope and optimism, of the torch being passed to a new generation.
Emmanuel Macron is another of the current youthful new generation of leaders that includes Leo Varadkar and the likes of Justin Trudeau, and like Leo, Macron is a politician, who for a long time didn’t really seem like a politician. Macron won power by disrupting national politics in France, much like how Varadkar, along with Phil Hogan, took a disruptive approach to the FG leadership contest.
Macron says that being a political leader is a form of prostitution, that seduction is the job. And Leo Varadkar might do well to bear that in mind as we head into an election in the New Year. We do not warm to a leader who seems tetchy with us, who sometimes seems to see us as an irritation. While it’s true that people like Varadkar for being a straight talker, who tells it like it is, a small bit of seduction, a little bit of wooing, some sense that he actually likes us and enjoys leading us, might not go astray either.
Varadkar might do well to emulate Macron’s focus on optimism and national pride. National pride gets a bad name these days, but Irish people love being Irish, and we love this country. A leader who could tap into that strand in our psyche, without unleashing the unhealthier side of nationalism, would probably do well.
According to this year’s excellent biography of Macron by Sophie Pedder, in college Macron was a theatrical type, a bon vivant who drank in seedy bars. His friends mostly expected him to become a playwright. But instead he took his storytelling to the national stage. Pedder points out that Macron sees politics as a mystical business. He captured the imagination of the French by evoking their collective narratives, dreams and heroism, by reminding them of their cultural heritage and their intellectual tradition. But equally she points out that Macron needs to curb his Jupiterian urges. Macron can tend towards thinking that France has a monarch-shaped hole in its psyche, and that he is the kind of philosopher king that they secretly crave.
But Macron probably has a point. Varadkar would do well to remember that people in general, and Irish people especially, like to be led. We don’t always remember the reigns of Charlie Haughey or Bertie Ahern fondly, and yet there is something in us that likes a chieftain.
You suspect that at this particular point in time in Ireland, someone who managed to tell a new story to the nation could do very well in a general election. Macron’s narrative was to try to counter the ennui that he felt had become a way of life in France (Macron, hilariously, blames this ennui on the French love of postmodernism).
There is perhaps a slight sense that ennui has become a way of life in Ireland too, and maybe instead of railing against that, and railing against an ungrateful public and an ungrateful media, a good leader would counter the ennui with a new story, one of hope, modernity, a sense of a new phase in Irish life.
Varadkar has actually already overseen a passing of the torch in this country, ushering in quite radical change in the area of gay rights and abortion. Those issues mightn’t butter too many parsnips on the doorsteps. But, in an era when elections are won with simplistic three-word phrases, a general narrative of optimism and modernisation could be the kind of simple message that could mobilise huge swathes of voters.
And, just maybe, a young, fit leader, grinning like a maniac, among his people, next to his boyfriend, getting out of a cold sea on Christmas morning is the kind of feelgood imagery that Leo Varadkar should be embracing right now.
Source: Read Full Article