The quickest, simplest and ultimately most effective solution to the row over Lorraine Clifford-Lee’s past social media comments about Travellers, women and Brazilian dwarfs would be for the senator to voluntarily step aside as the Fianna Fail candidate for the Dublin Fingal by-election.
The interests of the party should always come before those of any one individual, and those who have that party’s interests at heart should recognise the point at which they are damaging the political brand in which they purport to believe. Fianna Fail is having to expend wasted energy on defending her and, in resisting calls for her dismissal, party leader Micheal Martin also risks being wounded by the fall-out, which, with only months to go before a general election, means Fianna Failers in other seats the party needs to win have had their jobs made all the harder.
If she wasn’t a senior member already, it’s arguable that Clifford-Lee would already have been thrown to the wolves instead of having backing from the top. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” is Martin’s line, but not everyone gets one. Being deputy Seanad leader definitely helps.
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Clifford-Lee should stand aside for a more personal reason, though, and that’s for her own well-being. She is now in the midst of an unpleasant mainstream and social media storm. However many times she apologises for the controversial comments, and however sincere she might be, she is not going to come out of it unscathed. It’s already gone too far for that.
Her comments will be dredged up by journalists and broadcasters every time she does an interview, because Google forgets nothing. Is that fair? It absolutely is not. A person’s character and contribution to public life should be judged in the round and in context, and there is a possible case for the defence even in this extreme instance. In saying that her car was stolen by a “knacker”, for example, Clifford-Lee may have been using the word in a looser colloquial sense, with no thought or intention of insulting actual Travellers. Not the wisest move, but not a hanging offence.
“Pikey” is harder to defend, as were the comments about the local nightclub being a “sluts venue”, which is bizarre coming from a self-described feminist. There is definitely some hypocrisy there, but it’s hard to judge the context. Maybe she was trying to be funny? She failed, but who hasn’t made the odd off-colour remark that crashed and burned like a kamikaze pilot?
Having said all that, what’s the point of fighting reality? Everyone is now desperate to take offence. Is it really worth being forced to go back repeatedly over this old ground just in the hope of getting a junior ministry in the next Fianna Fail government or the chair of some Oireachtas committee?
In order to keep up the fight to become a TD, Clifford-Lee risks exposing herself and her family to endless rancour. The risks surely outweigh any possible benefits.
The maelstrom whirling round Clifford-Lee resembles that which stymied the career of Maria Bailey, the Fine Gael TD who put in a claim for compensation after falling off a swing at a Dublin hotel. She said she just wanted to recoup her medical expenses, but an internal review found she “over-stated” her injuries. Bailey was finally taken off the party ticket in Dun Laoghaire last Thursday after months of internal tension.
No one knew, when the story first broke, that it would end Bailey’s career. People were merely aghast at how Fine Gael could be so hypocritical as to pose as the party of small business against the compensation culture while its public representatives were simultaneously on the hunt for pay-outs for minor injuries, especially when it is also stuffed with members of the legal profession making a small fortune from spurious claims.
But while her deselection is the local constituency supporters’ business, because they’re the ones who have to go knocking from door to door for selected candidates, it’s still worth asking if this “gotcha” culture is damaging public life. If people who want to put themselves forward for office are demonised and pilloried when they make mistakes, why would they put themselves forward at all?
Instead, it’s been no time at all since Swing-gate, and already it’s happening again. The issue is a different one but the vituperative climate is just as troubling.
Clifford-Lee may have nipped it in the bud with an immediate and fulsome apology. She has also wisely resisted the urge to play the victim as Bailey ill-advisedly did to RTE Radio’s Sean O’Rourke, to predictably disastrous effect.
The wider warning remains. The attacks on Bailey quickly got out of hand, partly because she made a convenient scapegoat for slippage in Fine Gael’s – and specifically Leo Varadkar’s – popularity. Something nasty was unleashed. She ended up being publicly shamed to such an extent that recovery was impossible, no matter what she said or did.
Some argue it is right to place Clifford-Lee’s feet to the fire in the same way because FF is enthusiastically backing calls to police free speech in an effort to stamp down on dissenting political voices. That, though, feels like a path of mutually assured destruction. Setting fire to the forest just to show arsonists the danger of their own activity simply increases the number of fires and, before long, the whole world is ablaze. Someone needs to set an example by refusing to play the competitive outrage game. There’s always some small thing you might have said to which someone somewhere could take offence and decide to weaponise against you. Too often, the punishment does not fit the crime.
Going down that road leads to a political and media culture in which everyone is afraid to say what they are thinking in case it is dug up and used against them, often many years later, out of context. People have to be allowed to do stupid things. If for no other reason than that, Micheal Martin deserves credit for not taking the easy way out, as the Taoiseach did with Bailey, and casting his candidate adrift to fend for herself.
By the same token, if Clifford-Lee feels strong enough to endure this backlash and fight on, then that is her right to do so.
Whether it will be as easy as that is another matter. Bailey said after being deselected last week: “”I had hoped to be able to move on and rebuild my reputation, but at every turn there have been anonymous sources trying to reignite the story around me.” Too many forces lined up against her.
Even if she does win the Dublin Fingal seat vacated by new MEP Clare Daly, Clifford-Lee may find herself just as quickly disabused of any notion that she can put this row behind her. Her enemies won’t be prepared to accept the sincerity of her apology. Their minds are closed. She should take a step back and ask if it’s worth all the hassle. She’s a solicitor and presumably comfortably off. She could just walk away, reclaim her privacy and have a nice existence with none of this scrutiny. No one needs this bad blood in their life.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Eilis O'Hanlon: 'Why would anyone want to be a TD in this age of competitive outrage?'
Eilis O'Hanlon: 'Why would anyone want to be a TD in this age of competitive outrage?'
The quickest, simplest and ultimately most effective solution to the row over Lorraine Clifford-Lee’s past social media comments about Travellers, women and Brazilian dwarfs would be for the senator to voluntarily step aside as the Fianna Fail candidate for the Dublin Fingal by-election.
The interests of the party should always come before those of any one individual, and those who have that party’s interests at heart should recognise the point at which they are damaging the political brand in which they purport to believe. Fianna Fail is having to expend wasted energy on defending her and, in resisting calls for her dismissal, party leader Micheal Martin also risks being wounded by the fall-out, which, with only months to go before a general election, means Fianna Failers in other seats the party needs to win have had their jobs made all the harder.
If she wasn’t a senior member already, it’s arguable that Clifford-Lee would already have been thrown to the wolves instead of having backing from the top. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” is Martin’s line, but not everyone gets one. Being deputy Seanad leader definitely helps.
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Clifford-Lee should stand aside for a more personal reason, though, and that’s for her own well-being. She is now in the midst of an unpleasant mainstream and social media storm. However many times she apologises for the controversial comments, and however sincere she might be, she is not going to come out of it unscathed. It’s already gone too far for that.
Her comments will be dredged up by journalists and broadcasters every time she does an interview, because Google forgets nothing. Is that fair? It absolutely is not. A person’s character and contribution to public life should be judged in the round and in context, and there is a possible case for the defence even in this extreme instance. In saying that her car was stolen by a “knacker”, for example, Clifford-Lee may have been using the word in a looser colloquial sense, with no thought or intention of insulting actual Travellers. Not the wisest move, but not a hanging offence.
“Pikey” is harder to defend, as were the comments about the local nightclub being a “sluts venue”, which is bizarre coming from a self-described feminist. There is definitely some hypocrisy there, but it’s hard to judge the context. Maybe she was trying to be funny? She failed, but who hasn’t made the odd off-colour remark that crashed and burned like a kamikaze pilot?
Having said all that, what’s the point of fighting reality? Everyone is now desperate to take offence. Is it really worth being forced to go back repeatedly over this old ground just in the hope of getting a junior ministry in the next Fianna Fail government or the chair of some Oireachtas committee?
In order to keep up the fight to become a TD, Clifford-Lee risks exposing herself and her family to endless rancour. The risks surely outweigh any possible benefits.
The maelstrom whirling round Clifford-Lee resembles that which stymied the career of Maria Bailey, the Fine Gael TD who put in a claim for compensation after falling off a swing at a Dublin hotel. She said she just wanted to recoup her medical expenses, but an internal review found she “over-stated” her injuries. Bailey was finally taken off the party ticket in Dun Laoghaire last Thursday after months of internal tension.
No one knew, when the story first broke, that it would end Bailey’s career. People were merely aghast at how Fine Gael could be so hypocritical as to pose as the party of small business against the compensation culture while its public representatives were simultaneously on the hunt for pay-outs for minor injuries, especially when it is also stuffed with members of the legal profession making a small fortune from spurious claims.
But while her deselection is the local constituency supporters’ business, because they’re the ones who have to go knocking from door to door for selected candidates, it’s still worth asking if this “gotcha” culture is damaging public life. If people who want to put themselves forward for office are demonised and pilloried when they make mistakes, why would they put themselves forward at all?
Instead, it’s been no time at all since Swing-gate, and already it’s happening again. The issue is a different one but the vituperative climate is just as troubling.
Clifford-Lee may have nipped it in the bud with an immediate and fulsome apology. She has also wisely resisted the urge to play the victim as Bailey ill-advisedly did to RTE Radio’s Sean O’Rourke, to predictably disastrous effect.
The wider warning remains. The attacks on Bailey quickly got out of hand, partly because she made a convenient scapegoat for slippage in Fine Gael’s – and specifically Leo Varadkar’s – popularity. Something nasty was unleashed. She ended up being publicly shamed to such an extent that recovery was impossible, no matter what she said or did.
Some argue it is right to place Clifford-Lee’s feet to the fire in the same way because FF is enthusiastically backing calls to police free speech in an effort to stamp down on dissenting political voices. That, though, feels like a path of mutually assured destruction. Setting fire to the forest just to show arsonists the danger of their own activity simply increases the number of fires and, before long, the whole world is ablaze. Someone needs to set an example by refusing to play the competitive outrage game. There’s always some small thing you might have said to which someone somewhere could take offence and decide to weaponise against you. Too often, the punishment does not fit the crime.
Going down that road leads to a political and media culture in which everyone is afraid to say what they are thinking in case it is dug up and used against them, often many years later, out of context. People have to be allowed to do stupid things. If for no other reason than that, Micheal Martin deserves credit for not taking the easy way out, as the Taoiseach did with Bailey, and casting his candidate adrift to fend for herself.
By the same token, if Clifford-Lee feels strong enough to endure this backlash and fight on, then that is her right to do so.
Whether it will be as easy as that is another matter. Bailey said after being deselected last week: “”I had hoped to be able to move on and rebuild my reputation, but at every turn there have been anonymous sources trying to reignite the story around me.” Too many forces lined up against her.
Even if she does win the Dublin Fingal seat vacated by new MEP Clare Daly, Clifford-Lee may find herself just as quickly disabused of any notion that she can put this row behind her. Her enemies won’t be prepared to accept the sincerity of her apology. Their minds are closed. She should take a step back and ask if it’s worth all the hassle. She’s a solicitor and presumably comfortably off. She could just walk away, reclaim her privacy and have a nice existence with none of this scrutiny. No one needs this bad blood in their life.
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