The Humours of Politics
Plus the choices for Prime Minister 40
Politics is supposed to be serious stuff but frankly, for someone who has been involved in and been around politics for decades, everything about this most important of human activities has always been hysterically funny when it was just being plain fun.
This past week was no shortage of political fun anywhere you looked. Funny ha-ha. Funny fascinating. Or maybe another kind of humour: - sanguine: optimistic and social, choleric: short-tempered and irritable, melancholic: analytical and quiet, and phlegmatic: relaxed and peaceful - but on this last one you can decide if any apply.
Start in Europe. Germany voted as expected. Western commentators, particularly Americans, struggled to grasp what is happening. That was the funny ha-ha bit and the way Germans are working through their present and their past is fun in the fascinating sense.
By the way, read anything by Katja Hoyer to understand the nuance and complexity of things from a German (especially an ostdeutsch) perspective. Hoyer was born in Guben, Brandenburg five years before reunification. Her father was an officer in the Nationale Volksarmee. She brings a particularly keen insight to German politics and what is going on today but from the perspective of someone from the old East German culture.
Speaking of Americans, nothing funnier than watching Republican nominees struggle to deal with the simple question: did Russia invade Ukraine? The problem is caused by Donald Trump who literally has no idea what 99% of his briefings are about and who started parroting Russian talking points right before he started parroting someone else’s. His lackeys and lapdogs never know what the approved talking point of the moment is so they get tongue-tied.
In Canada, we had the people surprised by Andrew Furey’s resignation and the local media, especially Toronto’s national broadcaster whose branch plant called in high-powered insights from either the Generic Canadian University in Sin Jawns - aka Boondoggle U - or Dalhousie or Acadia to make sense of it all. Loads of funny ha-ha but also fascinating fun. The best the people who are supposed to know about politics could offer was a penetrating insight into the obvious (this was a “bombshell”) or that we don’t know what’s going on but might one day, eventually, maybe. These political scientists spoke not for the collective “we” of this ignorance but for themselves since they have nothing but a superficial understanding of Newfoundland and Labrador, at best, at any given time. They are kin to the opinions-like-arseholes people on TikTok who cannot even pronounce the name of the place but cue on whatever stuff they want to for their own ends.
Meanwhile in Newfoundland and Labrador, the funny and the fun came from watching the gobsmacked Liberals, some of them herded onto the set for Furey’s departure like the people dragged off the street in the open sequences of Death of Stalin, with no more idea of the drama unfolding in front of them than the Mainlanders (and Mainlander-wannabes) the Ceeb thinks can tell them anything useful about stuff going on in a place they don’t give two frigs about, even if they live here.
The political people in the audience for Tuesday’s psychodrama slash political theatre and the political people who watched the video don’t believe a word that came out of Andrew Furey’s mouth about why he is quitting. They are in shock so they struggle to make sense of how their world turned upside down in an instant. They are struck by many things that don’t make sense, the anguished look on Alison Furey’s face chief among them even more than Andrew trademark fluffery of himself and everyone else during the good-bye speech.
Some suspect imminent scandal of one sort or another. Others imagine a Machiavellian masterstroke. Some picked up on the hypocrisy of Andrew Furey’s call in the few days he spent in the House last November scolding about the need for “elevated discourse” in our public life. And then this same guy went on a childish tirade yet again as he blamed Donald Trump with words like cracked, nuts, bonkers, and crazy for driving him from office.
Even as the real Andrew Furey stood before them and revealed himself - yet again - for who he is, they refused to believe that this avatar, this concocted image was the real fake deal. Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for itself. They have too much of themselves in the game to admit what is obvious. Cognitive dissonance is as much a thing in Newfoundland and Labrador politics as patronage, crippling insecurity, and Dunning-Kruger.
We can remember it for you, wholesale.
Furey talked enough on Tuesday afternoon that he said some things that were true, even if only by accident amidst the fluff. Even in talking about fixed elections dates Furey was telling us not that there are fixed election dates - there aren’t - but that he and the Brain Trust are using these as an excuse to explain why they have shagged around and not gone to the polls yet. The real reason is something else.
Implicitly, Furey put the date of the next general election as the second Tuesday this October coming. The seventh day of October, to be exact. That makes the second important date the second Tuesday of April, which is the 8th or the last day to resign from the House of Assembly without forcing a by-election the Liberals cannot guarantee they’ll win. Andrew Furey will hang on as Premier until at least April 8.
In between now and that closer of the two dates, no one knows what will happen. Literally. They are flying by the seat of their pants again since no one seemed to know Furey was throwing himself out the window. There will not be a sitting of the House longer than what’s needed to get cash beyond April 1.
If there is a race involving the names already floated, some or all the senior ministries would have place-holders instead of Siobhan and John and John and Andrew and whoever else joins in. You cannot be in cabinet while the leadership gets sorted if you are a candidate. What's more, Furey has made his whole administration into a caretaker - nothing but keeping the heat and light on and the bills paid - until his replacement shows up, whenever that happens.
Some people are already likening Furey’s departure to Danny Williams who announced his legacy deal, pronounced it in safe hands, and then ran for the door. That would mean the Liberals now as the Pea Seas then would cook up a Dunderdale 2 scenario to avoid a leadership fight. Danny Williams, his brother and a few more, quickly got an agreement to stuff Kathy Dunderdale in the job even though she’d already said she was leaving and had no plans to do anything more in politics one the Pea Seas found a permanent replacement for Danny boy.
The Liberal version of this scam actually runs a fake leadership fight, like the one after a cabal forced Dwight out or the one Carney is about to sweep at the national level. You will see the consensus build as all the people thinking about running drop away, except for The Chosen One. The Chose One then squares off against a sacrificial lamb to be rewarded or punished in the life after the leadership.
There are powerful reasons to limit a leadership race. There’ll be no cash to go around what with the federal Liberals already soaking up what they can so Mark Carney can save their bacon. A shortage of cash - without going deeper into debt - and a shortage of fresh volunteers is also why Team [Used to be Furey] will likely put off the election to the fall even if Carney squeeks out a win. More time for the Pea Seas to get ready is the downside but they have few choices that are better.
If John Abbott is stupid enough to run again as The Lamb, then the Liberals will avoid the by-election Abbott would have caused had he stuck with his original plan to run federally. There is no guarantee the Liberals would win that one either especially if Eugene Manning ran for the Pea Seas in the district he lives in. John Abbott was the right choice the last time and he would be the right choice this time but the Brain Trust that runs the Liberal Party does not want John Abbott. He is not one of them. So, one way or another, Abbott would lose and he may even lose again either with a crappy portfolio or even by being left out of cabinet altogether.
There is no upside for Abbott were he to run again for the Leader’s job. The second avoided by-election would be a bonus for the Brain Trust and they are the only ones who’d profit by his candidacy. A happy accident. Anyone who thinks that was part of the plan - knock Abbott out - needs to learn about the idea post hoc ergo propter hoc. And oh yeah: there *is* no plan here, just reaction to Andrew Furey’s hasty decision.
The Brain Trust wants a front man. Most likely a man. They might take Siobhan Coady if they have to but she is fine where she’s to, as far as they are concerned. Same with John Hogan who against Tony Wakeham would be a fight between light grey and lighter grey and no way to figure which is which. Fred Hutton is serviceable where he is, tainted by recent scandals, although Hutton might be a good choice for the Brain Trust’s perspective if a better choice doesn’t work out. After all, he can speak on camera and can reliably read a script, which is the minimum they need.
The most likely name to rise quickly to the top is not one of the early announcements, including Yvonne Jones. Look for Andrew Parsons. Told the Brain Trust over a year ago he was leaving and yet is still in cabinet apparently with no job he needs to get to. If he reconsiders leaving, then Andrew Parsons would be the most likely choice for the crowd who actually run the Liberal Party to replace Andrew Furey.
Parsons is a likeable guy. He’s approachable and people can relate to him. He can speak on his feet, think on his feet, and handle the petty jabs from the opposition. Parsons stickhandled the scandals and crises that the diletante Andrew Furey churned up and he is liked across caucus. He’s got solid political instincts, handled justice very well and has coasted along without any flubs in energy, mostly because Furey elbowed him out of the way. If the Brain Trust had a list of who they could pick from out of the current crowd, Parsons would be at the top followed by Hogan and Hutton and then Coady.
Voters might give Parsons the benefit of the doubt about Churchill Falls even though the deal would still be a tough sell to an audience that is mostly either indifferent to it or highly sceptical. If it were an easy thing to sell, then young Furey would have already gone to the polls instead of the exit. The Brain Trust needs a nice face people because the give-away deal, the repeat of the 1998 sucker play remains the centrepiece of the Liberal election plan. Parsons has the puss.
There’ll be other bits of meaningless razzle dazzle and puffery in a campaign platform to make it look like there’s a plan (beyond getting re-elected) but the only thing the Brain Trust wants to seal up is the gift to Quebec. The reason is simple: people on the mainland will make a lot of money off it. No one who lives here, but some people will make a fortune and, as with Muskrat Falls, you will pay in the give-aways of cash and control.
There is no upside for you.
That’s why they want you to buy it, as is.
Desperately want.
But will you?