The Brief – When politicians don’t want the top jobs

4 months ago 20

In Brussels, politicians haggled over top jobs this week, but in Dublin, nobody wants them.

Irish politics has seen some high-profile and unforced resignations over the past months. Last week, the leader of the Green party and climate minister, Eamon Ryan, called it a day, citing the toll the job had taken and expressing a wish to focus on his family.

In April, the country’s Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar stepped down. Varadkar, the country’s first openly gay and then youngest leader, was a trailblazer – but ultimately, the trail burnt him out. In his resignation speech, he acknowledged that he was “no longer the best person” for the job.

Both men jumped – neither was pushed by political rivals.

In fact, what happened next was even more striking.

Ryan’s ambitious Deputy Leader, Catherine Martin, who challenged his position in a bruising 2020 internal contest, almost immediately ruled herself out as a replacement.

When Varadkar resigned, almost all his senior party colleagues declined to step up – including his deputy leader, who had previously competed against Varadkar for the party leadership in 2017.

This was not due to a lack of strong candidates – Varadkar’s party has been in power for more than a decade, and several of his colleagues have significant ministerial experience.

In the end, only one politician – Simon Harris – put their name forward to take Varadkar’s place, and he was duly appointed party leader and Taoiseach.

Think about that: The guy currently running Ireland got the job in large part because nobody else wanted it.

There is no simple collective explanation for these decisions.

However, many politicians have noted that Ireland’s historically moderate political culture has coarsened in recent years. This started with social media abuse but is increasingly seeping through to the real world – just this week, Harris received a bomb threat at his family home.

In the absence of hard data, anecdotal evidence gives us another possible answer.

People’s relationship with work clearly changed during the pandemic. All that enforced time away from the office – not to mention COVID’s glaring reminder of our mortality – triggered, for many, a reevaluation of what makes life worth living.

Since then, office bosses have been confronted with ‘quiet quitting’ and ‘lazy girl jobs’. Maybe we need another viral term for political leaders who have had enough – ‘burned-out bosses’, perhaps?

While Europe’s leaders were clashing over top job appointments in Brussels, for the rest of us, this was the week when summer finally reached the EU’s capital after a long, damp, and grey spring.

Brussels does summer well. Bar and restaurant terraces spill out across its cobbled pavements, evening laughter floats through its leafy îlots, and the tang of weed hangs in its parks.

So, for those Euractiv readers still at their desks, take inspiration from an Irish politician. Put down that position paper, sign off on that speech, and cancel that conference call – Brussel’s sun-kissed streets await.

And don’t worry – there are still plenty of politicians who have not lost their ambition. Come September, they will be only too happy to keep us busy again.