I’ve been up since four in the morning but I don’t feel any different. Perhaps it’s still too late? Simon PROMISED me this would make a difference, but nope. Still an empty wallet… I mustn’t be doing this right. Tomorrow I’ll get up at two. I’ll go to sleep at four in the afternoon if I have to. Anything to become one of the Tánaiste’s beloved ‘early risers’ before budget-time next month!
Last week at the Mullingar Chamber of Commerce, Harris doled out a classic Fine Gael line. A real oldie-but-goldie. Speaking about the forthcoming budget, our Minister for Finance promised it would look after the ‘people who get up early in the morning’. So move over nurses, hospitality-workers, emergency responders, delivery drivers, and anybody else who doesn’t rise before the sun does every morning – this is a budget for the people with REAL jobs. Nine-to-fivers. Or as Harris puts it, ‘people in this country who are playing by the rules, who are working hard, who on paper are earning decent salaries’. Not like the rest of us lazy bums (who, incidentally, ALSO can’t afford anything). If your job can’t be identified by a naíonra pupil using colourful flash-cards, it simply isn’t a real job and you don’t deserve any money I’m afraid.
It’s nearly ten years since Harris’ predecessor, Leo Varadkar, first declared he wanted to lead a party for the ‘people who get up early in the morning’. Now, as part of the ever-present challenge to differentiate his party from Fianna Fáil in the eyes of voters, Harris has returned to Fine Gael’s safe-space – undeserved moral superiority. For too long precariously-employed twenty-somethings have been taking food from the mouths of poor forty-somethings (who themselves were precariously-employed twenty-somethings not so long ago). Now, after just fifteen years in power (during which time many of the previously-mentioned twenty-somethings BECAME forty-somethings), they’re finally putting a stop to this agregious injustice. Kudos, Simon. It doesn’t quite make sense to me but oh well, I’m a bit sleep-deprived (and only 27).
Full column in this week’s Print & Digital Edition.
