Barry Clifford: It would be just nice if Alex White just went away

I can’t help it. Anytime I look at  Alex White I think of a dodgy second- hand car sales man or of a man selling snake oil to cure acute arthritis. There are comparisons and pedigree to look at. He spearheaded legislation to remove medical cards from the elderly and the disabled, and then when he saw that the polls were against primarily him, second only to the party that he belongs to, the Labour party, he makes a bid of trying to take over the camp entire. He has proven to be quite capable of using any means at his disposal to get what he wants in that trivial pursuit.

Not long in his ministerial post he tried to strongman Galway University to accept his son as a student via a very short cut. Caught out he did not stumble even when rumbled for he had bigger fish to fry or for them to be eaten alive. Now that he has been rumbled again he would gladly settle for a Cabinet post out of the leadership race. A big salary and an even bigger pension will await him if he pulls this one off and it seems Alex only ever was in it for the money in the first place after realising law was not as good as it used to be so he changed the briefcase. More wholesome Ms Joan Burton would get my vote though if I was a card carrying member of the Labour party for at the very least she seems to be straight if not miss-guided. I hope she knows how to take care of her enemies that are closer to her starting with Alex when she has to.

Apparently the almost 56 year old white haired Alex considers himself the new generation and that the 65 year old Joan and her old generation are past it. That is what we will have to look forward to: Alex spearheading the new Ireland and one where women will not have a place in his vision and soon to be pensioners better beware too, and getting sick and being elderly together already has been proven is something you do not do on Alex’s watch. He considers anyone from the class of  1997 as past it too which  maybe proves he is on a permanent quest to remain young by trying to get rid of anyone older than him.

He might just settle for that bridge he was talking about to the new generation of Labour members yesterday, which by itself is perhaps a tacit admission that he is neither young or old just somewhere in between which still leaves Ms Burton, the old one, no chance of getting in from the cold or getting away from the disease of ageism that just won’t leave her alone. But at least the chances of Alex winning the leadership is now as remote as Vlad the impaler Putin getting it.

But I suspect that Alex is already showing signs of early dementia for he wants not just to be the bridge to the new generation but wants to lead the party in ten years time. Of course math’s may not be his strongest point either rather than being a symptom of dementia itself, but I wonder did he compute in that legal mind of his that he will be 66 years old then and one year older than Ms Burton is now, and be solidly part of the old generation of what he now decries as the reason for the failure of the Labour party today. It would be just nice if Alex White just went away, but like an itch you cannot scratch, this salesman will only go when he is fired and not one day before. 

Barry Clifford