Hugh and I had this conversation the other day. And it made me think. So I decided to inflict it on the world. Mainly cause I woke up a half hour earlier than I had intended, and therefore have spare time before work today.
So we're sitting the smoking area of Fagans here in scenic Drumcondra on Thursday evening, shooting the breeze and talking about the end of the Blair era (we're very intellectual), in between talking about Slayer concerts, the WWE and the Dublin hurlers. Anyway, Hugh goes to answer nature's call, and when he comes back, he tells me Bertie Ahern is sitting inside. Nothing strange there. Fagan's is not just my local. It's Bertie's as well. He's in there a couple of times a week. Sits at the end of the bar, talks to people and has a few pints. Any time I have visitors, I always bring them to Fagans for pints, and they can never get over the fact that Bertie just sits there having a pint, talking to random punters. My American cousins can't understand the lack of black-suited, shade-wearing, earpiece enhanced, gun-toting secret service types. One of them even went up and spoke to the man himself a few months ago, and came back astonished that our equivalent of the Prime Minister took time out to ask him how he was enjoying the Ryder Cup.
So that's the backstory. I'm not a member of Fianna Fail. I didn't vote for Bertie in the last election. Whatever you might think of all the scandal and shite that has gone on over the last few months and years, I think Bertie has done a reasonable job as Taoiseach, and at a local level, he's been good for Drumcondra. To me, he seems like a fundamentally decent bloke, and that's what this conversation grew out of.
The pintability factor is a highly scientific, complex and well rounded political theory that would take far too long for me to explain. The various equations and details we use to come to our conclusions are remarkably hard to digest, so I'll distill this information for you as best I can. Incidentally, the pintability factor can be used, not just for politicians, but for random punters or celebrities of any status.
And here it is - the pintability factor is a measure of how much you would enjoy a pint with a particular individual. The theory came about because we were looking at various world leaders and wondering who among them would be a good laugh to share a beer with. Bertie scores high on the pintability index. As a guy who comes across as moderately genial. He seems like the kind of punter you could enjoy a few drinks with. You could shoot the breeze about all sorts of things, from politics to sport and everything in between. The sport is important, but I'll get to that later.
So Bertie has the pintability factor. To an extent, Tony Blair has a similar level of pintability. He comes across as a bit more uptight and a bit more self-involved. But lest we forget, Tony has stories to tell as well. He was in a band in college. He's a self confessed Newcastle supporter, and he's lived and prime-ministered through some fairly earth shattering moments in the history of the world. So Tony qualifies as having a high pintability index. Not as high as Berties, as Tony has the stain of the Iraq war burned onto his person for all eternity, and I don't know if he would play as well as someone like our Taoiseach in a more working class environment. However, he has 'it'.
Gordon Brown doesn't. The guy has been through a lot in the last ten years, and he doubtless has numerous interesting tales to tell. Like Blair and Bertie, he is a sports fan. When he was a kid, he used to sell programmes at half time at Raith Rovers games. Indeed, a few years ago, he was part of the consortium that organised a buyout of the club. And yet, he doesn't seem to play on his love of sport as much our two previously mentioned politicos. That's not what affects the pintability factor though. Sadly for Brown, he is just not as likable as the other two. The speech he made after the attack on Glasgow airport the other day didn't seem very Prime Ministerial. And if I were a British citizen, it wouldn't neccessariy have reassured me as much as a hand waving softly spoken display by Tony Blair would have. So Brown lacks the pintability factor. He comes across as quite a stern, dour man. Dare I say his Presbyterian streak affects our perception of him?
However, is Brown really in any trouble. If personality politics are as big as people suggest they are nowadays, then frequently it is the perception of the party (as embodied by one person) that influences many people's choices in the polling stations. I would suggest that many people voting in local and national elections don't vote according to what individual candidates represent. They vote based on their perception of the party a particular candidate is representing. I'm not saying this is exclusively the case. However, I would posit that a lot of people vote for Fianna Fail on the basis that their leader and several of their politicians come across as pintable characters. In Ireland, if you apply the pintability factor to the recent election, it's easy to see why Fianna Fail had the (relative) success they had. Would you like to go for a pint with Enda Kenny, Pat Rabbitte, Michael McDowell or Trevor Sargeant. Sure they might be interesting, and maybe you'd end up having a great laugh with them. I'd suggest that if you gave the vast majority of people in Ireland a choice between drinking with any one of all four of that quartet, or a pint with Bertie, the Taoiseach would win out hands down.
In the UK, things are a little bit more blurred now. Blair had the pintability factor for the last ten years. Yes, his legacy has been tarnished by the fiasco he managed to get his country embroiled in, but I still think people would choose to sit and have a pint with him rather than booze it up with Gordo. But is Gordon in trouble on the pintability side of things? Well not really. I'm not sure if he's the best of a bad lot, but he is at least as likable as David Cameron or Menzies Campbell. Charles Kennedy was the last British politician to challenge Tony Blair for the pintability crown. And for very obvious reasons, it's unlikely that anyone is going to be going on a massive alcohol bender with Charles at any point soon. However, he had that charm and that pintability factor that made him and the Lib Dems a lot more popular than they had been in several years.
Elsewhere, there are a load of pintable politicians. I know a lot of my friends would love to go for a drink with Segolene Royale (mainly to see if they could get lucky and see how frais her fromage is..). I think a lot of people would like to go for drinks with several US politicians. I know I'd love to have a chat with George W. at some point. Again, as with Kennedy, it's unlikely that we'll be hitting the booze, but he has the homespun, regular guy pintability factor (as did Clinton - on an unparalleled scale). Does Hillary have it? Or Obama? The Republican candidates at this point seem to be scoring higher on my pintability scale.
Now, maybe this is a crackpot theory. However, I think there is a lot to be said for it. And I'd like to know what everyone else thinks. Maybe I string a book and a lecture tour out of it? I wonder how many colleges would accept this as a topic for a thesis? Maybe I should consider doing an MA in political theory, with my thesis combining two of my favourite things. Boozing and discussing world politics.
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