Leo Varadkar wanted to be taoiseach from the age of eight, his new memoir, Speaking My Mind, reveals. <\/p>\n
Varadkar<\/a>\u2019s political ambitions started young, when he helped his mother to push her vote into the ballot box in the 1987 general election \u2013 thinking it was \u201cmagical\u201d that the act of voting could transform \u201cordinary people into leaders\u201d.<\/p>\n And he wanted to be one. He loved the idea of being on TV, or in the D\u00e1il, even if the \u201cthought of knocking on doors and engaging with strangers was scary\u201d. Looking back, he says, he accepts the early obsession was \u201ca little\u2026 eccentric\u201d.<\/p>\n The interest was encouraged by his parents, who allowed him stay up late to watch RT\u00c9\u2019s Today Tonight current affairs programme. <\/p>\n \u201cSometimes, I\u2019d even catch Radio Sweden\u2019s English-language news, I always wanted to understand what the world looked like to people beyond our little island,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n But what does his anticipated memoir tell us about him and his time in office? <\/p>\n Resignation<\/b><\/p>\n Varadkar is convinced he stepped down as taoiseach<\/a> at the right time, and for the right reasons.<\/p>\n Outside of family and his closest advisers, Fine Gael deputy leader Simon Coveney<\/a> was the first to be told of his decision, in March 2024. The Corkman was taken aback and tried to change the party leader\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n Coveney was worried the move could prompt an unwanted snap general election, or leave the D\u00e1il facing the unprecedented job of electing a taoiseach for a third time.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Leo Varadkar: A political life in pictures Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> leader Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> would not seek to run to the country, Varadkar told him, or take advantage of turbulence inside Fine Gael<\/a>, or be seen to do so: \u201cHe\u2019s far too decent, and too cautious.\u201d Martin \u201cfretted\u201d when he was told. <\/p>\n However, the Green Party<\/a>\u2019s Eamon Ryan<\/a> was pleased, telling him his decision to go \u201cwas a good thing\u201d for him. \u201cYou won\u2019t be far behind me,\u201d Varadkar thought, but he kept it to himself.<\/p>\n He briefly wobbled the morning after, when Coveney again tried to persuade him to stay, telling him that he was \u201cnot a busted flush\u201d and \u201cthat every day is a bonus when you\u2019re at the top\u201d.<\/p>\n Fine Gael ministers reacted differently. Helen McEntee<\/a> \u201clooked genuinely upset\u201d; Paschal Donohoe<\/a> \u201cseemed let down\u201d; while Simon Harris<\/a> looked like a ghost, partly because he realised \u201che could be taoiseach without a few weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n First time as minister<\/b><\/p>\n In 2010, Varadkar had been on tenterhooks, wondering whether he would get a cabinet job from Enda Kenny<\/a>. In the end, he missed the call that brought him into the ministerial ranks, and he had to call Government Buildings back.<\/p>\n Initially, he was given the Department of Transport and Tourism. Sport was added to his duties hurriedly the following day \u2013 though Varadkar himself admits he knows little about sport of any kind.<\/p>\n Kenny often gave good advice, especially after Varadkar criticised former taoiseach<\/a> Garret FitzGerald<\/a> in 2010, accusing the elder statesman of having tripled the national debt and effectively destroying the country.<\/p>\n His words went down badly within Fine Gael, and today Varadkar says if there were any \u201ctwenty seconds in my political career that I could delete\u201d, then it would be those D\u00e1il words.<\/p>\n Glad he had written to Fitzgerald to apologise, Kenny complimented Varadkar, saying: \u201cIf anything like that ever happens again, put your hands up and own it.\u201d It was good advice, Varadkar says now.<\/p>\n Varadkar says relations with his junior ministers then were spiky \u2013 Labour\u2019s Alan Kelly<\/a> and Fine Gael\u2019s Michael Ring<\/a>. Kelly is one of the few people who could be regarded as more arrogant than himself, he says.<\/p>\n Ring\u2019s ego is huge, often insisting on rows, with frequent threats of resignation: \u201cOn one occasion, everyone stifled their laughter when Michael threatened to storm off and I offered to help him pack.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2010 heave against Enda Kenny <\/b><\/p>\n Everyone knew the 2010 coup against Enda Kenny<\/a>\u2019s Fine Gael leadership was not a model of the Machiavellian arts, but Varadkar captures its sheer ineptness, even if he is quick to say that he \u201cwasn\u2019t at the centre of it\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGradually, without even a semblance of a coherent plan, a coup began to form,\u201d he says, pointing out that the challenge came most from \u201cFine Gael bluebloods\u201d, who had known Kenny and his father Henry before them.<\/p>\n Then everybody dithered, with nobody nailing down support. In one Leinster House meeting, he remembers Paschal Donohoe in tears: \u201cHe wanted to do the right thing and not hurt anyone, which was clearly impossible,\u201d Varadkar records.<\/p>\n Plans for a secret cabal in the Green Isle Hotel descended into chaos when the media found out about it, with some involved trying to escape out the back door, while others faced the microphone of RT\u00c9 journalist Valerie Cox.<\/p>\n Eventually Varadkar sought advice from Fine Gael\u2019s serving and old heads, Michael Noonan<\/a> and Ivan Yates<\/a>. \u201cThey pointed out things which I had naively failed to consider,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n Most TDs would think about themselves, the two said. If one Fine Gael TD in a constituency backed Kenny, they told him, the other would back rival Richard Bruton<\/a>, because both could not be ministers.<\/p>\n The UK relationship<\/b><\/p>\n Varadkar had met Boris Johnson<\/a> in 2012, when he was mayor of London, and thought him odd. His opinion did not improve. Johnson only voted not to quit the European Union without a deal after prime minister Theresa May<\/a> had offered to resign.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was an act of self-sacrifice on her part, while Boris\u2019s position said a lot about his character,\u201d he writes. In the end, it was her \u201clack of ruthlessness\u201d that led to the end of her premiership. All of this led to Dublin having to deal with the \u201cless principled\u201d Johnson.<\/p>\n Phil Hogan and Golfgate <\/b><\/p>\n Without putting too fine a point on it, Varadkar and former Fine Gael minister and parliamentary colleague Phil Hogan are enemies.<\/p>\n Throughout, Varadkar talks about how damaged relationships with people were eventually repaired \u2013 with one exception, that with Phil Hogan<\/a>. If anything, his irritation with the former European commissioner has grown.<\/p>\n Hogan believes he was betrayed by Varadkar after the Golfgate<\/a> controversy during the Covid pandemic<\/a> in 2020 \u2013 a highly controversial dinner<\/a> attended by well-known faces amid lockdown restrictions. Hogan believed he would not have lost his position as trade commissioner<\/a>, as a result of the controversy, if Varadkar had stood firm.<\/p>\n Varadkar has little sympathy. \u201cPhil could have made a full, unequivocal apology. He could have begged for mercy, explaining that he lived in Brussels and didn\u2019t know the Irish rules,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead, he sought to blame the organisers and the Irish Hotels Federation. Then he returned to Brussels, leaving the rest of us to deal with the fall-out,\u201d he recalls, adding that Hogan made matters worse with an RT\u00c9 interview.<\/p>\n By then it was known that he had been stopped by a garda for using a mobile phone while driving: \u201c(He) groused that the garda wouldn\u2019t have stopped him if he\u2019d known who he was.<\/p>\n \u201cSheesh! I hadn\u2019t heard talk like that since a previous EU commissioner, Pee Flynn did the Late Late Show in 1999 and justified his large salary on grounds of needing to maintain three houses, cars and housekeeper,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n When he sought the Fine Gael leadership, he remembered Hogan \u2013 by then in Brussels as European commissioner for agriculture and rural development \u2013 called him to offer his support.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew he hoped for a second term, and I imagine he calculated that supporting me would make that more likely. This, of course, was never explicitly discussed, or promised. In politics, so much is explicit.\u201d<\/p>\n Nigel Farage is surprisingly good company<\/b><\/p>\n In 2018, Varadkar met Nigel Farage<\/a> after the Brexiteer<\/a> had berated him in the European Parliament<\/a> for a speech during the height of the Brexit crisis, one given in four languages \u2013 English, German, French and Irish, he says, with just a touch of pride.<\/p>\n Having accused him of trying to scupper the democratic outcome of a United Kingdom referendum, and of being a European unionist, Farage later shared a glass of champagne with him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was jovial and chatty,\u201d recalls Varadkar, remembering that Farage spoke of how much he loved Ireland. In turn, Varadkar spoke of how much he liked England. \u201cReally,\u201d he said, \u201cYou\u2019d never guess.\u201d <\/p>\n While all of this was going on, Varadkar\u2019s press officer was desperately trying to ensure no picture of the two was taken. It is annoying, he says, \u201chow often political demagogues and populists are such good company\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leo Varadkar wanted to be taoiseach from the age of eight, his new memoir, Speaking My Mind, reveals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[22055,30417,9,10,64,37852,18,17858,5766,13,14,4771,553,37853,37855,18577,6,14370,19,17,37856,11,12,34886,15,16,17859,37854,5765,5,20567,46,37857,1181,37851,44,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-51452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-alan-kelly","9":"tag-boris-johnson","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-breakingnews","12":"tag-covid-19","13":"tag-eamon-ryan","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-enda-kenny","16":"tag-european-commission","17":"tag-featured-news","18":"tag-featurednews","19":"tag-fianna-fail","20":"tag-fine-gael","21":"tag-garret-fitzgerald","22":"tag-golfgate","23":"tag-green-party","24":"tag-headlines","25":"tag-helen-mcentee","26":"tag-ie","27":"tag-ireland","28":"tag-ivan-yates","29":"tag-latest-news","30":"tag-latestnews","31":"tag-leo-varadkar","32":"tag-main-news","33":"tag-mainnews","34":"tag-michael-noonan","35":"tag-michael-ring","36":"tag-micheal-martin","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-nigel-farage","39":"tag-paschal-donohoe","40":"tag-phil-hogan","41":"tag-rte","42":"tag-simon-coveney","43":"tag-simon-harris","44":"tag-top-stories","45":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}