Tony Blair is a source of marital discord in this household. From the very beginning, even in the heady days of the 1990s, I felt that Blair was untrustworthy, writes Breda O'Brien
My husband felt that I was too harsh, and that there was more to Blair than met the eye, to which my usual response was that there was a great deal less to him than met the eye.
Given the fact that the husband's mammy was from Dungannon, his willingness to excuse and forgive Blair has only increased over the years. Even a curmudgeon would have to grant that without the British prime minister, we would not be emerging, still slightly blinking in disbelief, into the sunshine of a peaceful future for the North. Yet for this side of the spousal divide at least, it is not enough to wash away all his faults.
However, the mutual affection and respect that has grown between Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair is obviously genuine. On the face of it, a friendship could hardly be less likely.
Blair is a polished orator, while Bertie is famed for his wonderfully mangled metaphors. While Bertie still has to scale the dizzy heights routinely reached by Bush, such as when the US president implied recently that the Queen of England was over 200 years old, he does have his moments of genius. A personal favourite was when Bertie suggested that there was no point in flinging white elephants and red herrings at each other.
There are also similarities between Blair and Bertie. Both are like a dog with a bone when committed to something, are to a large extent untroubled by the need to subscribe to a coherent ideology and allegedly have the ability to make the person with whom they are interacting feel like the centre of the universe. Interesting one, that last characteristic. Peter Hain once referred to it delicately as Blair's ability to make everyone feel as if he is their friend, even while they are aware that he is also a friend of people with whom they are not friends.
Charm in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Some people are charming because they have an instinctive understanding and empathy with other people, and because they like to put others at their ease. Some people are charming because it enables them to get their way. Anyone watching the peace process, and how Ian Paisley was consistently snubbed until he wiped out the UUP at the elections, could not have failed to notice how Blair swallowed hard, and turned the dazzle on Big Ian. When the charm is turned off, as it was with Mo Mowlam, it is deeply unpleasant to watch.
People who are charming do not necessarily like other people and enjoy their company. Many people exert their charm as a mechanism for keeping people at arms' length. No real relationship is possible unless you have some idea what the other person is really feeling and thinking.
However, the much-praised "what you see is what you get" is often an excuse for boorish behaviour. Both Bertie and Blair are smart enough to know that while people claim to like straight-up honesty, most people purr like cats when properly stroked.
Bertie and Blair have both been accused of standing for nothing, or of changing when the mood of the public changes. Bertie would be left in the halfpenny place when it comes to inconsistency. Blair declared himself to be anti-abortion, but his voting record is that while he did vote to reduce the limit to 24 weeks, he voted against reducing it to 18, 20 or 22 weeks.
He declared that his priorities were going to be education, education, education, but the British education system remains a mess. As a high Anglican who often attends Catholic masses, he found it very easy to ignore pope John Paul's declaration that "war is always a defeat for humanity" when it came to Iraq.
Is Blair as slippery as an eel, or just doing what he thought was best at the time as he claimed on Thursday? Quite possibly, both are true to a degree. His gamble in Iraq failed disastrously, but similar convictions helped the situation in Kosovo. Like Whitman, Blair may contradict himself, and "contain multitudes". Paradoxically, this renders him more complex and more interesting than the smooth face he often seeks to present. At least one of the multitudes is a man struggling to act from conviction.
Bertie, while as complex as Blair, has that quintessentially Irish characteristic of modestly pretending to be no better than anyone else. You wouldn't catch Bertie blabbing on about the hand of history on his shoulder.
Bertie is the guy next door, who cultivates the middle management vibe of someone who would love to help but just does not have the authority.
Despite being a true Dub, he is a favourite with country people.
LP Hartley may have said that the past is a different country, but the country is a different country, too. A friend of mine had the interesting experience when selling a site to a neighbour. She wanted to have all payments above board, whereas he expected to bung her one-quarter of the price in cash so as to help her avoid tax. Faced with his gentle pity for her naivete, she was the one who ended up feeling mortified for wanting to do things properly.
Not that such carry-on is confined to the rural areas, but it is more cheerfully visible there. As a result, the country is not interested in Bertie's house troubles, much as they may bother The Irish Times. Many people are interested in what will keep the good times rolling.
Both men have always prided themselves on their ability to deliver a result in an election. It will be ironic indeed if his good friend Blair's departure reinforces the idea that Bertie has created his legacy in the North, and that now would be a decent time to shaft him at the ballot box.
The gloss quickly wore off Blair, leaving him looking a little shabby and tawdry. Bertie, with less aspirations either to sanctity or glamour, might prove to be more durable. But not even the inscrutable Bertie knows that for sure.