Translation for those not from Ireland who know nothing about Bakic?
Briefly: Ivana is culture-warrior-in-chief of the Labour Party. A law professor in Trinity College with a condescending manner and a seeming inability to connect with the ordinary voter beyond the bourgeois bohemians of Ranelagh and Sandymount, who has stood for election for the European parliament (once) and the Dáil (twice) and failed every time. She is to the social liberal wing of the Labour Party what Gay Mitchell is/was to the traditional wing of Fine Gael - someone who embodies the group's own complete set of prejudices and assumptions, but who will progressively antagonise the general public the more they see of her.
Labour told people during the 2011 election that they needed to be elected to keep curbs on the economic slash-and-burners of Fine Gael. Instead, economic policy was almost fully conceded to FG (backed by the Troika) while Labour, under the leadership of the ex-Stickies, decided to concentrate on social liberalism: abortion, gay marriage and secularism; issues which excite a large part of their membership base in bo-bo land and in social media but go nowhere in the real world at the moment. At a time when most people are seeing their living standards decline due to wage cuts, flat charges for utilities and public service cuts, these were viewed as at best an irrelevance and at worst an irritation.
Burton has managed over the last couple of years to create a public perception that she was in the government but not of it; even though she presided over considerable cuts in social welfare payments and the introduction of workfare measures, she kept making it clear by judiciously-timed statements to the media that she disagreed with much of the strategy being decided by the inner cabinet (the Economic Management Council). This helped her to be seen as the internal opposition to Gilmore, Rabbitte, etc. and is likely to provide her with at least a temporary degree of public goodwill (I would expect Labour's opinion poll ratings to return to the low double digits rather than the middle single digits, for example). Her initial statements indicate a determination to refocus Labour on affecting the economic policy of the government and on things that matter to their traditional voters; appointing Bacik to Cabinet, on the other hand, would nullify that and would end up being presented as a doubling down on the social liberal agenda.
Much obliged! Very clear.
