Feminists might think they’ve cracked the establishment in Ireland, but you can read all the Germaine Greer you want, ladies – you’re still never getting between a Fianna Fáiler and a cosy backroom deal to hand out the big jobs.
It bears remembering that if Harris were to increase her support amongst women by just 4 or 5% over the next few months, this election would be over, and she would be comfortably elected.
My colleague Ben asked the Minister, yesterday, how she could look the Irish people in the face and defend this situation. The answer, of course, is that she cannot, and she will not try to.
When the mainstream media abdicates its role, there’s always someone there to pick up the pieces.
Really though, I blame Peterson, who should have had the common decency to cut that line from the interview before he aired it.
There’s a strong argument that we could make the poorest people in Ireland better off by taxing their incomes at a higher rate, while drastically cutting the taxes that actually drive up the cost of living, like VAT and fuel duties.
This transformation of politics in the west from a battle of ideas to a battle of competing tribes of people convinced that a single defeat will bring the end of the world as we know it is, needless to say, not a great development.
If the Pope – this one or his predecessors – had any interest in saving the church in Ireland, he should have sacked every Irish Bishop twenty years ago and installed people from outside the country to completely reform the Irish Church, root and branch.
The Sinn Fein statement was almost perfectly calibrated to alienate all sides.
For Harris, the fencing along the canals runs a real risk of becoming a real electoral monument to his lack of judgment.
Also: The media embraces a role as propagandist, the EU tries to solve housing, and why “The Boys” is top telly.
The irony here is that almost anything you do to make her position more democratically accountable would also strengthen her power to set the agenda in Europe.