Sinn Fein will spin a disastrous result as good news.
In an election like this, it may take days for the full results to be known.
For the rest of us, and indeed for people genuinely sympathetic to Mr. Burke, the very worst thing we can or should do is indulge this self-destructive behaviour.
Up until relatively recently, a politician in Ireland could watch the 6 and 9 news on RTE and get a broadly reliable sense of the news the country was seeing, and how, therefore, to calibrate their message.
“The more turnout goes above 49%, the worse for the big parties. The lower it is, the worse for independents and small parties.”
You cannot say how many homes you will need by 2030 without first knowing how many people will be in the country in 2030. The only way to get that number right – by definition – is to enact some restriction on immigration.
And perhaps all candidates might be asked, in an ideal world, about what they think of RTE confining the debate to only eight candidates, ranging from the left to the far left.
What, exactly, is the point of the television licence, if RTE is not going to behave any differently from the commercial stations that don’t receive a penny in public funding?
This time next week, it’ll be polling day, and the whole great circus will come to an end. At least for a few months. Thank God.
The GAA has now set a precedent that it can, and will, be pushed around into making political statements. That was a mistake. And not one, even, that will do a single thing for a soul in the Gaza strip.
Modern warfare is not about land, but about infrastructure. Ireland houses infrastructure that is vital to both our own interests, and, whether we like it, those of Europe and NATO.
Of the three EU constituencies, Dublin is the one with the fewest certainty. And the candidate who the polls say is the most certain has, I think, more to worry about than many of his competitors.