One of the reasons I get into trouble with right wing readers as often as I do is that there’s an inherent tension in this job between writing about things that are actually happening in the country or world versus writing about things that people might like to imagine are happening in the country.
For example, while some people might be tempted to write an optimistic article cheering their more right wing readers up about the results of the local and European elections held two weeks ago, an honest appraisal of the facts should prohibit them from doing so: In those local elections, the three Government parties won an overall majority of the votes, and an overall majority of the seats available. By any definition understood in any democracy since the dawn of time, the Irish Government won the election and won it impressively. In the European election, they came close to doing the same, and were they to repeat their electoral performance in the upcoming general election, the present Government – or at least the two largest parties within it – could expect not only to win re-election, but to actually gain seats on the opposition.
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