Don't Kill Bill - he'll be Proved Right - and Sooner than You Think

I was at Beal Na mBláth on Sunday. I've been attending the Michael Collins ceremonies there for a number of years now,
in a working capacity. In fairness, no matter what your politics, it's an excellent annual tribute to the Great Man. It's reverent, respectful and patriotic. The garage down the road also does a fresh, juicy and most acceptably tasty hamburger, which is worth the trip in itself, and besides, the orator on the day might just say something worth reporting on.

Bill O'Herlihy was an interesting choice. When I first heard that he was to give the oration this year, I did a bit of a double take. '..Bill O'Herlihy?.. What's that about?..' Of course, a quick recap of O'Herlihys career quickly answers that one. The affable Glasheen man has had close ties to Fine Gael for the bones of forty years. He was once an advisor on Press & Media to none other than Garret 'The Good' himself. His PR company has regularly given strategic advice to FG over the decades.

His 'advice' at Beal Na mBláth on Sunday, however, has left party stalwarts scratching their heads, and as they left to return to their cars, you could see them, like cattle, chewing on the cud of what he had just told them to do.

Bill O'Herlihy reckons its time to bury the hatchet with the arch-enemy, Fianna Fáil. It's time, he told the faithful on Sunday, to leave the Civil War behind, join forces and work together. He told them, in no uncertain terms, that there's not "the width of a sheet of tissue paper" between their two policy platforms. He wants them to form a Coalition, perhaps even as soon as after the next election.

My friends, the time is coming, and when it comes, we should not be at all surprised to hear it has arrived. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are on a path towards coalition. The courtship has begun. The mating dance, although in its first very tentative stages, is underway. The two sworn enemies of old are starting to behave like a pair of cranky old cats begrudgingly realising that they might actually be able to make a home together, and, horror of horrors, even share a basket.

You'll notice that since O'Herlihys speech, not one senior figure has come out and said '..it'll never happen..'

Those that were willing to take our calls on Monday (most didn't reply, though some are away) would merely says that '..at the end of the day, the people will decide at the next election..'. It's not a definite Yes or No - they're politicians, what do you expect - but it's the closest thing to '..we're thinking about it..' that I've ever heard.

Of course, they're actually right. It's the voters who will eventually decide the makeup of the next Dáil, or any future Dáil for that matter. It's the one great thing about our form of democracy. We get the people we vote for - and I'm prepared to wager that when the next election comes, and the votes are counted, the numbers will stack up.

At the last by-election in Meath East, the FF and FG candidates between them won 70% of the first preference vote. Helen McEntee, who won her late fathers seat, and Thomas Byrne swept the rest of the field aside. Every weekend we are bombarded with another opinion poll. While the papers focus on who's ahead and by how much, I've been watching how much of the vote the Big Two might get between them. It makes interesting reading.

In May, a Red C poll gave both FF and FG 26% support. That's 52% between them. A more recent set of figures saw the 'Old Firm' with 51% combined support. There have been others. Polls are polls, and are only, as the saying goes, 'a snapshot in time', but at this stage I've seen a fair few snapshots, and I can see a pattern emerging.

In 2011, Fianna Fáil were mauled, mangled and mutilated by an angry electorate. They weren't so much kicked to touch as beaten into oblivion. However, they seem to have stabilised themselves. To give credit where its due, they've admitted that they messed up, and said they will work hard for the voters forgiveness. Whether they'll get it, I don't know, but the polls would seem to indicate that while they're still very much on the 'Naughty Step', they will eventually be invited down off the stairs and back into the Living Room.

Another thing the polls are telling us, is that Labour are next in line for a hammering. They tell us furthermore that Sinn Féin appear to have peaked, and that the Independents & 'Others' are losing it a bit. While a single poll is a 'snapshot' in time, my old friend and 96FM's ever astute political analyst, Finbarr Kiely, taught me a long time ago to watch polls in sequence, and not view them individually - to watch the trends, not the actual numbers.

Bearing all that in mind, I'm going to make a prediction here and now. I predict that Fine Gael & Fianna Fáil certainly will form a Government together, and sooner than we think. The next election, if things run to schedule, is due in the Spring of 2016. With the size of the Dáil being cut from 166 to 158 seats, the magic number will be 80 seats - make that 79, if you include the Ceann Comhairle.

Fianna Fáil will gain seats. They will recover some marginals and snatch back some of those that they lost to Independents and others in 2011. I won't put a precise number on it, but I can see them rising from their current 19, to perhaps the low 30s. Fine Gael will lose seats - with marginals up for grabs, and the fallout from things like the Abortion row. Labour are in trouble. They won 37 seats last time out, but I can see over half of them lost, if not more. Sinn Féin will hold their own, and might gain a seat or two, but no more. A lot of the Independents will be 'one term wonders', and will be replaced by others. That's politics.

I can see a situation presenting itself where the State of The Parties will be such that only a combination of FG & FF will actually 'have the numbers' for a workable majority. Unless there's a really massive swing away from FG, similar to what occurred with FF in 2011, it's hard to see them losing out on a second term in Government. The only question is - 'with who?'.

And then, my friends, it'll be a case of '..Don't mention The War..'

What Happened to "Getting Away from It All"?

I tweeted from beside the pool in Lanzarote on Monday afternoon. It was the first time I had even looked at Twitter since turning off my iPhone the previous Tuesday. I had gone online at a little kiosk in our apartment block reception to check us in for our flight home. If I hadn't had to do it, I know I wouldn't have even looked at the web until I came back to Cork. My email was (and remains) in "out of office reply" mode until I go back to work next week.

For the week we were away, I didn't so much as look at a paper, and I refused point blank to hook up the (extremely cheap and very high quality) satellite TV service offered to us - RTE, BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky Sports and a couple of others. I just didn't want to know. I just wanted to get away from it all. I turned on my phone twice in the week to check for any urgent messages, and to maintain contact when I was off for a walk with Boy Wonder, but otherwise it sat in a drawer.

The Queen Bee texted her sister a few times a day - they are pretty much joined at the hip - but otherwise she also maintained "communications silence" for the week. That's how we do it on holiday. The Coogans officially go "offline", until the plane lands back in Cork.

But I wonder, if anyone else does it anymore?.

I spent, as you do, many hours last week, sitting in the sun, with a book and a bottle of beer. Surrounded by other families around the pool, however, I observed something I've never seen before. No sunlounger (other than mine) was without a smartphone, an iPad or tablet, or sometimes even an actual laptop! A family near me on Monday had four phones, two pads and a notebook on the go. In the evenings, as we had dinner and a few drinks, I was amused to find that free wifi was almost as important to some diners as the coldness of their beer or the quality of their food. Holiday laughter and chatter has been replaced by the 'bip bip' of hand held games. The last straw, however, and the trigger, I guess, for this blog, was when I saw a family watching "Eastenders" on an iPad, as they tucked into their Canarian Potatoes. I mean, come ON!

A holiday is supposed to be a break. It's supposed to be a week or two where we change our routine, forget about our troubles and just, well, LIVE. Spend time with the family. Do stuff you can't normally get the time or the opportunity to do. I can honestly tell you that if I hadn't been back in Cork, I might have taken a full day to hear about Robert Heffernans great win in Moscow. When Cork beat Dublin I was snorkelling in the warm sea with my daughter. I got a text about it hours later when I turned on my phone. I had actually forgotten it was Sunday - otherwise I might (I admit) have toddled over to the Mucky Duck for a pint to watch the second half. Or I might not. That, to me, is getting away from it all.

I hope the people around me last week had a great holiday. If their time away was even fractionally as much fun as ours, then I'm sure they'll have had a ball - but to me, a lot of them looked as if they were doing exactly what they do at home - except they were doing it in the sun.

The Queen Bee has a phrase for it. She calls it FOMO - Fear of Missing Out. Fear that if they go home after a week or a fortnight that they won't KNOW about something that happened while they were away. That they won't have SEEN that match or that TV moment that went viral, or, Heaven forbid, that some "celebrity" or other has filed for a divorce. In these days of instant, global mass communication, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and what have you,they feel they must "keep up".

As I was packing to come home, I saw a family arriving from Dublin at the apartment next to us. They left their cases on the terrace, and opened the slide door. As his wife and kids checked out the place that would be their home for the next week or two, however, Dad sat down, opened his backpack, fished out his iPad, and proceeded to log in to the free wifi. He sat there for a good ten minutes, tapping. It wasn't urgent work to be finished - no - he was on Twitter! What on Earth, I wondered, is that important?

What happened to just "Getting Away from It All"...

Abortion: the Wisest words I've heard in 30 Years..

I've had this post brewing inside my head for a while now.



I was just about old enough to vote when Abortion first reared its head as a political and constitutional issue in this Country. It makes me shudder inside to think that I now have children who will be eligible to vote themselves in a just over two years, and yet it still goes on.

Yes, it may all have kicked off again with the awful tragedy of Savita Hallapanavar last year, but in reality, it's never really gone away. Since the first referendum in the 1980s, we've had three more (yes, three - on one day!) in 1992, in response to the 'X' case. Two of those (the Right to Travel and the Right to Information) were passed, while the third, which would have strengthened the 1980s ban, was defeated. In 2002, another referendum, again to strengthen the original ban, was also defeated by the voters.



Each time, the debate was divisive, angry and very, very bitter.

As I drove my daughter to school the other morning, we were listening to a discussion on Newstalk about it, when she started a conversation with me, that went a bit like this:

"Dad, why can't they just sort it out? They're fighting over it since that poor lady (Savita) died in Galway!".

"Believe it or not, kid," says I "they're fighting about it since I was only a little bit older than you are now."

"But Dad, it's so dumb. Why would anyone think its right for that lovely lady to die, when they knew her baby was going to die anyway? I can't understand that?"

Says I, "I guess its probably not as simple as that. There were other things went wrong too, but I see what you mean."

"No, Dad," she insisted, "It is as simple as that! Why would you let somebody die, when they have people who love them, and need them, and will be so sad, for a little baby that isn't even going to live? It doesn't make any sense."

We drove on, and talked about other things - in between her constant furious texting of her mates (you get used to it), and I thought I'd put a question to her.

"Do you think there should be Abortion here? Is it something you'd like to see when you're older?"

"Dad," she replied, "I don't think its something I would ever want - but then it's not fair for me to tell (insert name of school pal), that she can't, is it? Isn't it up to her?"

My daughter is surely wise beyond her years. For her, it's a simple matter. She doesn't think Abortion is something that she'll ever want, but she doesn't see herself as having any right to tell anyone else what to do.

She's 15, and those are the wisest words I've heard in 30 years of this crazy argument..



I'm not writing this entry to make a point or take a stand. I'm not writing it to declare myself on one side or the other. I'll be perfectly honest, I dislike the concept of Abortion. I personally would prefer if it didn't happen, or if it did happen, could only happen in a very limited, clearly defined set of circumstances, like rape, incest, or the case where a woman has been told her baby cannot and will not survive. I would be fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea that so-called "Abortion On Demand" might be available in this Country.

However, in feeling that discomfort, I also must recognise that it may be what others want, and in a free country, must ask who I am to question their right to have that.

I hate to hear the angry voices and the bitter arguments that I remember from 30 years ago, starting up again, but with age comes a better ability (I think and would hope) to listen and analyse. With that analysis comes a question, and it's a thought I'll leave you with today..



I watched Prime Time on RTE, last night. Dr. Berry Kiely of the Prolife Campaign (Christ, I hate that term) was on with Sandra McGuinness, a woman who had to go to England to terminate her pregnancy after being told her baby would not survive. She could not do it here, under any circumstances. Dr. Kiely effectively told her to her face that she had "gone to England to kill her baby.."

It left me wondering - how is it, that many of those most vehemently, most unmovingly and seemingly (to me) most cold heartedly opposed to helping women in a crisis, are women themselves?

That's the bit that really, really makes no sense.

Thoughts of Mrs. T.

I grew up in the Thatcher years. She was, I think, part of the reason I developed my interest in politics. When she first became the British Prime Minister, I had just turned 14. I was in my mid-twenties, and working, when Maggie eventually stepped down, ousted by her own party after three General Election victories on the bounce.

Last Monday, I had just finished a set of news interviews at the River Lee Hotel, when I saw on Twitter that she had died. Sky News was on the TV in the hotel conference area, and the flood of reaction had begun. Social Media was hopping. For everyone who described her as a great Prime Minister, or even a great World Leader, and would mourn her passing, there was another for whom her death came as good news. I think I saw the first posting of "Ding Dong (the Witch is Dead" within half an hour of the official confirmation. The whole thing set me thinking. How, if I were asked, would I describe her?

So, I began to think, and I began to read back over the news and events of my teens.



I looked back at the H-Block and the Hunger Strikes. As a typical Irish teen of the time, I looked upon her as the woman who killed Bobby Sands. I admire any man with the courage to risk his health, or even his life for a belief, and convinced myself that he was right, and she was wrong. I considered that she had starved him and the others to death. Now, as I can feel my half century starting to bear down on me, I'm not so sure. Did she cause the hunger strikers to die, or did those men choose to end their own lives, by continuing with a lethally dangerous form of protest, when anyone could see Mrs. Thatcher was prepared to let it happen? Yes, she could have saved them from certain death, but by the same token, they could also have saved themselves.

I thought about the Miners Strike. I was in college at the time, and then, as I do now, I believed in, and supported the Trade Union movement. I had an opportunity at the time to hear Arthur Scargill speak at UCC. He was a powerful, articulate and convincing speaker, and if I'm to be truthful, convinced me that Margaret Thatcher was the embodiment of evil, who wanted to destroy entire swathes of her own country. Looking back on it now, with a few decades in the Real World under my belt, I know that I could not have been more wrong. The twenty mines, and remember it was only twenty out of a total of nearly 180 around Britain, were not paying their way. They had not paid their way for a long time, were costing a fortune to keep open, and were plainly unsustainable. The strike led by Scargill was also illegal. It did not have the support of the majority of his unions (NUM) members. This is because having lost three previous ballots for strike, he refused to ballot again, and just walked (some might argue dragged or even forced) the men out of the pits and onto picket lines. Many of them did not want to be there. They wanted to work - but he muscled them out. Mrs. Thatcher was not one for flinching, and she set her face against the actions of the NUM, determined to break Scargill, which of course, she did.



I fully understand how she is hated to this day for the closure of the mines, because of the havoc those closures wreaked on the local economies that surrounded them. However, looking back, I can see why she did it. She believed that it was not the role of the State to pour good money after bad into subsidy of a mining operation that without that support, would die on its feet. Thatcherism, as it came to be known, dictated that a business which cannot sustain itself, should either restructure and 'fix' itself, or be closed. Thatcherism and its supporters held that it's not the job of the State to sustain a business. She took over a Britain in which many industries were Nationalised, were sucking the exchequer dry in an effort to stay alive, and could never hope to compete in a Global marketplace. They were ruled over by unions that wielded an unhealthy level of power and control. Bear in mind that when she arrived in Downing Street, Britain had suffered its now infamous "Winter of Discontent", with strike, after strike after strike - under a Labour government! Mrs. Thatcher took it all by the scruff of the neck and sorted it out.

Another central plank of Thatcherism was that people should support themselves, make their own breaks and build their own success, with the resources at their disposal. She allowed and even encouraged people to buy their own Council Houses. She cut taxes, slashed regulation and kicked State control to touch, so that businesses could get off the ground and prosper. However, and before I'm accused of being a Thatcherite myself, she forgot something. Mrs. Thatcher forgot (or perhaps didn't care - I've yet to decide for sure to be honest) that there must also be a kind of "Social Safety Net", to catch, mind and protect those without the education or skillset to do their own thing. Mrs. Thatcher didn't believe that the State must be willing to protect certain people. In that, she got it badly wrong. Some people will never be able to go it alone. That's just the way it is, and it was a great failing of her economic model, that Mrs. Thatcher wouldn't accept that.



I think its fair to say that Margaret Thatcher is seen by Socialists as the Devil Incarnate. It's easy to see why. Thatcherism, in its purest form, saw dependency on the State or on Welfare, as undesirable. Hundreds of thousands of people agreed. They must have done - they voted for her in huge numbers. She won three General Elections in a row. That drove Socialists demented. Everyone who put dependency behind them, worked hard and enjoyed the fruits of that work in the form of money and having nice homes and 'things', was a person who would never again embrace Socialism. As her successor John Major put it, "Socialism depends on dependency. It feeds on poverty and thrives on the needy."

Margaret Thatcher was both loved and loathed. She was seen, depending on your point of view, as both an economic reformer and a ruthless dictator. She got a lot of things terribly, terribly wrong, especially in her Foreign policy - but any realistic analysis of her career must give her due credit for taking a Country that was falling to bits and being bailed out and financed by our "friends" the IMF (yes, it was!), and turning it around. Obviously in that, she got things wrong too - sometimes terribly wrong - but she got a lot of things right. Ask the hundreds and hundreds of people who still run small businesses that they set up while she was in office.

Love her, or hate her, you can't ignore her.

RIP, Mrs. T..

You'll Change Nothing Sitting on Your Ass..

Let me start today, by saying two things very clearly. Firstly, I congratulate Helen McEntee without the slightest hesitation, on retaining her late Dad's seat in the Dáil. Secondly, I didn't know Shane, although I did meet him a few times, and found him a likeable fellow. My colleagues in the Dublin based media confirm, however, that he was all of that, and more. His untimely death, a few days before Christmas, was a dreadful tragedy. I wanted to get that out of the way, before I say anything more.

However, this has been an interesting by-election campaign to watch unfolding.



From the very start, it was shaping up as a race between Helen McEntee and Thomas Byrne, the Fianna Fáil candidate. Despite the drubbing his party received at the polls in 2011, Byrne is a popular character, who still attracts a personal vote. With Fianna Fáil currently enjoying a comeback in the opinion polls, he was always destined to do well. Incumbent governments rarely win by-elections, and FF saw this as an opportunity to demonstrate that they're "turning things round" with Micheál Martin at the helm.

Labour are feeling the pinch that all junior coalition parties feel, and probably a worse one, because of the decisions they've taken and supported since entering Government. Their candidate, Eric Holmes, I also have to say, wouldn't endear the floating or undecided voter. He had that "something about you I don't like" look about him.

I know little or nothing about Sinn Féins man - except that he seems to have spent time in what I call "Shinnerversity", that mysterious finishing school the party appears to have for its representatives, where they are turned into smart, articulate, and exceedingly well spoken debaters. If there's one thing I'll always give Sinn Féin, it's their ability to coach their personnel on media presentation and performance. However, much of that slick performance is based on the safe knowledge that they're not going to be in Government any time soon, because nobody will coalesce with them.



Then there are the others. Ben Gilroy, for example, who became a YouTube celebrity, waving around a copy of the Bunreacht, and now fronting a party that says its not really a party at all. A number of independents made up the rest of the ballot paper. It wasn't the most inspirational bunch that ever stood for election, I'll grant you that, but at least they stood and they put themselves before the people.

Yet more than 60% of the people stayed at home.

Now, I am a daily reader of The Journal.


It's an excellent news website, arguably better than the papers. I wouldn't feel my morning was complete without a good browse. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the site is the "comments" section. I don't take part in it, because I prefer to observe, but on politics in particular, its hyperactive. Hundreds of comments that become debates on their own, diverting your attention away from the original article. Those taking part vary from the level headed and intelligent, who likes a good discussion, to those who are most charitably described as "a little bit bonkers". There are hundreds of them, and they have plenty to say. I assume there are a fair few of them based in Meath East, as well.

So where were they yesterday?

At the close of the poll in Meath East last night, significantly less than 40% of the electorate had bothered to make their way to a polling station. For all their talk, they stayed at home. They slugged on their tay, and did nothing. They couldn't be bothered to go and make a scratch for somebody. They just couldn't be bothered. By not being bothered, they silently supported the establishment. A low turnout always favours the two big parties. It always has and it always will. By staying at home, by taking the lazy option, by not being bothered their ass, they actually voted, by not voting at all. They supported the very "establishment" they want to topple.

Far, far be it from me to ever quote that insufferable gobshite, Dr. Phil, but "..How's that workin' for ya.."



I've covered politics as part of my job for more than 20 years. I've listened to all the rhetoric, heard all the promises, and learned to keep a straight face when faced with various shades of bullshit. The worst bullshit of all, however, is the bullshit of those who demand "change", yet stay at home sat on their arses and do sweet FA about it.

Well, this time, like every time before, they've gotten what they deserve. As a wise man said.. "If you only ever do, what you've only ever done, you'll only ever get, what you only ever got."

In the meantime the establishment is laughing all the way to the next General Election, which will, and mark my words it will, result in a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Why wouldn't it, when over half those who vote, vote for one or the other.

It's coming, as sure as Christmas - and the only ones who can prevent it, couldn't be bothered their ass..

An Interesting Choice...

Well, hello there.. It's been a while, but now that I've parted company (on good terms and as friends) with The Cork Independent, I figure it's time to get this Blog going again. I'm going to try to post every few days on stuff that takes my fancy, floats my boat, or just makes my blood boil. On radio, you don't often get the chance to expand on things. It's all about being "tight, snappy and simple". I'm good at that, but I've often got more to say, and this is my chance to do it.





I thought I'd start it up again by writing about the new Pope. I'm not religious. My parents raised me in their Catholic faith, which means a lot to them, and I'm still a "card carrying" Catholic, if that's the right term, but I'm certainly not devout in any way! I go to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, because I love it, but I get drunk and eat chicken wings with friends at a house party on a Good Friday night, because I love that too!

However, I've been fascinated with Vatican and Papal politics for as long as I can remember. It began, I think, when as a youngster, I was captivated by the whole sequence of events surrounding the death of Pope Paul VI, the election of Cardinal Albino Luciani as John Paul I, and his sudden death a month later. I was only about 12, but I was hooked.

I may have been only 19, but when David Yallop published his fantastic book, "In Gods Name" in 1984, outlining his theory that John Paul I was murdered, I read it in a single sitting. Similarly, when John Cornwell, in around 1989, wrote his book "A Thief In The Night", as an (ineffective) effort to disprove Yallops account, I devoured it. In between, I spent my Summer holidays in Wales, leafing through "Vicars of Christ", Peter de Rosa's brilliant 900 page tome on the history of the papacy. Even as a kid, those three books sowed for me, the seeds of an interest that I still have, even though no book since, I feel, has ever matched any of them. The Papacy is the single most politically powerful, and politically driven leadership on the planet, bar none.

Last evening, when I heard of the election of Pope Francis, I was surprised, but also intrigued. I had been expecting Cardinal Angelo Scola, of Milan, to be chosen. He is a close personal friend, and more importantly close in theological and philosophical views, to Benedict XVI. There were other contenders, a Brazilian, an American and a Canadian, but looking at the 'politics' of it, Scola should have been hard to beat. Bear with me and I'll explain why I believe this.

Lets deal with this, in the kind of terms we might apply to a regular political election. The electorate was 115. The quota is two thirds plus one vote, which rounding up the figures, comes to 77. of those, 67 were "created" by Benedict, and the remaining 47 by the late John Paul II. You can be as sure as night follows day, that Benedicts cardinals would support somebody he favoured. He was, for example, the choice of John Paul, and 'walked it' in 2005. However, with a quota of 77, there had to be at least ten from John Pauls cardinals!

So lets examine how this works. Balloting continues until somebody gets to 77 votes or more, which leads me to think that it went a particular way. I think it became clear very quickly that Scola, or any of the other "favourites" would be struggling to get to 77. After 5 ballots, I suspect the numbers weren't moving a great deal.

At this point, if a political party were selecting a leader, they would turn to a "compromise" candidate. That's what Fianna Fáil did, for example, when they chose Jack Lynch. So, who do you choose?

Here's where the 'real politick' kicks in.

In 2005, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was the runner up to Benedict XVI (Josef Ratzinger). Yes, the conclave is meant to be secret, but this stuff gets out. I knew this, for example, as a "conclave junkie". What I wasn't aware of, though, and heard it only late last night on BBC Radio, was that in order to get Ratzinger over the quota (71, at the time, if I recall), Bergoglio, who knew his race was run, spoke to come close confidantes in the Sistine Chapel, and asked them to give his rival the nod. Great favours such as this, are never forgotten. That's politics, be it in a Town Council vote on bin charges, or a final ballot for the Papacy.

Given that the need may have emerged for a compromise yesterday, that favour from 2005, may well have been called in. John Pauls appointees would have remembered his gesture to Ratzinger, while those elevated by Benedict, did in a way, owe Bergoglio the favour too, for obvious reasons. You might say I'm reducing the whole thing to 'horse trading', but hey, thats's Politics. Once Bergoglio was then willing to take the gig, it was his.

An interesting and surprise selection? Certainly. A mystery? Not really, when you look at the machinations of how an election can work behind closed doors.

Finally, a word to those who wanted a Pope that would consider Women as priests, approve the marriage of gay or lesbian Catholics to each other, tell anyone its OK to take the pill or carry a rubber Johnny. You'll be waiting.

It was never coming out of this conclave, given that John Paul and Benedict were both deeply conservative men and had obviously appointed those of similar views. To expect anything else is like expecting Enda Kenny have appointed a Sinn Fein man to Cabinet!

The new man, Francis, is also a conservative - he was appointed by John Paul, and so I wouldn't be expecting any huge change there, either.

That's Politics for ya!

Aras Musings - A Series (3) - Gallagher? Are You Serious?

I had planned to update this blog a bit more regularly, but so much is going on that I'd be writing around the clock if I was to keep up with everything that's happening. Thank goodness the election campaign has livened up a bit, even if it's getting increasingly nasty by the day.

As I write, we are awaiting the latest opinion poll from Red C, but it comes on the back of this mornings Irish Times / IPSOS / MRBI figures, which were pretty interesting to say the least, and, if I'm to be honest, more than a wee bit worrying! I'm beginning to get the distinct impression that this campaign is being won and lost - not in the general media, but the "Red Tops", who are willing to crucify each other for the latest little smidgin of dirt they can find on any given candidate, on any given day.

So far, they appear to have successfully bludgeoned David Norris into submission, a bit like baby seals are clubbed to death in parts of Canada. When they couldn't for whatever reason, get copies of the letters he wrote to put on a front page, they started on other stuff. If I were to believe everything I read on the tabloids in the past few days, Senator Norris is going blind, struggles to control his drinking, and is some kind of welfare fraudster. The poison, most of it spewed by Ger Colleran and his colleagues in The Star, appears to have had its effect, and Norris has collapsed in the opinion polls. Now, don't get me wrong - his action in writing the now infamous letters was not the wisest - but Jaysus, nobody died. The youngster who had (fully consentual, it should be repeatedly stated) sex with yer man, Ezra, is now an adult, and entitled to his anonymity. Why should he risk losing that, just because somebody wants to see a bloody letter? Of course, when the letters were not forthcoming, another way had to be found (in the eyes of the tabloids) to "take Norris out". If you ask me, it's shameful.

Mind you, it's not just Norris who has been pursued. So Mary Davis sat on boards, or as Vincent Brown put it the other night "she's been on more boards than Michael Flatley", over the past number of years. Er, so what? Beggin' yer pardon, like, but where's the crime here? OK, it might suggest that she was "well-in" with the Government of the day, but would I turn down an appointment to a board, if someone offered it to me? I would in my ass. Now, the PR contract controversy, admittedly, does suggest a bit too much 'insider info'.. but again, there's no evidence of any wrongdoing, so far as I can see.

Of course, as sure as the tabloids can take you down, so they can also build somebody else up to the last. Sean Gallagher has rocketed to second place in the latest poll, behind Michael D. Higgins. Never mind the fact that he represents a kind of "continuity Fianna Fail", but ask yourself - who is he, exactly?? He's a REALITY TV STAR, that's what he is. He appears on a ridiculous, shallow little TV show, and has made a few inane, populist comments about election posters and Litreacha Um Thoghcháin. Dreadful stuff. BUT... the tabloids love him, because he is "The Man from Dragons Den.." Jesus Wept. Is that how shallow we've become? Maybe Rosanna Davison or Georgia flippin' Salpa should be candidates, if they were old enough?

Now, before my friends from the Tabloids gather around to have me frogmarched out and shot, they're not entirely to blame for how the opinion polls are changing. When I listened to Gay Mitchell getting stuck into Martin McGuinness on Eamonn Dunphys programme last weekend, I said to the Queen Bee.. "He'll pay for that.." and he has. I don't care what you say, but there has surely to be some correlation between Mitchells attack, which - unlike Vincent Brownes the other night - was cack handed, rude and belligerent, and his continuing slide. Gay Mitchell is not popular, and Fine Gael must now realise that they picked the wrong man for this race. Not just because he lives in Cork, but surely Pat Cox, even as a "parachute" candidate, would now be doing a lot better, simply because he wouldn't get into ugly little spats like that.

So, at the end of my latest rant, how am I calling it? Well, it's Michael D's to lose. Gallagher has made big inroads over the past week, but I can't see it lasting. Unless he gets ahead of the Labour man on first preferences, I can't see him winning.I think you can forget Martin McGuinness at this stage, and you can't really see Norris recovering - BUT.. he's going to transfer very heavily to Michael D., the man who let him into the race..

Phew! That's that lot off me chest!