We watch on as Aleppo, the third oldest city in the world, is blown into oblivion while our Dail chamber argues over who should get credit for an extra fiver on the pension. It makes you wonder what sort of world we live in, writes Fergus Finlay.

‘You don’t win a strike,’ Paddy Cardiff used to say. ‘When it’s over, you try to recover from it’, writes, Fergus Finlay.

One of the first rules of crisis communications is that you gather your facts before opening your mouth, writes Fergus Finlay

The extent to which they will be leaders will be determined by that mix of passion, ego that isn’t selfserving, and fierce undivided loyalty to the project, writes Fergus Finlay