THE recent RTÉ television programmes featuring Dr Frank Luntz with groups of undecided voters made for great viewing.

THE media’s very positive to Enda Kenny’s keynote speech at the Fine Gael ard fheis is not shared by members of the public, the latest televised focus group for RTÉ suggests.

You know that juggler’s trick where they yank a table-cloth out from under the crockery, glasses and cutlery so suddenly that the table stays set, with every glass, plate and fork in the same position on the now-bare table?

WHO is the star of this week’s column? Take a wild guess. If you happened to die and are now pushing up daisies, you might not have noticed him this week.

BRIAN COWEN was coming down with flu the only time I met him. He had a thumping headache, a sore throat and was rocked with bouts of sneezing.

SHORT of tearing up the Mullingar accord with Fine Gael, Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte appeared in a TV3 television interview to hint that the post-General Election landscape might be different.

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern will meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street tonight to discuss ongoing attempts to restore power-sharing in the North.

Frank Luntz, the American pollster, pitched up on RTE One’s The Week in Politics programme last night, to take the political focus group — famously described by Bill Clinton as “a bunch of bull” — to a new and exciting level.

AS a means of testing the public mood, opinion polls have been the only show in town. Until now that is.