King of dig-outs styles himself queen of hearts

SHE was the Queen of Hearts, he was the king of dig-outs - and both were laid low by vast conspiracies orchestrated by their enemies.

Bertie Ahern invoked the memory of the blessed Princess of Wales yesterday as he bemoaned the fact that his tribunal ordeal had been going on for 11 years while the ever-efficient Brits got her inquest done and dusted in six months. In fact, that verdict came more than a decade after her death, and wading through the quagmire of who may, or may not, have murdered Diana was nothing compared to the complexities of the Taoiseach’s myriad bank accounts.

Not that British television viewers would have gleaned such subtleties from Mr Ahern’s interview with Sky News, in which he portrayed the Irish system as doing things backward and being intent on bringing down the innocent.

Mr Ahern announced his resignation with a great level of dignity, but increasingly bitter attacks on the Mahon Tribunal since threaten to drain the goodwill he engendered.

The Sky interview was aimed squarely at British and European opinion formers whose support he needs for any plum EU post, and as he reminded them, his next move will be his last.

Unfortunately, his outburst painted an image of the Republic as a nasty little country that drove him from power using a tribunal system that is: “A load of nonsense, and it’s a recipe for more nonsense.”

Just like Diana had done before him, Mr Ahern seemed intent on re-writing history from a self-styled victim’s point of view.

He stated that if he’d known what was going to happen he’d have kept his bus tickets and receipts for apples and pints to stop the Tribunal (which he forgot to mention his own Government had set up) making “fun and games” of him.

To be fair to Mr Ahern, he did not sport the thick black eyeliner and doughy eyes Diana beguiled viewers of her 1995 Panorama spectacular with, but his back was noticeably against the wall of St Luke’s.

British viewers unfamiliar with the extraordinary, and at times tortuous, twists of Mr Ahern’s tribunal evidence, will be excused for not knowing it was not the lack of receipts for pints that forced his early exit from office, but rather his inability to remember the identity of the person he claimed he gave £30,000 to in 1995 to change into sterling. Or why an amount equivalent to two-and-a-half times his income passed through his many bank accounts in one 12-month period.

Or why (another) £30,000 came tumbling out of the hotel wardrobe of millionaire businessman Michael Wall, which was then plonked down on his desk in St Luke’s in bundles of used notes. Or why he swore under oath that no sterling went into his Irish Permanent accounts, when the tribunal forced his anguished former secretary Gráinne Carruth to admit they did.

No, Sky viewers were spared all of that. Mr Ahern told them it was all about “a row between two developers”.

So, just as there were famously three people in Diana’s marriage breakdown, the breakdown of Mr Ahern’s political career also featured a ménage á trois — himself and two sniping property types.

It was quite a performance. Diana would have been envious.