Lioness Burton slinks away, saving her prey for another day

LIKE a restless lioness, Joan Burton stalked her prey with ruthless patience — knowing that she would soon feed again on the wounded political carcass before her.

Brian Cowen was limping through Leader’s Questions reasonably competently, keeping a lid on the anger, and boring the opposition into muted disinterest under the camouflage of his usual soulless economic jargon — “inter-generation solidarity in the market place” being one of his catchier sound-bites of the day.