Party falls victim to its own political trickery

IF Fianna Fáil had been handed to Leo Varadkar and Pat Rabbitte to look after for a day, they could not have done a better job of bringing it to oblivion.

But it didn’t need any help from its opponents. The party that had spent years mastering the art of political trickery, itself became the victim of its own games. Brian Cowen took us all for fools, and ended up looking like the biggest fool of all.

He tried to pull a political stroke designed to present a shiny new team ahead of the general election, giving six Fianna Fáil TDs a greater chance of re-election by holding ministerial office.