Enda takes the plaudits but local issues spoil the day

Enda Kenny gave a bravura performance in the European Parliament, wowing the 740 members that filled the giant hemicycle in the Strasbourg building, his voice ringing to its rafters, his phrases flowing like poetry.

He combined many of the great performances of prime ministers of the past when they too wowed the all too often dull performers from the union’s 27 member states.

But he forgot that in the end, all politics are local, and perhaps carried away by the ease with which Irish politics can hypnotise the foreigner, he grievously offended his own.