Parties playing politics in bid to stay under the public spotlight

Electioneering is best done with a scalpel, not a shovel, writes Gerard Howlin

THE political swirl is at full spin. It’s not an accident that big parties are getting bigger and all others are diminishing. It’s about relevance and share of the spotlight. It is a variation of the proverb that when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

The seeming certainty of Brexit and unrelenting uncertainty surrounding an election haves benefited the larger parties, particularly Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. They are simply taking up a lot more space in the public conversation.