All revved up

IT’S often been said — and never more than in the last month — that Bertie Ahern is a lucky general. By this they mean that when his anorak was being given its Teflon coating, they laid it on thick and fast.

By contrast, lucky isn’t the first adjective that springs to mind when you think of Martin Cullen. He’s certainly had bits of it. He was steeped in luck to survive by the skin of his teeth over a series of controversies/spats/misjudgments which are too familiar to bore you with now.

But the difference is that Mr Cullen has limped out of them while his boss has positively soared. The e-voting fiasco and the Leech appointment will stalk Mr Cullen for the rest of his political career. Opposition TDs know that, like Kerry footballer Paul Galvin, he’s the easiest of them all to rise and to bait. That prompts a predictable over-the-top response from Mr Cullen, who doesn’t have a well-honed sense of how the public reacts to this.