Luntz seems unable to grasp that our capacity to be outraged is limited

You know that juggler’s trick where they yank a table-cloth out from under the crockery, glasses and cutlery so suddenly that the table stays set, with every glass, plate and fork in the same position on the now-bare table?

That’s what I’d like to do with last night’s Week in Politics programme. Yank out the central premise — that political focus groups are profoundly useful — while leaving all the good stuff in place. The good stuff being the set design, production values, panel and presenter.

Noel Whelan, the former Fianna Fáil staff member whose latest Tallyman’s guide is published this week, seems to have come up with the idea and persuaded RTÉ to run three programmes based on the approach of American pollster Frank Luntz.