No vote of confidence in limited polls and politicians who pander to people

At this stage, if you’re presentable, reasonably lucid and prepared to promise bundles of new gardaí to improve the quality of everybody’s life, that will more or less do.

But leadership is not about giving things to people. That’s patronage. Peonage. That’s bread and circuses.

BERTIE may have been visiting his new grandsons, but on Saturday afternoon most Fianna Fáil ministers were out on the stump when the news began to seep through about the two opinion polls. Not good.