Joan Burton a hostage to fortune for Labour’s election hopes

THE dark arts of politics came to the fore as Labour leader Eamon Gilmore effectively took Joan Burton hostage as his human shield.

On top of this, Enda Kenny dragged out the threat of a banking crash probe to try to destabilise Fianna Fáil in May’s Euro elections, and the Minister for (Drive-By) Justice, Alan Shatter, settled another personal score with previously secret Government information.

Viewers of the political soap opera that is The Joan And Eamon Show will remember that in the last cliff-hanging episode the fractious couple decided to call an uneasy truce after Ms Burton just happened to let it slip that she stuffed all those vainglorious “Gilmore For Taoiseach” posters given to her in the 2011 general election into a garden shed, never to be seen again.