Eternal Leo’s flame showing no sign of burning out

So, when is Micheál going to be thrown to the lions?

It wasn’t quite on the same scale as the Endless Enda melodrama of Mr Kenny’s final years, but in the Eternal City of Rome yesterday Taoiseach Leo Varadkar seemed to be growing into his hoped-for Eternal Leo role.

Fresh from publicly confirming — a week after some mysterious, unknown individual privately did — that he wants to silence any general election whispering among the Dáil masses until at least 2020, the Caesar of Castleknock was in a commanding mood.

Having been driven to the imposing Palazzo Chigi by sleek Italian cavalcade — the chariot was presumably at the garage; recessions take time to recover from, after all — Mr Varadkar was welcomed by prime minister Guiseppe Conte and a full-scale ceremonial band.

Striding up the red carpet to inspect his guests, he slowly turned to nod his approval to relieved officials before walking inside with his diplomatic generals for a private strategic meeting on the British tribe trying to liberate itself in the far reaches of the EU empire, and how the uprising could be crushed.

All that was missing were the white woollen toga and the laurel wreath around the ears.

For someone who has only been in the job a year and whose Government is dangling by the slimmest of slim Dáil threads which could, in theory, be snapped at any second, the calmness exuded was surprising.

But then again, Mr Varadkar knows that, while he may be in Julius Caesar’s back yard, there is no real risk of him having to dust down the schoolboy Latin any time soon and demand “Et tu, Brute?” of any would-be assassins sharpening the dagger to stab him in the back.

Despite frustration over a two-tier urban-rural economic divide, anger over the deepening housing and homelessness crises, and the never-ending crisis in the health system, the Taoiseach is in a far safer position than he should be.

And the Brexit stand-off means that while his Government should be facing imminent collapse, it won’t, with the strong likelihood that the Eternal Leo call not to hold an election until 2020 is more honest appraisal than public bluff.

What all this means for Micheál Martin is anyone’s guess.

Channelling Maximus Decimus Meridius in 2000’s Gladiator, the commander of the soldiers of destiny is father to a foundering party, husband to a life-sapping confidence-and-supply deal, and wants his vengeance, in this life or the next.

But if things don’t change soon, Micheál may soon become more Minimus than Maximus in the Dáil’s colosseum, with a thumbs down from the masses leading to a one-way trip to the lions as his own colleagues try to find a new way to extinguish Eternal Leo’s eternal flame.