Government of all political colours

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern’s recent Damascus Road-style conversion to socialist principles was a shock to the body politic, and not least to the formerly isolated TD, ‘Red’ Joe Higgins.

His only suit of clothes disappeared into Bertie’s wardrobe quicker than you could say ‘Joe Stalin.’

That Bertie’s diktat was followed by Tánaiste Mary Harney’s guarantee of jobs for life for all superfluous State employees - health sector workers, Aer Lingus, etc - is even more authoritarian and pure Marxist dogma.