A while ago, I decided that in the upcoming general election, scheduled to take place sometime in the first half of 2007, I would bite the bullet and give Fine Gael candidates my first preferences. It was not a case that I’m wildly, or even mildly, enthusiastic about the party’s leader or policies. My support derives from purely negative factors–anger over the incompetence and corruption that characterise the present Fianna Fail-led government. By this stage, the sight of Bertie Ahern’s cheeky-chappy grin (he can’t believe what he’s got away with) fills me with something approaching existential despair. I just want his lot out…

But just as I’ve accepted FG as a quasi-palatable choice, party backbenchers are emerging from the undergrowth to remind us that the blueshirts can match FF when it comes to fielding inarticulate gombeens. This morning I heard one spluttering TD, Damien English, deny and then confirm his support for remarks made by a colleague, John Deasy. Deasy, who pretty much inherited his seat from his father, the equally truculent Austin, stated that Enda Kenny should resign if he fails to become Taoiseach. To make such a statement with an election looming would seem–not to beat around the bush–to be the actions of a gobshite. But what can one expect from a politician whose chief claim to fame–apart from claiming almost 86,000 euro in expenses last year–was to light up a cigarette in the Dail bar in the days following the introduction of the smoking ban (Deasy was the party’s Justice spokesperson at the time)?

But Deasy’s mutinous behaviour will probably be tolerated because he can supposedly hoover up the votes in his Waterford constituency. Just like Michael Lowry in Tipperary, Beverly Cooper-Flynn in Mayo, Ivor Callely in Dublin, Jim McDaid in Donegal, Sean Haughey in ….