Forming the next Irish Government - policies and personalities

Your suggestion is nonsensical and unworkable.

The outgoing Dáil has no authority or democratic mandate to impose its choice of CC on the next Dáil. If this absurd notion was implemented, the first item on the agenda of the new Dáil would be a motion of no confidence in any imposter who had the audacity to claim the chair of the new Dáil on this basis.

The Constitutional guarantee that the CC is deemed elected to the next Dáil helps to keep the CC above politics. No one has been so foolish as to propose a referendum to remove this sensible safeguard although it means that the CC's constituents have one less TD to pester about their personal interests. So what?

If you mean that a plethora of FF candidates for CC would split the FF vote so no FF’er is elected, that won’t happen if all FF TDs vote for party colleagues straight down the line (it's STV). All 48 FF votes would eventually transfer to the last FF candidate standing. If all FG votes eventually transferred to that remaining FF'er, they would be elected (unless some other candidate miraculously mustered all remaining 88 votes).

Of course, that is exactly what Simon and Micheál don't want.

If Verona or anyone outside FF/FG gets it, then FF&FG combined need only one more vote to elect Micheál as Taoiseach. After that, there'll be no shortage of Independents willing to sell their votes for the benefit of their constituents (dishonorable, you say? They're all at it - and they wouldn't last long otherwise).

The media (Senan Moloney) finally wakes up to what is happening on the CC.

Simon and Micheál are backing Verona, who went to see them both before announcing her candidature.

Humiliating for Simon that FG can’t nominate a candidate but MM has a trickier hand to play at the FF party meeting today. Surely his troops understand why FF needs Verona to be CC? But SOF and JMcG are not deterred and now MMoynihan is under pressure to block them both. Sparks will fly behind FF’s closed doors and secrecy will prevail in tomorrow’s vote but the transfers will tell a tale.

No need to repeat back to me the reasons why Verona is running and will get FF/FG support. I explained all that here last week, before anyone in the media and my analysis was spot on.

It's humiliating that, for the first time in our history, a Taoiseach can't even say which way he will vote when the Dáil meets tomorrow. But Harris knows no shame. He achieved absolutely nothing as a Minister but was first out of the door to claim the top job when Leo abandoned ship. He brazened it out when Patrick O'Donovan exposed him as the leaker from Cabinet (and what an effective leak that was - the other Simon never recovered!). Harris is an Emperor prancing around in his new clothes, laying claim to the Office of Taoiseach after a car-crash campaign while the media applaud. His nakedness will be plain to see when Michael Lowry becomes the lynch-pin of the next Government.

It is humiliating by any Taoiseach with a modicum of self-respect not to be able to show leadership in government. Now we have a Taoiseach and party "leader" who can't even show leadership to his own TDs in the new Dáil's very first vote.

But you may have a point - he is beyond shaming.

You call it nonsense but you don't even understand what I wrote.

One more try - what is humiliating is that the Leader of Fine Gael and currently the Head of our Government can't show leadership to his own troops in the Dáil's first vote. If you think that won't diminish his dwindling credibility and tarnish his leadership, you lack a basic sense of dignity.

And here is nonsense of a high order from you

FG have no desire for one of their number to become CC

As everyone know, there would be a stampede of FG TDs looking to be nominated CC if they had the numbers i.e. if people hadn't been turned off by their election campaign. There are already two FF candidates and a third in the wings because they have 10 more TDs and others might back them. You say they're "self-aggrandising troublemakers" - no wonder they appeal to the Independents and the Left!

I see now that MM gave leadership to his party and told them to back Verona. Will Simon finally bite the bullet tonight?

Of course, what happens in the secrecy of the Dáil division lobbies tomorrow may tell another tale.