Ulster

When Irish eyes are smiling.... Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has resigned so let's have a look at Irish politics; not just in Eire but the whole lot of it including Ulster. It was both the luck of the Irish and Leo Varadkar that Brexit came along when it did; the former could continue to play victim, they always do, while the latter hid behind it and went in for endless Brit-bashing. This hid the fact that Varadkar had little to offer in the way of policies but eventually there came an election and Varadkar and his party did badly. We should remember this was his first general election too as the previous Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, stood down while in office and there was a leadership election that Varadkar narrowly won and he set out to make his mark. Enda Kenny was a politician of substance in that he came from a political family and had many years of experience. The Brexit referendum was just a year before Kenny stood down and he had made a point about Brexit being awkward for Ireland in a rather cack-handed way. He had also dialled in the Peace Process, another handy tool that is used by many to lever an argument their way even if the logic is flawed and the context fatuous.

Kenny was denounced by the UK government for: "scaremongering of the worst possible kind". However, it was now time for Varadkar to get noticed.