LOST LEADER
1st September 2009 Ireland is facing some critical debates in the Dail and a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (aka vote again until you get it right) over the next few months. Some are describing the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) debate this month as the most critical decision we have ever taken. But where is our leader, Brian Cowen? He seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet. Has he gone down with swine flu? Perhaps he’s suffering from a touch of laryngitis and is unable to speak in public? Or perhaps those aliens in UFO’s we read so much about came down and abducted him? Surely, there must be some logical explanation for his absence from the airwaves? But then again, he has never really engaged with the electorate. No ‘state of the union’ addresses or public appeals from our Brian. All we ever seem to get are second hand accounts from tame journalists who were given the press release about a carefully orchestrated speech, given to a select and invited audience of cronies. Or could there be another reason for his absence? Could it be that the PR company running this country have decided that perhaps Brian is more of a liability than an asset and that getting him on the television might result in people taking the opposite point of view that they are trying to put forward? We have all heard of ‘loss leaders’, when supermarkets are selling items at a loss simply to entice you into the shop and hope you will buy other goods too, but a ‘lost leader’ is a bit of a joke. The public must wonder if he realises that his silence is not exactly ‘carrying the country with him’. The public must wonder if he even cares what they think. Joseph Morgan
OPINION: We seem to have lost Brian Cowen, writes JOSEPH MORGAN
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