Christmas without an election? We’d all vote for that...

IT would be nice to think that Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin actually know what they are playing at. But they clearly have little feel for what ordinary people are thinking if they plan on dragging the nation to the polls in the immediate run up to Christmas.

I suppose it must be difficult to have the common touch when you’ve spent most of your adult life in a hermetically sealed

political bubble. All I can tell them is what the average punter will have more on his or her mind in the coming weeks: mistletoe and wine, boxes of Cadbury’s Roses, getting the turkey order in, photocopying their backside after the office party and so on.

One thing that they certainly won’t want to be thinking about is a general election.

Should it come to that, I would imagine both leaders, as well as their candidates and their canvassers, will be met on the doorsteps with unprecedented hostility.

The irony is that the whole thing is because of Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald, a woman who has been promoted way above her station. It never fails to amaze me how far some people manage to get in life by simply toeing the party line and nodding at all the right moments.

Still, I suppose the Taoiseach deserves some credit for the loyalty he has shown so far. That isn’t something you always see in politics. But he is kidding himself if he really thinks that the majority of people don’t want to see Mrs Fitzgerald thrown under the bus. Nobody I know would normally care either way what happens to the Tánaiste. But if sacrificing her means the rest of us can enjoy an election-free Christmas, then I think most people would vote for that.