DOWNING

ON POLITICS

YES, barring some extraordinary development, the next Taoiseach will be Leo Varadkar.

And again, yes, he knows somewhere between zero and zilch about matters agricultural.

Stand by for tales of summers down on his uncle’s farm near Dungarvan. Like the bulk of us townies, there is usually a near enough relative in the family tree who can be cited in extremis to give us some ‘culchie cred’ when it’s needed for political cover. But let’s not be too mean here. Above all, let’s be realistic.

Walking the corridors of the Department of Agriculture in Kildare Street, and later the European Commission, I was often struck by how urban everything was. The key people may or may not have started life on windswept acres — the point was that they were happy with an indoor job which was clean and