When the tide goes out in politics, everything goes with it. Amid the fallout from the brutal hammering of the Tory party, there was some degree of sympathy for the West Midlands mayor Andy Street, whose record in office serves as a salutary tale over this side of the Irish Sea.
The Tories are ratcheting up their diplomatic row with Ireland by now suggesting that the Irish Government will be invited to join the UK’s much-derided Rwanda migrant deportation scheme.
Simon Harris and Catherine Martin met up last week. The agenda was ostensibly to discuss issues in her multi-faceted Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. No doubt the Taoiseach had to feign interest in the basic income for the arts and other worthy ventures. But the real purpose of the meeting was to discuss where things are at with RTÉ.