He’s intelligent, articulate, witty and has an ideolgical point of view. Which explains why he is struggling in Ireland, where there is a deep suspicion of people who “believe” in things. He finds himself gnashing his teeth when on radio panel discussions and people say things like “the Irish people aren’t ideological” because it is not true. The problem for him, and he knows it too, is that they ARE ideological but don’t know it. How else could Ireland have never ever elected a left wing government from 1922? Fluke? Roll of the dice?

What’s more, his ideological beliefs are held against him by a certain type of producer who does not believe it is “appropriate” to have such a person on the airwaves. The airwaves (the state run ones anyway) are only for people with the mainstream views that he and his partner Sebastian meet in Donnybrook Fair when they pop down for a latte and the latest New Yorker. You know, ordinary Irish people like them.

The sad thing is that if he were in the states, he’s be haring along by now. He’s be a sidekick on a syndicated talk-radio show, have a book out called “Why conservatives eat pizza and liberals eat sushi” and would be on Fox News at least once a month to answer the remark “Of course, not ALL Europeans are socialist wackadoodles”.

Sadly he was born in Ireland, the country which has managed to extract politics from its political system, replacing it with the phrase: “But minister, what about the people on the ground who will be hurt by your inability to defy the laws of monetary physics?”