Doherty’s speech

With the election of Pearse Doherty in DSW and some fantastic poll returns SF could probably be forgiven for thinking they were about to enter next year’s election in their best shape ever

Things just got an awful lot better for them.

Pearse Doherty has delivered one of the best and most passionate speeches seen in the Dail in years. Discussion around the Budget debate was of such interest that the Twitter tag of #budget11 broke into the global most popular topics, almost everyone commenting was cheering Doherty on.

While Michael Noonan (FG) and Joan Burton (Lab) delivered pretty lack lustre responses that attracted occassional ridicule, Doherty managed 30 mins of pure brilliance, anger, passion and amazingly what seemed like alternatives.

I would be surprised if his arrival at the head of SF’s team in the south alone doesn’t deliver a 5% rise in popularity. Though SF now face the difficult choice of again sidelining their party leader to make space for someone that clearly has the ability to connect more with the electorate.

I’d suggest anyone that thinks what happens in Stormont classes as able politics watches his speech in full – a masterclass.

(I’ll add a link to the speech as soon as one becomes available)

Link to text added (it doesn’t do justice to the delivery)