“You are a nit-wit . . . Now go away!” - The voice of Ireland’s leader
This has to be the funniest thing I’ve heard in the Dáil, since the Ceann Comhairle’s frigging outburst at Inda. (Also)
Bertie lost the head this morning in the Dáil with his socialist komrade, Joe Higgins.
Higgins was pronouncing on some such, as is his wont, and Bertie lost his patientce, and certainly didn’t hold back with his “nit-wit” slur. All barrels blazing there, I must say. I’m sure Higgins didn’t know what hit him. Ahern’s coup de grace, however, is something which Joe will never recover: “Now, go away!”
[Assume impudent child’s voice; stomp feet if possible]
High-larious.
I must get a transcript of this to put it here, but it really won’t be the same without the unequalled intonations of d’Teapot Ahern.
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With all thanks to NewsTalk 106 FM for gracing our ears with it (tune in online or on FM every half-hour for news bulletins).
UPDATE: (12h19)
BreakingNews.ie has it:
Ahern in war of words with ‘nitwit’ socialist TD Higgins
21/06/2006 - 12:08:10Taoiseach Bertie Ahern lost his temper in the Dáil this morning during an exchange with Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins regarding the cost of housing.
Mr Higgins told the Dáil that the cost of buying a house was now beyond most working people and that Fianna Fáil, which receives vast sums of money from developers, was not doing anything to tackle the problem.
Mr Ahern hit back by saying the Government had done more than any other administration in the history of the state in the area of social and affordable housing.
He then launched a string of insults on Mr Higgins and his socialist policies.
“You have a failed ideology, you have the most hopeless policy that I ever heard pursued by any nitwit,” Mr Ahern said.
“You are a failed person, you were rejected and your political philosophy has been rejected and you’re not going to pull people back into the failed old policies that you dreamt up in south Kerry when you were a young fella.
“Now go away.”
The transcript is here: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20060621.xml&Node=H3&Page=3
The Taoiseach: Does Deputy Higgins wish to drag us back to a time when people had no salaries and no jobs? He has a failed ideology and the most hopeless policy pursued by any nitwit. He is a failed person who was rejected and whose political philosophy has been rejected. He will not pull people back into the failed old policies he dreamed up in south Kerry when he was a young fellow. Now go away.
(I rather like Mr Durkan’s comment immediately afterwards: “I am surprised the Taoiseach is criticising his fellow socialist.”)
I wonder was it deliberate and was Bertie being a copy-cat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5102164.stm
Comment by tipster — 21 June, 2006 @ 10:53 pm
The transcript is here: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20060621.xml&Node=H3&Page=3
The Taoiseach: Does Deputy Higgins wish to drag us back to a time when people had no salaries and no jobs? He has a failed ideology and the most hopeless policy pursued by any nitwit. He is a failed person who was rejected and whose political philosophy has been rejected. He will not pull people back into the failed old policies he dreamed up in south Kerry when he was a young fellow. Now go away.
(I rather like Mr Durkan’s comment immediately afterwards: “I am surprised the Taoiseach is criticising his fellow socialist.”)
I wonder was it deliberate and was Bertie being a copy-cat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5102164.stm
Comment by tipster — 21 June, 2006 @ 10:54 pm
The transcript is here: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20060621.xml&Node=H3&Page=3
The Taoiseach: Does Deputy Higgins wish to drag us back to a time when people had no salaries and no jobs? He has a failed ideology and the most hopeless policy pursued by any nitwit. He is a failed person who was rejected and whose political philosophy has been rejected. He will not pull people back into the failed old policies he dreamed up in south Kerry when he was a young fellow. Now go away.
(I rather like Mr Durkan’s comment immediately afterwards: “I am surprised the Taoiseach is criticising his fellow socialist.”)
I wonder was it deliberate and was Bertie being a copy-cat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5102164.stm
Comment by tipster — 21 June, 2006 @ 10:54 pm
The transcript is here: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20060621.xml&Node=H3&Page=3
The Taoiseach: Does Deputy Higgins wish to drag us back to a time when people had no salaries and no jobs? He has a failed ideology and the most hopeless policy pursued by any nitwit. He is a failed person who was rejected and whose political philosophy has been rejected. He will not pull people back into the failed old policies he dreamed up in south Kerry when he was a young fellow. Now go away.
(I rather like Mr Durkan’s comment immediately afterwards: “I am surprised the Taoiseach is criticising his fellow socialist.”)
I wonder was it deliberate and was Bertie being a copy-cat: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5102164.stm
Comment by tipster — 21 June, 2006 @ 10:56 pm
I think it was deliberate, though the attack was not aimed at Higgins but at his own backbenchers. If Ahern pisses off all the independents then his backbenchers cant force him to dump the PDs and try a minority government for the next 9 months.
Comment by Declan — 1 July, 2006 @ 11:18 pm