Don’t get mad at the porky pies, get even

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

We all know that politicians can be liars.

It’s in their nature to tell untruths and to tell half-truths.

At election time, they promise the earth, moon and stars . . . and rarely are those promises fulfilled. They couldn’t possibly be.

Labour, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil – they’re all guilty of it.

It’s not a party political thing. It’s mostly a ‘it’s the nature of the beast’ kind of thing; it’s a political DNA, programming type thing.

It just happens. Like night follows day, we don’t question it; we’ve come to expect it; it’s a given.

Or as Labour’s Pat Rabbitte said about pre-election promises that turned out to be unfulfilled: “Isn’t that what you tend to do in an election?”

But politicians are not the only ones telling porky pies.

Having spoken with a fair few unsuccessful candidates in the local elections, and indeed a fair few successful ones who thought they’d get a higher vote, it seems the electorate is well able to lie, too.

They got some fright when the boxes were opened and the votes weren’t there! All these candidates had been promised ‘number one’ votes on the doorsteps by your good selves, the voters.

But you lied and voted for someone else. Or you lied and stayed at home.

Or, did you – “on mature recollection” – having been lied to so much over the years, decide that “going forward”, you were going to get your own back and lie to them.

Fair play dhaoibh!

For more, read this week’s Connacht  Sentinel.