[Independent TD Mick Wallace ]
When Enda Kenny hailed the February 2011 general election as a “democratic revolution at the ballot box”, he was probably alluding to the virtual wipeout of Fianna Fail, not a style revolution. That’s what we got when Mick Wallace, Richard Boyd Barrett and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan rocked up for work as TDs. The establishment had paroxysm with fright. Pink polo shirts, bomber jackets, dangling plastic earrings, ponytails and blond dreadlocks were the arsenal of anarchy.
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The reaction was reminiscent of the scorn poured on the late Tony Gregory when he took his seat as a Dublin Central independent – and refused to wear a tie. With such frivolity do anarchists change the world.
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These independents have as much in common with the establishment’s crony circles as they have with Yves Saint Laurent. That is probably their strongest selling point. They were lucky that Kenny never needed them to form a government – it allowed them to remain outsiders. Their challenge now is not to become insiders in the new ‘normal’ they have created. By their clothes we may know them, but by their actions shall we judge them….”Sunday Times’ Justine McCarthy From her column yesterday (available here behind paywall).
Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland
