This week’s column appeared on Broadsheet.ie on May 10th and opens with an old Soviet era story contrasting the leadership styles of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev and moves on to me suggesting that the fence-sitters, the undecideds, in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party are acting like latter-day Brezhnevs… hoping to survive just long enough to pass on the huge problems they can see, but ignore, to someone else. I also take a quick pre-campaign look at the upcoming Dublin Bay South by-election #DBSBE21
There’s a Soviet era story comparing the leadership styles of three of its former leaders: Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
It goes like this. The three leaders are sitting in the plush compartment of a special politburo train traveling across the western Siberian plain.
The train suddenly stops in the middle of nowhere. The leaders send for the train manager. He informs them that the driver, co-driver and engineers have gone on strike and are refusing to move the train another centimetre.
Stalin tells Khrushchev and Brezhnev: “I’ll deal with this”. He climbs down from the carriage and walks to the front of the train to berate the crew.
Before the great leader can utter a word, the driver complains vocally that he hasn’t been paid in weeks, hasn’t eaten or slept over the past 24 hours and has just heard that his brothers have been arrested and sent to a gulag.
Continue reading “Like Brezhnev… many in Fianna Fáil Are Riding The Rails With The Blinds Down”
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