The Fine Gael party, never the hippest show in town, have shown a surprising success in winning the hearts and minds of firebrand sports pundits.
It's well known among politics junkies that Eamon Dunphy was once a speech writer for the party back in the early 80s.
Having shed his socialist leanings, Dunphy threw his lot in with Garret Fitzgerald's modernising agenda.
A firm subscriber to the edict that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Dunphy is now an avowed Sinn Fein voter.
George Hook is unlikely to travel in that direction.
No doubt to the horror of Vincent Browne (another alleged ex-Fine Gaeler, though he denies it), Hook has written in the Life magazine section of the Sunday Independent that he is considering running in the constituency of Dun Laoghaire as a 'Michael Collins Fine Gael' candidate.
Hook's partiality towards Fine Gael is something he's never bothered to hide, but he says that he has grown frustrated with the party in recent years - hence the Michael Collins prefix. Hook belongs that Cork branch of Fine Gael who worship Collins.
He said he could not countenance going into government with Sinn Fein and presumably annoyed republicans further by quoting Winston Churchill.
The promise would be clear and unequivocal. The government supported by Hook would, like my hero Winston Churchill, promise “blood, toil, tears and sweat” until we take our place amongst the nations of the Earth, fearless and free.
He says his priority issue would be homelessness, and would appoint a TD to deal with the issue. Proposed measures include getting council employees to work a 'seven days a week rota to get boarded-up, empty properties back on the market' and 'the immediate purchase of modular housing for urban areas.'
