Who had the worse Budget this week, George Lee or Jim Mitchell? That was the big talking point among Drapier's colleagues as we considered the affairs of the nation courtesy of Seamus Brennan's later nights and extra sitting days.
George Lee's prominence on almost every RT╔ news bulletin has turned him into an important player in our public life. His progress through the week was fascinating. Last Monday there was a sense that he was in a plain bad mood. By Wednesday he was in a fury, exhibiting an almost palpable anger at something in the Budget which wasn't quite evident.
Many around here are of the opinion that George, a most intelligent and personable young man, risks becoming a send-up of himself, soon to be terminated, caricature on Bull Island.
As for the nearly leader of only a few months ago, Jim Mitchell, was remarkably nervous standing up to give his reply to Charlie McCreevy's Budget speech. In fairness, he was, to use one of the Kildare man's horse-racing metaphors, carrying a few handicaps.
For a start his Fine Gael frontbench colleagues dealt him a poor hand by both calling for more and less spending at the same time. It didn't help either that Charlie McCreevy shot Jim's fox within the opening seconds of his Budget speech by announcing that there would be no borrowing. Drapier's colleagues espied a frenzied Jim discarding, rewriting and shuffling some of his prepared pages upon hearing this.
The gods of parliamentary exchanges were not smiling on his offerings last Wednesday. His lengthy justification of the work of the 1982-87 government was startlingly out of place. Alan Dukes's steady and competent performance later that day served only to throw the comparisons into sharper relief.
Subtlety has not always been Jim's strong suit. He is not your archetypal Fine Gaeler. He is a no-holds-barred Dβil performer, as evidenced by his Gildeaesque attacks on the Fianna Fβil Press Office. The ferocity of these took even his own colleagues aback. Drapier expects some retraction as wiser counsel prevails.
One commentary on Jim's speech is the story that Fianna Fβil backbenchers circulated a note calling for quiet, because their barracking and interruptions were helping him get his act together.
All this is the daily ephemera of parliamentary life in the Leinster House village. Drapier firmly believes that the "controversy" over Charlie McCreevy's one-off money raids will only register with the politically obsessed fringes of the public.
Both Opposition parties are advocating further spending and borrowing, so the Government can't be outflanked on the issue. It is difficult to see anyone winning an election on the policy of protecting the social insurance fund but raiding the pension fund.
Dr Drapier's soothsaying efforts last week probably merit a B-minus. The scale of the welfare increases in particular were beyond expectations. These, and the bias towards low income of the tax package, have a hint of a strong Bertie Ahern influence.
Bertie and his Minister for Finance are a curious partnership, but a partnership none the less. Both are firm believers in the Lemass tradition of their party. Both have pushed big public investments, and kept social spending well ahead of inflation.
Drapier detected a note of defiance in the Budget speech. McCreevy rounded on those who have attempted to pigeonhole him as an ideologue. Charlie's refusal to sidle up to the political correspondents or to send people out to say how great he is sets him apart from most. He has a belief, often naive, that people will judge him by his actions rather than the views of commentators.
Two of the Budget measures which were obviously very personal to Charlie were the special provisions for widows and the reduction in betting tax. The first speaks for itself. The second, Drapier is informed by his punting colleagues, actually comes from Charlie's belief that if the tax isn't reduced then receipts will ultimately disappear abroad to such competition as online betting.
Mary Harney was surprisingly quiet earlier in the week, seeming to float on the outpouring of genuine affection and goodwill from her colleagues. Most have commented that she has had a harder career than most, especially since she took over as PD leader. But none the less, she was again the Budget's most articulate and effective defender.
Where Mary was quiet others were voluble, not least Willie O'Dea and Liz McManus, who had another of their increasingly regular clashes earlier on Wednesday. Liz took reasonable exception to Willie's portrayal of her as "supercilious" and "upper middle-class". Stirring stuff, but only an appetiser compared to what we can expect from these two in future.
Drapier could barely suppress a snigger as Dermot Ahern skewered Brian Hayes for lambasting one welfare increase as miserly, when Brian had actually called for a smaller increase in his pre-Budget list of demands.
It may be the aftermath of his Late Late Show mauling by Gerry Adams, but Ruair∅ Quinn's Budget speech was curious, to say the least. A substantial portion consisted solely of him holding up newspapers in the chamber and then reading aloud from them.
So the battle lines for next May or June are now drawn. The Government will say: look at what we've done on jobs, tax cuts, pensions and peace. Vote for us to build upon this record. The Opposition will say the Fianna Fβil-PD epoch was five wasted years and that the country is in a mess. Vote for us and vote for change.
A 33-year record of governments failing to get re-elected stands in Bertie's way. On the other hand, he will be counting on the fact that no previous government has been able to claim so much progress. Bertie hopes to argue that they were both compassionate and competent. The Opposition will be arguing that they were incompetent and divisive.
Drapier is coming to the conclusion that as national concerns increasingly dominate the chances of us seeing an emerging raft of new independents and fringe parties steadily diminishes. People only indulge the localism we've seen in recent years when they think everything is going OK.