"CENTRE right or centre left," said Brian Cowen in his Irish Times interview with Maol Muire Tynan the other day, "this is the Pat Magner school of politics".
The Labour senator may have been flattered at the notion of having a school to his name. At least until he read on: "People in this country don't have to listen to that sort of nonsense."
But, as far as Mr Cowen is concerned the Magner school, is for the birds or, worse still, the intelligentsia.
It's "coffee table politics, where (they) sit down on a Saturday afternoon... and tell us how the country should be run and why we should be so grateful that they are musing about our futures and planning the way ahead."
Now, Mr Cowen is not a stupid man. Far from it: he's, one of Fianna Fail's brightest, makes regular appearances on Saturday View and is never done telling people how the country should be run.
As Maol Muire Tynan notes, "his reputation as the paratrooper who takes no prisoners, is fortified in every Dail altercation that comes his way."
He may not be stupid, but the favourite weapon of this FF hero from the mean streets of the midlands is invincible ignorance. It allows him, for instance, to mock "the nanny state" and its proponents and, a moment later, to chalk up a litany of demands on the same "nanny state" that would paper the walls from Clara to Banagher and back.
(He says, by the way, that in Clara there was "no such thing as tuppence looking down on tuppence ha'penny." Sound man, Brian. There should be no place in Offaly for inverted snobbery.)
But on Mr Magner's coffee table politics he's strictly lopsided. Centre right and centreleft are terms commonly used, not just by Pat Magner and the Labour delegates at this weekend's conference in Limerick, but by politicians and commentators everywhere.
Indeed, one of those most insistent on the distinction and its relevance here, especially in the coming election - is the leader of Fianna Fail's partners in waiting, Mary Harney. The Progressive Democrats make not bones about defining the competing coalitions. Nor are they shy about announcing how the coalitions colours will be chosen.
They'll be determined, not by the main, centrist partners, but by those to the right or left of them: the Progressive Democrats on one side, Labour and Democratic Left on the other the parties that give the coalitions their character. Many in Fianna Fail don't like the idea. Some commentators claim the electorate doesn't know what they mean.
It's another case of invincible ignorance, complicated by "a dose of patronising nonsense. But, then, those who believe that the plain people of Ireland aren't up to discussing the distribution of wealth, the role of the state and social reform have always been thick, on the ground.
THESE, as anyone who tunes in to the Labour conference will soon discover, are the keys to the choice between centreright and centre left facing us in the election.
Of course there are overlapping policies, and if you listen only to the rhetoric on all sides, you may fall for the illusion that there's nothing between them.
But look beyond the rhetoric to the issues on which the election is about to be fought examine, in particular, the attitudes to taxation and crime - and you'll find differences galore. Ms Harney claims the centre left coalition is a high spending, high tax government, soft on crime. Needless to say, the centre right alternative is anything but.
Dick Spring took the opportunity presented by a visit to Templemore this week to, emphasise that Labour's attitude to crime is as tough as that of any other party. But being tough on crime is not just about putting more gardai on the streets and more citizens in jail.
It's more closely linked to the questions of taxation, state intervention and the distribution of wealth than wild appeals to so called zero tolerance would allow.
The public is aware of the risks run when parties try to outbid each other for the approval of interest groups, well organised, well funded and often highly secretive.
The public has become aware - and is now being, reminded, again - of the related issues of party funding: and payments to politicians.
But the most dangerous auction between parties and alternative administrations is on the issue of crime, on which it's all too easy for irresponsible media - and politicians - to whip up hysterical reactions.
Now is not the time for a mad competitive rush to the defence of a society which is not under attack. Labour will have other challenges on its hands, as a taxi driver (who better?) vividly explained on a recent excursion.
He said he'd voted Labour in 1992 because they promised change. And what did they do? They took up with Fianna Fail. (He waved away any excuse about how the electoral cookie crumbles or FG's resistance to coalition with DL.)
Then, he said, they ditched Fianna Fail for a reason he couldn't follow and went in with FG and DL. They'd done very well, of course, but could they be trusted now?
I said I thought they could, gas he'd find out if he listened to Dick Spring and the delegates in Limerick. No jokes. No surprises. Definitely.
When Jim Kemmy welcomed them to the city yesterday he said they'd find it a modern and progressive place - a metaphor, it seemed for the new Ireland which Labour had done so much to build.
But, he admitted, not all of the city's problems had been solved. And that, too, seemed a metaphor for the new Ireland.
The people who'd lived in Limerick's lanes and tenements, described with such heartbreaking eloquence by Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes, had been moved to the edges of the city, to Southhill and beyond.
And a new challenge has been raised this week to a society and its leaders, who might wish to see them not only out of sight but out of mind.
This was the publication by the Conference of Religious in Ireland of Pathways to a Basic Income by Charles M.A. Clark and John Healy.
It's a plan for 1,000 days - to the end of the century - and it follows the arguments made with dogged determination by Father Sean Healy of CORI for a basic income that would raise everyone above the poverty line.
THIS study considers it possible to introduce a basic income of £70 a week for all, over a span of three years and with a tax rate of 44 per cent. Only the top 10 per cent would be accounted losers. But only the Green Party has given the idea wholehearted support.
The arguments against it are largely economic, on the cost, and psychological, on the difficulty of changing attitudes. The political question remains when, if ever, the challenge is to be faced and what are the consequences of failure to do so.
But the idea of security for all is no alienism. Two sayings in Irish describe poverty and ban Irish response to it:
Ni hi an bochtaineacht amhain ach an tarcaisne a leanan i (It's not the poverty alone but the humiliation that goes with it). Is ar scath a che'il a mhaireann na daoine (People live in each other's shelter).