Sir, - For years now the mediocre in the media have been telling us that nobody takes a blind bit of notice of Eoghan Harris. Who do they think they are fooling? If he was of no importance he wouldn't be worth attacking.
In fact Harris set the agenda for the presidential election from start to finish. Thanks to his influence on the early Nally campaign - which turned the election into a plebiscite on the peace process - McAleese was forced to come clean about her Northern nationalist agenda and will have to follow a pluralist line in the Park. The Fine Gael vote is up on the general election and in Dublin the party has got its grip back on the middle class, which is still sceptical of Sinn Fein. None of this would have happened without Harris's hard-line intervention.
And Harris is still setting the agenda. The suggestion that Mary McAleese might wear a poppy came first from Harris on the Prime Time count programme last Friday, five hours before Nell McCafferty raised the possibility at the press conference in Dublin Castle.
That's what I call a spin doctor. - Yours etc.,
Oran Day,
Meadow Vale, Blackrock, Co Dublin.