Form is Temporary; Class is Permanent

Bertie Ahern's -the current Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister)- enforced resignation over financial irregularities has precipitated the inevitable pontificating of the armchair-experts. Barstool Fintan O'Toole, a well-known, left-wing Irish journalist, a perpetual pessismist, has weighed in with his worthy views, labelling Mr Ahern "...a great illusionist", saying he had given a "...masterclass in shamelessness" in his dealings with the various tribunals investigating his alleged misdeeds.

Does a banker tell a baker how to make bread? It is all too easy for those who have never deigned to put their money where their words are to lecture leaders on how to lead, to judge outside their journalistic jursidiction. We should all be thankful men and women of Mr Ahern's calibre exist at all, people with shoulders broad enough to lead, taking constant, ill-informed barbs from journalistic-'Tooles in their stride.

Saints are in short supply. It looks likely that Mr Ahern may indeed have been complicit in some kind of financial irregualrity, and let me be clear that this is not to be excused; it is entirely inconsistent with the principles of democracy, granted. But, this kind of vainglorious retreat to the moral-highground is too galling for my ears; the follies of human-nature are present everywhere, in every office and in all of us. Tony Blair yesterday described Mr Ahern as "...a great Taoiseach, a leader for whom I had the greatest respect, admiration and friendship". Not being in office any longer, he did not have to be that assertive; he was because Mr Ahern, his reputation and his legacy, deserved it.

The miracles of the Irish economy in the last decade were not solely or even primarily down to Mr Ahern; neither was the historic peace secured in Northern Ireland. However, intimate observers of both are sincere when they say he played a vital role in both, and let no cynical hacks tell you otherwise. Let's let leaders lead.