‘There’s a reason no one else would back him’

Alan Kelly had a meteoric rise in politics but last week it all came crashing down to earth for him

Brendan Howlin and Alan Kelly at the Labour Partys annual James Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill Cemetery in Dublin last weekBarbara Lindberg.

Alan Kelly reacted to his first major political defeat by sending a cryptic tweet of seven pints at various stages of consumption from his local pub in Portroe. He called it “the seven stages of leadership”.

As ever, there were mixed views in Labour about it. “He is just taking the piss out of himself,” said a source close to Kelly in response to the Twitter intervention.

Others in the party were more ...