Matt Cooper: Plastic pollsters pulling a stroke undermines trust and politics
The political parties’ cavalier attitude to revelations of fake polling suggests they think we’re as cynical as they are
Strokes, as they’re known, are a longstanding part of Irish traditional political culture. To many participants, politics is a bit of a game in which it’s all about getting a leg up on a rival by fair means or foul.
In 1986, the late Breandán Ó hEithir wrote a wonderful book called The Begrudger’s Guide to Irish Politics that was full of stories of strokes pulled over the years. It was funny, enlightening and depressing ...