My election dilemma in Twitter length summary

FF = Civil war party which practices influence for sale to the highest bidder. No way

FG = Civil war party with Thatcherite policies - easily consumed but hard to digest

Lab = Very disappointed with their less than creative policies for a country in crisis, rocked to sleep by 14 years in opposition

Greens = Damaged the environmental debate for generations by coalescing with FF, you can’t fight corruption in partnership with the corrupt

SF = Incredible policies from a (semi) Civil war party with many credibility issues

Soc, PBP, United Left = Sums don’t add up but at least advocate a different future. Don’t have a candidate in my constituency

Ind = Each independent has to be evaluated on their merits but poor or single issue candidates in my constituency

Pack up, we're moving

Since 67% of us have decided to endorse the unchanged Lisbon treaty, the politicos who were conspicuous in their absence throughout the campaign are delighting that we are remaining "at the centre of Europe". A quick check of any map will confirm we are very much on the periphery of the continent - I assume once the treaty is ratified we will be moving, there's probably a field or two available somewhere near Luxembourg that we could pitch our tents.

That will leave the whole country to be bundled into the NAMA free for all ...

Careful now, indiscriminate charting can be dangerous

Fancy a free Toyota for 6 months?

Toyota are offering four people the chance to test drive their new iQ for 6 months. The car itself is in the Smart car family and boasts a lot of innovative green technology and low CO2 emissions. Toyota are also co-operating with Aston Martin to produce a similar Smart car called the Cygnet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_iQ

You can apply for the test drive at http://www.toyota.ie/about/promotions/iQ-Twitter/

Last one out turn off the lights

In case you are looking for economic green shoots and lights at the end of the tunnel, here's the up to date skinny on Ireland Inc.

The guarantee given to the banks in Sep 2008 now amounts to the Irish taxpayers underwriting approx €215 BILLION. The two Brians (bless 'em) reassure us that we do need to do this to get our banks moving and lending money, the banks dont seem to be lending much money but borrowing money they certainly are, 15% of the money owed to the European Central Bank (ECB) is from Irish banks and yes, guess who's going to have the privilege of paying for that.

But not to worry, NAMA is going to sort all that out for us isn't it. Eh, well no, not quite. You see to keep the banks alive and kicking the two Brians (bless 'em again) have decided to take it handy on them when valuing their impaired assets. An impaired asset is where an idiot in a bank gives another idiot the money to pay over the odds for something that turns out to be close to worthless, and when we say way over the odds we mean WAY over the odds, for example former Fianna Fáil councillor Gerard Killally and former Co Offaly GAA football manager Richie Connor paid €8.5 million for 16 acres in Edenderry, Co Offaly. Incidentally the two lads sorta forgot to repay any of the loans they took out but these things can happen when you have a busy life.

The most conservative estimates are that NAMA will lose about €20 billion. Let's not forget we've already pumped about €10 billion into our banks. It will all be worth it though to help get the economy back on the right track, wont it. Well consider this, to achieve the €20b loss the banks will have to be made profitable and guess how they will do that, well the only way they can which is to put up interest rates on loans and mortgages. So things should be really fun come 2011 or 2012 when we have about 700,000 on the dole and mortgages rates probably doubled if not higher.

By 2015 the only ones working will be the bank staff coz we were good enough to save the banks, the politicians of course coz they've done such a fine job and the remaining civil servants required to hand out dole money. The country no doubt will have been sold to Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi who no doubt will convert it into a golf course and training/parking facilities for Manchester City players and staff . At least we'll get a few bob off on oil which will probably be $300 a barrel at that juncture.

Cost of nationalising the banks when their shares were close to worthless, about €1 billion. Makes you wonder who is doing the sums.