Ireland - Following a six year term in office , the second longest term in office after Eamon de Valera Bertie (Can't step out of Charles Haughey's shadow)  Ahern the Irish Taoiseach has finally in a cloud of controversy announced his up coming resignation.

Following a career as Taoiseach which included such highlights as;

the negating of Ireland's neutrality when the American Idiot asked could he land a few planes.

Cutting public spending back after campaigning only a few months previously on a platform of no cutbacks.

Authorising spending 52 million euro on the Nedap voting system which was then discarded after being found to be impossible to make secure.

Appointing a series of utterly inept ministers to the post of Minister for Health, thus reducing the waiting lists by dint of people dying before they could be treated.

Bertie managed to round it all off by various shady financial dealings coming to light.  Though all but one of these has since been argued as only being a little naughty in the high court and thus not really needing to be answered.  

Though those who have an eye to Irish politics for the last 20 years will note that while the former Taoiseach Charles Haughey managed not only to avoid being caught for numerous shady dealing til death was literally picking him up for school, even managing to buy his own Bond Villain retreat (a small island off the west coast of Ireland) with money garnished from the taxpayers, Bertie's fall from grace has held none of the sheer majesty of Haughey's.

No gun running in his own private yacht for the IRA, not even a hint of a few little bastards to carry on the goal of world domination and worst no island from which to plot this eventual rise to world power.

No poor Bertie will go now into the shadows and soon be forgotten.  But all the same thank you Bertie for the good times after all at least you did ban smoking in bars but those of us with literary taste will never forgive you for getting your daughters books published.