Below, Vincent Browne responds to some of your tweets about tonight's show. {jathumbnailoff}

Below the jump, Labour's election manifesto for 2011.

Last week's general strike in Span is only part of the opening act in a period in Spanish politics that may have major repercussions for the future of the Eurozone. By Benito Cao.

Spain’s general strike last week has sent a clear message to other Eurozone countries about how challenging it may be to implement labour market reform. 

The strike was mostly peaceful, with the exception of some violent incidents in Barcelona. While participation rates are disputed, it is clear voters are unhappy with deep labour reforms announced by the conservative government of Mariano Rajoy.

The majority government, which came to power last November, wants to make it easier to hire and fire workers, claiming such reform is essential to get Spain’s economy back on track and bring down the country’s 24% unemployment rate.

Micheál Martin addressed the MacGill Summer School earlier today (27 July) on the subject of political reform, saying: "If things keep going as they are, not only will there be no real reform there will be very significant steps backwards. Government will be less accountable, parliament will be more irrelevant and reform will be the most devalued word in Irish politics."

The full text of his speech is below.

The election of 2011 was significant not only for political parties but for the fact that it represented the unmistakable voice of the people.  They expressed their anger and disappointment at the state of politics, the economy and the government.  The make-up of the new government and the large majority it commands was the inevitable outcome.

The people voted for radical change.  We can all agree that much.  But there is something which far too many commentators miss: The radical change people voted for was not about exchanging one lot for another, it was about changing the way politics and government is done in this country.

The stunts over the abolition of the Seanad are a reminder that however desperate the nation's condition may be, our politicians can be relied upon to do everything they can to make matters worse.

There is huge disillusionment with politics as politics is in Ireland now. A sense that the government is hopelessly incompetent and that the alternative government is hardly any better.

‘New Politics’, Fine Gael’s agenda for institutional reform, contains some surprisingly good ideas. By Vincent Browne

A few days after the 2007 general election, in which Fine Gael made an impressive recovery from the debacle it suffered in 2002, I meet Enda Kenny on the street at Merrion Square. He quoted verbatim the opening lines of a column I had written after that 2002 debacle in which I had offered a prayer for Fine Gael: “May the Angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs greet you at your arrival and lead you into the holy city, Jerusalem. May the choir of Angels greet you and like Lazarus, who once was a poor man; may you have eternal rest.”

George Lee’s problem was not the lack of a platform or a role – it was the absence of a political philosophy. By Vincent Browne.

Video: The engaging exchange between Vincent and George Lee on Monday's 'Tonight' programme

In 1963, when George Lee was still a baby, a fabulous film burst on the adolescent consciousness of my contemporaries and myself, Federico Fellini’s 8½.

Fellini was a celebrity film director at the time, having had a huge success with La Dolce Vita in 1960.

There were four gardaí outside the examination hall at Trinity College last Tuesday evening. I asked them who was attending an event (on electoral systems) in the hall and was worth assaulting. They thought about the question, and acknowledged that they had no idea.

The event was both a seminar and a sitting of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, chaired by the admirable Sean Ardagh TD. The event was boring - not quite excruciatingly so, but very much so. More than that, it was entirely pointless.

Quite suddenly, the optimism of the Celtic Tiger era has given way to despair and the new government of Brian Cowen has been seen to mirror that despair. The performance of the leading trio — Brian Cowen, Mary Coghlan and Brian Lenihan — has been unsure and floundering. They have failed to communicate the underlying strengths of the economy and, in the wake of the Lisbon Treaty rejection, the secure place Ireland continues to enjoy within the EU.

Evidence that Bertie Ahern received sums of money far exceeding his official salary in 1994 is now incontrovertible. No credible explanation has been offered for this, although his close associates, current and former, have stood loyally by him

By Vincent Browne 

A memoir by David Andrews gives a unique insight into Fianna Fáil in government. By Barry Desmond

Up the Poll: Great Irish Election Stories by Shane Coleman, recounts Irish elections back to 1917. By Ursula Halligan 

One thing's for sure: the Irish love their general elections. The lust for power by some candidates guarantees not only great moments of controversy but also plenty of laughs and lots of entertainment for the public.

With the loss of the Heathrow connection from Shannon, the disappointments of the hurling and football teams, the reverses in rugby, the media denigration of a great city and county and the eclipse of the O'Malleys, one would have thought Limerick had suffered enough. But now the Constituencies Commission has surgically removed part of the county and transplanted it into Kerry North to enable that constituency retain three seats. And a consequence of this contrivance will be the eclipse of another great political dynasty, the Healy Reas.

The Progressive Democrats themselves must appreciate the game is over for them.

They lost their last leader, Michael McDowell (remember him?) in the election, along with five other of their eight TDs. Mary Harney, a former leader, refuses to continue as interim leader. Its only other Dáil deputy, Noel Grealish, won't accept the leadership and there are rumours he may join Fianna Fail. A would be leader, Tom Parlon, has defected to the Construction Industry Federation. A wanna-be leader, Colm O'Gorman, failed to make it to the Senate. Its only remaining even vaguely plausible candidate for the leadership, Fiona O'Malley, must now realise her hopes of making back to the Dáil are zilch.

No chance of making it back in Dun Laoghaire, which is being reduced from a five-seater to a four-seater. No hopes of making it in the O'Malley Limerick playground, which also has lost a seat. But the PDs will take solace on leaving behind them a deeply unequal and unjust society.

Ends 

_{Musical Seats in Dublin}

While the constituency revision affords the best politician of the last Dáil, Joe Higgins, a chance to return in Dublin West next time (it has got an extra seat), another of the Dáil's best TDs, Ciaran Cuffe, is facing a challenge in Dun Laoghaire, which has lost a seat. Either he goes or Barry Andrews of Fianna Fail goes.

Ends 

It is well that the maximum number of senior ministers is specified in our constitution. If that were not so, I have absolutely no doubt that Bertie Ahern would swell the ranks of senior positions in order to placate a bigger group of his FF deputies.

The naysayers use Ireland's economic boom to argue that we cannot meet our Kyoto targets.  In fact, the argument can be turned on its head.

Two more families have been forced out of Moyross while the campaign of anti-social behaviour continues and the politicians take a long summer holiday.

In the recent election, Labour played a crucial role in reviving Fine Gael, from the near oblivion of 2002, while Labour's own vote dropped marginally and its seats tally decreased by one.

Exclusive interview with the Taoiseach by Katie Hannon

What Bertie's peers really think of him

Plus commentary by Vincent Browne 

As internal dissent plagues the DUP, candidates have been asked to sign contracts of loyalty, with fines for breaching party policy ahead of the Northern Assembly elections on 7 March. Fionola Meredith reports.

After the massive incompetence (excuse me - "simple human error") that got the pervert Judge Curtin off the hook and into a nice little pension, comes the latest blunder of McDoodle's department. A major alert comes in from a foreign country on child pornography and it gets overlooked. Come on now, McDoodle, how dare you treat us with such contempt. Nothing except either a hopelessly endemic corruption or the most massive imaginable incompetence could get something like that ignored. There is no alternative. If there is any human error around here it's Teflon Bertie letting the PDs anywhere near any positions of responsibility, clearly demonstrated by the fact that good health and decent justice are both in very short supply recently. Given that, for some reason that totally eludes me, there is about as much hope of the electorate getting rid of Bertie as there is of FF coming out and saying that Squire Haughey was a disgrace to the decent honest voters of Ireland, all we can hope for is that he will at least get rid of all the people who aren't very bothered about child pornography.

Dick Barton, Tinahely, Co Wicklow

“I will not put Fianna Fáil back in government. Now is there any part of that you don't understand?” - Pat Rabbitte, 8 January 2007 on Questions and Answers 

 PLUS Bertie's speech at the opening of Leas Cross 23 April, 1998

The general election will be the major domestic news story of 2007.

It's a time for family, to remember loved ones no longer with us, a time when families are coming home from abroad, a time for children, for pantomimes, for Grafton Street lights. Bertie Ahern can't remember who enjoyed it more, him or his children. So he told the nation in his ‘Christmas thoughts' slot on Drivetime with Mary Wilson (Weekdays 5-6.30pm, RTÉ Radio 1).

It was obvious throughout the period when he was Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil that Charles Haughey could not possibly have financed his lifestyle from his official salary. And yet the media and the political establishment did not want to know. By Vincent Browne

Politics is no more now than a game show. Personality and style with an agenda stacked against fairness and democracy. By Vincent Browne

Michael D Higgins despises Margaret Thatcher as much as ever, struggles to see the ‘brilliance' of Michael McDowell and finds the dealings of Pat Rabitte and Enda Kenny ‘fairly daft'. Justine McCarthy meets Labour's Limerick-born literatus as he prepares to publish his ‘revealing' new book

In the 1970s Peter Hain was the charismatic hero of the anti-apartheid campaign. In 2006, the North's secretary of state has morphed into an ambitious Blairite with his eye on the prize – the Labour leadership. By Colin Murphy

Could you give me some idea of the ground you would like to cover in the interview before we start?

Well, just a little on the Brussels negotiations, the forthcoming Budget and the cheap livestock loans ...

 What cheap livestock loans?

The £100 million fund for livestock investment announced by Brian Lenihan in November before the election.

Well, I'm not too clear ...

Is the cheap livestock scheme going ahead, Minister?

Em ...

An examination of over seven thousand Dail questions processed during forty sitting days this year shows that only four out of every ten questions asked could be considered legitimate. The majority of the questions are designed to increase the electoral prospects of the TDs asking them. Over a full year, with the average number of sitting days of 87, the misuse of parliamentary questions costs the tax payer almost half a million pounds and contributes to the distortion of the democratic process.

"This election provided an opportunity to win the kind of specific mandate for the radical action that is needed to resolve the national crisis..this has not happened and Fine Gael is primarily to blame.."

Staff reporter Gene Kerrigan has been through New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Illinois and New York on the campaign trail of Senator Edward Kennedy.

Michael O'Riordan of the Communist Party of Ireland is the longest serving general secretary of any communist party in Europe. He has uncritically supported a pro-Soviet line on every major issue which partly accounts for his party's poor success here.

How Lord Killanin is playing for time in an effort to outwit Jimmy Carter and Margaret Thatcher.

The Fine Gael Ard Fheis was a deserved success for Garret FitzGerald, who has devoted more energy to resuscitating the party in the last 10 months than anybody has done in the last 40 years.