It’s never a good look to get a job when you’re the only candidate. Maybe Simon Harris is happy he didn’t face a contest to be taoiseach, but surely he must have wondered: ”So why does nobody else want this job?”

Could it be the unresolved housing crisis, the disintegration of the health service, the growing street protests over immigration or the likelihood of another tanking in the next round of elections in the summer?

Harris hasn’t had a big profile up north, not having expressed enough opinions to offend anyone yet, but there’s plenty of time.

Hopefully there won’t be any gaffes on the scale of his self-described “awful boo-boo” when he thought Covid-19 meant there’d been 18 earlier varieties. He was, ahem, health minister at the time.

Magee university task force is classic case of kicking can down road – Tom Collins

Kenova, the truth of the Troubles and remembering the Disappeared - The Irish News view

Does he have a hard act to follow? I had preferred Simon Coveney to win the FG leadership........

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