Brian Cowen is a tough political operator. You don't pick up the nickname Biffo because you like flower arranging and leave everyone feeling warm and fuzzy.
So when he stood up in Dublin on Sunday and asked his Fianna Fail party to back him or sack him, you knew he'd done his arithmetic and was pretty sure he'd win.
He's been in trouble for a while. In echos of the UK and Gordon Brown, he was finance minister to a long-serving and popular prime minister. He presided over the budget at a time of unprecedented expansion which no one thought would ever end and everyone loved him for it.
When elevated to the top job, he enjoyed a bit of a honeymoon period but when the global financial crisis began to bite, his popularity began to fall.
It's just two months since the country called in the IMF and the EU because of the state of the finances.
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