Gerry Adams once said (tongue in cheek, I suspect) that the actor who used to do his voice - Stephen Rea - sounded more like him than he did, but was often better at putting the words over. (And I don't think there was too much difference between Stephen and Gerry when it came to the issues the latter was talking about.)

While we're drifting , Mick's post a couple back set me thinking about the evident differences, alongside the similarities, between the way the Irish who went to America and the Irish who came to England tend to see many things. Much the same kind of opinions about what's happened in Ireland and what we'd like to see happen, but a different awareness of the complexities in the role and attitudes of "the English". But that's a matter for another thread maybe.

As for the main topic of the thread, I don't think there's really much general real difference between most of the people who've found themselves squaring up against each other. There's a servant in Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer who is ready enough to criticise his own employer himself, but won't allow anyone else to do so, and I have a feeling that notion is at the root of it, and it's not a bad notion either. But sometimes specific criticism can be interpreted as wider hostility when it isn't. (Which isn't to deny that sometimes wider hostility can mask itself as specific criticism.)