A week of U-turns and donuts

IT will go down in the history books as the week of the U-turn. Mary Lou McDonald started it on Tuesday when she announced that Sinn Fein was open for business and would be the best little party in Ireland to go into coalition with. Then Gerry U-turned with her, casually explaining that he never really bought into that whole notion of a left-wing government anyway.

To say people had whiplash would be an understatement. One was reminded of Father Dougal: “Sure it’s no more peculiar than all that stuff we learned in the seminary, you know, heaven and hell and everlasting life and all that type of thing. You’re not meant to take it seriously, Ted!”

Mary Lou and Gerry presumably went into the real leaders of Sinn Fein to explain: “Ah, come on guys! That left-wing stuff is just like all that United Ireland stuff and Brits Out and Nationalism. You’re not supposed to take it seriously!”

Enda then came out with a spectacular of his own when he basically did “All that stuff about not going into Government with Sinn Fein? Sure we said we wouldn’t go into Government with Fianna Fail and we ended up practically begging them. All that stuff we say about not going into Government with people, you’re not supposed to take it seriously!”

By yesterday, Enda’s U-turn had become what would be known in the midnight car parks of Mayo as a full donut, as he pulled the handbrake again, and said that of course he wouldn’t go into Government with Sinn Fein.

Basically it’s all left us feeling very vulnerable. Can we believe anything any of them say any more? And are any of the sacred political shibboleths that we hold to be true actually true?

For example, one of the cornerstones of our democracy is that Leo is going to be next leader of Fine Gael. But can we be sure that Leo isn’t going to come out this week and tell us that actually he doesn’t want to be leader at all? Perhaps he will tell us, “Oh, you know I was never interested in that leadership thing. That was all cooked up by journalists and it had nothing to do with me. They would be ringing me and I’d be telling them, ‘No lads, I just want to go off and work for Medecins Sans Frontieres’.” At this stage it wouldn’t surprise us.

Leo, who can’t go to the toilet without it being linked to the leadership, has been sitting on the pot for way too long now. Even his supporters are apparently growing weary. You have to wonder if he’s got tired of the idea of leadership himself.

Even Donald Trump got in on the act and has now apparently told Theresa May he’s 100pc Nato.

Indeed, would it surprise anyone if we see him, before the week is out, celebrating a spring break down in Cancun having margaritas and avocado on toast with his good buddy President Pena Nieto?

Breaking news: To clarify, no one performed any U-turns this week and I never said they did.