Putting the screws on Leo

Who’d have guessed that Leo was such a snowflake? The Taoiseach always seemed such a robust debater, ready and eager to wade in, fists flying, to every argument. Take that, people who don’t get up early in the morning! Enjoy your knuckle sandwich, uppity Shinners! Feel my wrath, commie traitors!

Suddenly Varadkar takes umbrage because Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin used the word “screw” during an exchange in the Dail. And he didn’t even use it in a sexual way, to describe what all those MPs at “Pestminster” have been doing to their researchers. He simply accused the Fine Gael leader of hypocrisy for saying he supported hospices “when you screw them”.

Varadkar reacted like a Victorian gentlewoman at the sight of a pair of bare ankles, telling his Opposition counterpart that such language was “unbecoming of your office”. Stop being so touchy, Leo. If you’re tough enough to impose austerity, you can handle a bad word.