Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto

Should have dawned on O’Porter not to say word

WRITER Dawn O’Porter last week came out in support of her friend Caroline Flack after her arrest for alleged domestic assault.

She tweeted: ‘Woken up to some really hard news about my friend Caroline Flack. Who I love very, very much.

‘I will wait until I know the facts before I make a judgement, and I urge you to do the same.

‘This cancel culture doesn’t help anyone. You weren’t there. You don’t know. That’s it.’

While Dawn’s support of Caroline friend: Dawn O’Porter came out in support of Caroline Flack may seem admirable, her defence of her friend is not only questionable but ill-judged and does no favours to Flack.

In fact, by blindly defending her friend, Dawn could do more damage to an already fraught situation.

While a friend in need may very well be a friend indeed, no friend needs an appeaser or an apologist or a plamásing pity-party. What they need is a helping hand not a shoulder to cry on.

A true friend is one who has the courage to say what nobody else either cares to or dares to.

Real friendship sometimes requires a good dose of tough facts that may be hard to hear.

Dawn’s rush to tweet, while wellintentioned, was a misguided act that resulted in more bile directed towards Caroline and left critics wondering if Dawn would be so quick off the mark had the roles been reversed and a man the alleged aggressor.

I’m not puddin’ up with this on big day

IS nothing safe from the interminably dreary, joyless, perpetually offended PC brigade? We have been bombarded with PC guides to ‘The Holidays’ (can’t say Christmas anymore) but now it seems the December 25 dinner must be a hotplate to promote PC algorithms on the internet. None of this Joy to the World malarkey, pulling a cracker or having a good old board game, washed down with a bit of festive cheer. As for Baby Jesus, well he’s long been out of favour, with gender-based toys consigned to the sin bin. And classic songs like Fairytale of New York are a no-no.

We have unfortunately become inured to the endless preaching from the ‘right on’ zero craic brigade who seem to think they can dictate exactly what the rest of us should say, do and think. But one article really took the Christmas cracker. Seemingly, Christmas dinner while all the family are gathered round is the perfect time to discuss social media algorithms and how our social media preferences affect our decisions and leanings.

The novel idea of a Feliz Navidad social media dinner is necessary, we are told, to combat misinformation and it seems that the actual Christmas dinner ‘is as good a place as any to promote literacy on internet algorithms’.

I can just imagine the merriment to be had in that happy holiday household.

I imagine it would go something like ‘pass the sprouts with the social media stats dear’, ‘turkey or tripe’ and for dessert perhaps some ‘plum pudding with echo chamber analytics on the side’.

Come on, Vogue – give us a break

VOGUE WILLIAMS was left, in her own words, ‘in tears’ this week after she was body-shamed following the release of some papped pictures of her in a bikini. The presenter and her husband Spencer Matthews were sunning themselves in Spencer’s family hotel on the luxury island of St Barts when the ‘papped’ shots were taken.

Vogue was pictured languishing carefree on a paddleboard in the blue oceans while romantically holding hands with her hubby. This ‘intimate’ moment soon became social media fodder with some unpleasant comments about Vogue’s physique.

Now let me preface this by saying that body-shaming in any way is wrong.

But I am slightly befuddled that such was Vogue’s distress at the comments that she decided to repost the images on her own social media platform.

It meant that those people who are so busy with work, life and Christmas that they missed the pictures got another chance to glimpse bikini-clad Vogue. Let’s hope they didn’t have the time or the inclination to scroll through the comments on the images which caused Vogue to cry.

Vogue’s winter break is also for work as she is filming another series, so one wonders how she missed the long-lens snapper who apparently photographed her unbeknownst to herself before selling them on to the papers.

The good news is that when Vogue posted the images to her social media page she received thousands of comments of support, which I imagine put a smile on her previously tear-streaked face.

Year has been royal pain for the Queen

IN 1992 when addressing the British nation, the Queen spoke of her ‘annus horribilis’, which saw the collapse of three of her children’s marriages and a fire that severely damaged her Windsor Castle home. But you could argue this year has been even worse.

Her ‘annus catastrophus’ began when her husband got a police warning for his involvement in a car crash, her grandsons William and Harry had a public falling out, granddaughter Zara was accused of taking money from a wealthy businessman and her ‘favourite’ son, Prince Andrew, brought the crown into disrepute because of his links to disgraced American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Now her beloved husband Prince Philip has been airlifted to hospital just days before Christmas.

Let’s hope she can stave off more tragedy as she has had quite enough for one year.

Minister’s Canney move for dog welfare

WELL done Minister Seán Canney for bringing in new laws to stem the misery of puppy-farmed dogs.

The minister listened to campaigners, considered what needed to be done and acted decisively.

The result of the new law to prevent puppy farmers advertising pups as family-bred is a major leap forward as all our animal rescues identified online selling as one of the major problems in their fight against the puppy farm trade.