Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
WAGs could learn from Ukraine’s pensioners
IN A Ukrainian village this week a 94-year-old lady emerged from a hole underground where she had been hiding in fear for the past seven weeks.
Dazed and confused, wearing a dust-laden headscarf, a tattered raincoat and dragging a trolley in her wake, she emerged to find the only home she ever knew obliterated. Coming towards her, clutching a measly food package to her chest, was a face from a distant past, a 74-year-old neighbour. The food lady had, just moments before, told a news crew she was craving bread and was eternally indebted to the men who came bearing a loaf. The two ladies embraced and the first woman asked her neighbour: ‘Has the war ended?’ ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but these brave, kind men have come to bring us food,’ and she waved to the lads.
Seeing her distraught neighbour beginning to well up, the bread lady offered her food package which was refused. There ensued a battle where they both shoved the parcel back and forth between each other. Eventually, the younger woman was victorious and she opened the trolley and threw the few bits of food in. The two hugged each other and shed tears before going their separate ways – heads high, hearts fallen. But both displayed dignity and moral fortitude in the face of unimaginable horror.
Meanwhile, in England this week two other women were also embroiled in their own war of their worlds. WAGs Colleen Rooney and Rebecca Vardy are locked in a bloody battle. Their boys too are also heroes in their hometowns. Soldiers on the soccer field.
Each woman we are told is the injured party. Both wronged and resilient in the fight of their lives. But the designer-loving ladies would not be seen dead wearing dignity... and decorum is like, sooooo last season. While the elderly ladies in Ukraine might be dirt poor and living in rags and rubble, they are unequivocally far richer than their English counterparts.
House about a better solution?
AN ASSOCIATE Professor of Law at Trinty College, Dr Rachael Walsh, has advocated for the State expropriation of private property because the Constitution says it can do so. The learned lawyer argued that it is written into the Constitution that ‘the State is empowered to restrict property rights to secure the common good and social justice’.
While there is an absolute need for housing, and the refugee crisis is beyond harrowing, for the State to supersede the rights of private citizens on this issue is very much a slippery slope.
Successive governments have failed to solve the housing crisis and these quick-fix flyers do nothing but deepen division and derail discourse. Firstly, the State itself is proprietor of a large number of vacant properties, and it should start there before deciding to seize private property.
And secondly, once such a precedent has been set, what guarantees that it ever stops? In democracy, the State is not considered some kind of honest broker because it says it is. And as we have seen in the past multiple times, the State can be the cause of great harm. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
Another scandal in the Tory Parish
ANOTHER week, another Tory scandal. This week Britain was left aghast at claims that a Conservative MP had been seen watching pornography on his mobile device in the House of Commons.
With everyone trying to root out the ‘Porn MP’ on Friday, one Neil Parish outed himself and has had the whip suspended while an investigation is conducted. Parish fessing-up, bizarrely, came just two days after he himself was interviewed on GB News about the allegations. The politician was peppered with questions and asked for his reaction to the ‘jaw-dropping’ allegation.
When asked whether there was a problem with the culture in parliament, he said: ‘I think it does have to be dealt with and dealt with seriously and that’s what the whips will do in our whips’ office.’
Perhaps his awkward interview may have been a misguided attempt to throw people off the scent. But given he had been seen and already named this wasn’t exactly a ‘whodunnit’. So he might have been best keeping his mouth, and his
phone closed.
Whole Lotto generosity
A WOMAN worthy of homage this week is the Lotto ‘fairy godmother’, not only for donating half of her €136m fortune, but also for hiding her largesse from her husband. Ever since 2019, Euro-Millions winner Frances Connolly has been revelling in her newfound wealth: by giving it away! ‘Helping other people and doing something to help other people will lift you,’ she said. ‘It gives you a buzz and it’s addictive.’
But her other half, Patrick, may not be such a ‘buzzy-hubby’ as the flaithiúlach Frances has already shattered the couple’s agreed annual donation budget.
‘He gave me an annual budget for good causes. We set one this year, I agreed to it. I’ve already spent all the money. It was to take us up to 2032. We might have to revise it.’
And who hasn’t been that spender? Sloshing through the budget and devising cunning ways to stash the goods. But to blow the budget by a couple of million takes enormous talent and is worthy of high praise.
While money can often be the root of all evil, Frances doling out the cash is the work of a wonderful woman sprinkling her wealth on many worthy causes.
Twitter wokies need to wake up
ELON MUSK’S Twitter takeover prompted an outpouring of woe-isus from the wokies. And I must say there is something self-satisfying about the left eating the left.
Musk, who is a proud self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist, has instilled the fear into the Twitterati that Donald Trump may return to the platform.
It seems lost in the ether that when Trump was booted off, the same self-serving crowd defended his dumping, saying Twitter was a private company therefore they could do as they desired.
Now the free speech and corporate shoe is on the other foot, their previous utterances have come back to haunt them. Some folk really are for the birds.