A Contract with Ireland

Inspired by Enda Kenny and his pet Rabbitte, Bertie and even the ethical Greens, we now bring you the ‘Contract with Ireland’ launched today by Walter Goodthing, leader of the Whatever You’re Having Yourself Party.
Speaking at the Ard Fheis of the Charles J Haughey Appreciation Society, Goodthing made these pre-election promises.
“Health – All hospital patients on a trolley or a waiting list for more than three days will be entitled to a Jacuzzi installed in their back garden, free of charge, with a government grant of €100 and a free 24-hour home visit once a month from a TV nurse of your choice (male or female) from ER, Holby City, All Saints or Scrubs.
“Education – Parents of school-age children will be entitled to a live-in Polish au pair (male or female) or, alternatively, have them enrolled from the ages of 5 to 18 in the new multi-storey boarding school (co-sponsored by McDonald’s and Ben Dunne), Coláiste de Eddie Hobbs in the Cayman Islands.
“Transport – Every tenants’ association or Macra na Feirme branch nominated by a local cumann will be entitled to a weekly ride in a white stretch limousine or a burn-up on the back of Gay Byrne’s motorbike.
“Public Holidays – Extra public holidays to honour the following saints: St Genesius (for our lawyers), St Matthew (for our accountants), and St Vincent (for our builders and developers).”
Goodthing adds:
“This is my Contract with Ireland (and if you’re not interested in any of the above, there’ll be a big blank space in my manifesto where you can fill in whatever you fancy yourself).”

Bertie’s communist tendency

Fianna Fáil’s choice of election campaign slogan – “The Next Steps” – is interesting.
Some political anoraks have pointed out that it’s the same slogan used by the reviled Margaret Thatcher in a big speech in Belgium in 1988. Us republicans who did our time in the 1970s behind bars in England (The Crown in Cricklewood, The Favourite in Holloway Road, The Old Bell on the Kilburn High Road) recall that The Next Step was the title of a leftist grouplet (and yet another SWP splinter) called the Revolutionary Communist Tendency which also tended to be the Revolutionary Communist Party.
I’m not sure whether it’s Maggie’s monstrous Tories or the RCP Splinters that ‘Bertie the Socialist’ is taking his inspiration from.

The trouble with Mary

Has anyone noticed the huge billboards one of Bertie’s running mates, Councillor Mary Fitzpatrick, is splurging all over Dublin Central?
I’m sure the third Fianna Fáil candidate will notice that Mary couldn’t find anywhere on her humungous billboard to include his name.The Soldiers of Destiny are battling it out  – with each other.
Bono’s defence of empire
Notwithstanding Bono’s praise on Sunday for “the courage” of Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley in reaching agreement last week, his defence of taking a bauble from the British queen and becoming an Honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was a little disingenuous.
Bono pointed out that people had no problem in him accepting the Legion d’Honneur from France but they do with taking it from “Great Britain”.
Let’s explain: (a) France is a republic, not headed by a monarchical dynasty which, by its nature, is anti-democratic and bars Catholics on purely sectarian grounds; (b) the honour is not named after its bygone, unlamented colonial history of empire and all the rape, pillage and murderous repression that built the British Empire; (c) the Black and Tans weren’t French.

Burberry border campaign

The factory in South Wales that makes the ever-so-British Burberry clothing range closed last Friday as the owners shifted the operation to China.
The closure had been opposed by celebrities such as Sir Tom Jones, Sir Alex Ferguson, Oscar-winning actor Emma Thompson and others. Even the self-styled Prince of Wales intervened, but to no avail. The high-profile campaign, though, did embarrass Burberry’s into delaying the factory’s closure, squeezing a £1.5 million donation for community projects and enhanced redundancy payments.
Last week, the workers marched out of the factory gates, led by a male voice choir, a jazz band and the Welsh flag.
As they left, the workers, who had given loyal service to the company through generations, the London Independent reported, “made clear their contempt for the company and its claims to quintessential Britishness”.
It should be noted, though, that Burberry’s had always been a bit laissez faire about their Britishness. Indeed, for years they exercised all the geographical exactitude of an SAS patrol on the Louth/Armagh border. Clothes made in Wales were sold with a label stating they had been “Made in England”.

Malvinas memories

The 25th anniversary of the battle for the Malvinas/Falklands had a clutch of war correspondents recalling their Boys’ Own adventures alongside the British Army in the South Atlantic. One of them was Patrick Bishop of The Observer who has covered both Gulf wars and conflicts in Africa, Bosnia and Lebanon, Palestine and, of course, Ireland:
“None of them has ever matched the Falklands for the excitement and the epic nature of the event. It was real Second World War stuff. You were with the [British] troops and right in the thick of it.
“You were given a little pass-book, you had the rank of captain and you were fed in the officers’ mess... Apart from not firing a gun, you were a soldier.”
Which sort of puts another complexion on Bishop’s book co-authored with Eamonn Mallie, The Provisional IRA, published five years after ‘Captain’ Bishop was yomping his rocks off with the Paras in the Falklands.

I got you, babe

Martin McGuinness was this week’s interviewee in the London Independent’s readers’ forum, You Ask the Questions.
Sue Manson from Newcastle asked:
“Mo Mowlam called you ‘babe’. Do you have any other nicknames and, if so, do you expect the Rev Ian Paisley to be using any of them?”
Martin doesn’t but I guess Ian Paisley calling him ‘babe’ might be an interesting ice-breaker.