Here’s an audience-generating idea for impoverished RTÉ. Now that the curtain has come down on Dancing with the Stars for another year, it’s time to trot out a different form of entertainment. I’m thinking line dancing. You know that line-up where everybody wears cowboy hats and collectively steps to the left, then to the right? There would be no shortage of willing contestants in Leinster House. RTÉ could call it Dancing with the Tsars and film it in the Dáil chamber where politicians have, of late, been tripping the light fantastic from left to right with glitter ball-worthy gusto.

Sinn Féin’s dash across the political spectrum with its U-turn on the hate speech Bill gives new meaning to celebrity contestants’ tiresome jargon about their “journey”. Having voted for the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill at report stage in the Dáil on April 26th, the party, busy pimping itself for government, now wants the Bill torn up. This volte-face, surely, is unrelated to Sinn Féin’s recent decline in opinion polls and haunting memories of its dismal outing in the 2019 local elections.

This was the party’s second spectacular change of heart this month. The first was when it reneged on Mary Lou McDonald’s pre-poll promise that, should the family and care referendums be rejected, she would re-run them, if in government, using the wording recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly. No sooner were the resounding No votes counted than the back-pedalling began.

There is also speculation that Harris may reassign McEntee, who has been targeted by the right as the Cabinet’s champion of ‘woke’ issues

Following the shock waves created by voters in those........

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