It's Not Complicated: You're Damned If You Excuse This

Dawn Neesom, Editor of the U.K. Daily Star,who is responsible for this headline. Dawn became Editor in 2003 when she lost her job  wiping Rupert Murdoch's saggy auld bum. Neesum previously worked at The Sun

This picture was taken while she was in the middle of a particularly vigorous wipe. 

There is no defending what happened here in Ireland over the past couple of days. The decision by the Health Services Executive and Gardaí to seize two Roma children from their families in separate incidents in Tallaght and Athlone is racism of the most virulent, medieval variety. Just take a look at this. In both cases DNA tests were carried out on the children who were deemed too blonde to definitely be Roma. In both cases the DNA tests have proved that the children's parents are indeed their parents. 

The "you're damned if you act [take a child into care on foot of a complaint] and damned if you don't." line which some silly types, on social media and elsewhere, are taking in relation to this is just the whittering of apologists. Next thing they'll be saying Irish Water has no choice but to check to make sure the Jews aren't actually poisoning wells because, I mean, some tosspot from Athlone has written in saying they have and some backwoods woman from Granard typed "you're damned if you act and damned if you don't!!!!!!!!!!" on Facebook. Go in fear of clichés and exclamation marks. Fascists always love them. 

There is a simple question you can ask yourself if you're in any doubt about this: if a young lady from one of Ireland's more salubrious addresses, such as Taylor's Hill or Shrewsbury Road, had - following a trip to find herself somewhere out foreign - popped out a child whose complexion was noticeably on the brown side, is there the slightest chance that the Health Services Executive and Gardaí would have moved to seize said child, for DNA testing, on foot of a complaint from some sinister fool who probably reads the Irish Daily Shtar? The answer to that would be no, Dougal, no.

It's clear that a conspiracy theory to the effect that Madeleine McCann was kidnapped by gypsies has gone about the place like wildfire over the past week or so. If she had been, do you really think there's the slightest possibility that police wouldn't have found her by now? Again, the answer there would be no, Dougal, no. 

Conspiracy theories are these days mostly associated with fellas with holey wooly jumpers and mad starey eyes going on about lizards and Dick Cheney and fluoride in the water. But this week the Irish State joined the David Icke/Jim Corr party of people who believe things not because there's any real evidence but rather because some poisonous eejit said it. 

And now we take a break from this tirade for a poem.