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Villager
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NI Elections
► ’ .
After the Queen Mother, Villager’s favour-
ite royal is Sarah Ferguson. The highlight of
the post-war royal period was of course It’s
a Royal Knockout in . This was most
likely organised by jolly toe-sucking, hard-
drinking, money-hoovering Ferguson who
has always specialised in the Knockout, and
not just for charity TV programmes. After
that he loves the queen herself: dignified and
so good with animals. Then it’s Prince Philip
(so good at not seeming to be Greek) and
Princess Anne (so good with horses). Oh my
dears…Village’s royal correspondent has just
informed us the Queen Mother has passed on.
Not so good for ninety, then.
►
Single mothers whose youngest child is over
will no longer be able to claim one-par-
ent family payments under the terms of dra-
conian new social-welfare legislation. The
change was described as “blunt and bru-
tal” by Olwyn Enright, the Fine Gael spokes-
woman on social protection, who accused
Fianna Fáil of a cynical political move in
releasing the information late on a Friday.
But this seems unlikely since, unreported in
the media due to a complex requirement that
they check out Éamon O’ Cuív’s departmen-
tal web-site before understanding what was
going on, they missed the fact that it doesn’t
kick in until – that’s a lot of Fridays.
The one-parent family payment is currently
paid to a parent until the youngest child
reaches , or , if the child is in full-time
education.
► -
Right-thinking John McGuinness, contin-
ues his Clark Kent quest to clean up the dirty
town that is Fianna Fail, through dissidence.
He has convened the ‘Lemass Group’, named
after “the most forward-thinking leader” of
Fianna Fáil to keep abreast of events. It has
held seven meetings, and heard the views of
the hunting lobby; rank-and-file gardaí and
Army personnel; advocates for older peo-
ple; the Bank of Ireland, Red C and politi-
cal scientist Dr Michael Marsh from TCD.
Not exactly the vanguard for a new Ireland
(except for Villager’s old friend, Michael
Marsh, of course).
►
Children’s comic-fantasy novel Skulduggery
Pleasant is the winner of the Irish Book
of the Decade competition. The book by
Dubliner Derek Landy topped an internet
poll to decide the nation’s favourite Irish
book, with almost , votes cast over the
last month. Alastair Giles, executive director
of the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards
sounded perhaps a little disappointed that
the format had not produced a more predict-
able winner. He said two thirds of the novels
on the -strong shortlist were literary nov-
els by “giants” such as John McGahern, Anne
Enright, Colm Tóibín and William Trevor. “By
beating such opposition in the poll, Derek
