‘Tis thirsty weather for having a go at students

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Niall McNelis’ sanctimonious tosh about alcohol is enough to drive anyone to drink.  The Labour Party city councillor was on the Joe Duffy show on RTÉ recently, banging on about students’ drinking habits and Rag Week and Donegal Tuesday and whatever you’re having yourself.

And with St Patrick’s Day looming, no doubt he’ll be finger-pointing again at young people who enjoy a beverage or two.

Cheap-shot student-bashing is populist and will get you plenty of airtime on the national broadcaster. It may even garner a few votes, too.

But you’d swear zero-craic McNelis was a teetotaller, who never indulged in a few scoops during his student days.

He’s towing the Labour line on all of this of course.

The party wants alcohol sponsorship in sport banned; price-fixing – or minimum pricing as they like to call it, which means we pay more for beer and wine; and warning labels and calorie counts on bottles and cans. He’s stopped short at calling for a Michael McDowell ‘café culture’ but, who knows, if it gets him some more radio exposure, McNelis may revive that idea.

Bradley Bytes does seem to recall downing a few pints with McNelis late in a city centre pub on the night/early morning he was first elected to Galway City Council.

Well able to throw them back, too, he was. And the only complaints about drink that night was whether we could get enough of the stuff.

Lovely Lorraine’s self-praise

Politicians want to be bearers of good news. If politicians deliver good news, they reckon that they’ll get a boost from the feel-good factor of being associated with that good news.

And if they’re associated with good news, the likelihood is a gullible electorate will think that the politician is responsible for the good news, as opposed to shamelessly attaching themselves to it.

Sometimes that bandwagon-hopping backfires.

Step forward Labour Party senator Lorraine Higgins who had quite a bit of egg on her face after making a balls of an attempt to be associated with good news.

Lovely Lorraine rushed on local radio, and announced on Twitter, how delighted she was that the Galway Mountain Rescue team was successful in bringing students to safety in Sligo.

A very good news story, you’ll agree.

Except it wasn’t the Galway Mountain Rescue who were involved in the rescue but their counterparts in the Sligo/Leitrim Mountain Rescue.

We hear Lovely Lorraine got a right tongue-lashing from members of Sligo/Leitrim Mountain Rescue, who were understandably upset at not getting the credit for risking their lives to save others.

Their Galway equivalent was apparently mortified at the praise, which in this case, wasn’t due.

Think before you tweet, Lorraine.