Admission fee to the moral high ground

LET’S talk about our leaders and their moral authority.

A common feature of all that ails the country at the moment is that those at the top are telling the populace to do as they say, not as they do. Savage austerity is being imposed, much of it on those who can least afford it, while our betters continue to exist in a bubble. Precious little in the way of example has been offered by our political leaders. Instead, they have shown a capacity to speak out of both sides of their mouths.

From the top down, the lack of leadership has been depressing. Take the titular head of the State, President Michael D Higgins. Here is a man who, through his long career, had a reputation for passionately representing the marginalised at home and abroad. He is a self-proclaimed socialist who was sometimes regarded as being too left-wing for Labour.