Solo-socialist Daly fires warning shot before reforming Click with Mick

Given that politics seems to go around on a never-ending bad news loop — cruel cuts, clumsy climb-downs, Coalition chaos — any break from the depressing norm elicits great excitement in the Dáil.

The unlikely source of such interest as the Oireachtas returned yesterday was the suddenly solo-socialist Clare Daly who turned heads during her late entry into Leader’s Questions by deciding not to sit next to tax cheat TD Mick Wallace.

This was strange as the pair are usually so inseparable within the chamber they have almost become a sort of political Jedward — Clare and Mick: aka Click.

Click had been as clingy as an oil slick during environment questions, but Mr Tax Dodge was left all on his todd when it came to the set piece parliamentary moment of the session.

Ms Daly clearly wanted to make an entrance — and a statement — as she swept back into the chamber when the Taoiseach was already on his feet — the seemingly magnetic pull of Mick’s mangled antenna-shaped hair had lost its lustre and Daly darted instead for a seat with the now renamed DisUnited Left Alliance.

Which seemed to come as a surprise to Joe not-very-ho-ho-Higgins who, as Clare forced him to make room as she edged along the row, shot Daly the sort of look one expects Kate Middleton is saving for the next time she spots a French long-distance lens looming into view.

Nobody does a good old bust-up like the lefties, and the implosion of the Socialist Party has been something to behold for the sheer scale of its bitterness over the summer.

Like, dear, sainted Princess Diana before him, Higgins came to the conclusion that there were three people in his political marriage to Clare and she had to choose between helping him gain control over the means of industrial production for the masses, or Mick.

A press release dripping with vitriol was bashed out by Joe as he lashed out at her support for the Wexford tax cheat as the reason for this ugly — and very public — blip on the democratic road to socialist utopia.

In retaliation, Daly flatly denied Tricky-Mick had anything to do with her decision to turn her back on Higgins — and demanded half of the €120,000 the taxpayer gives the Socialists under the Leaders Allowance funding as her political divorce settlement.

Jilted Joe responded like many men in a similar situation and insisted she would not get her hands on a penny of the loot — why he’d even fast-track it back to the Finance Department than give Clare a few quid.

So Daly’s decision to switch seats for the big occasion was clearly a warning shot to Higgins that she’s here, she’s near, and he’d better get used to it.

However, the move meant Wallace looked lost in his own little quantum of solace in the far corner. He knew something was missing — and not just that €2.2m he still owes the rest of us for deliberately defrauding the Revenue at the same time he doubled the salary he paid himself and his son to €290,000.

But as soon as the Taoiseach sat down, Clare shot back to her usual perch next to Mick, whispered in his ear, and smiles exploded across the both of them.

Click was as solid as a brick once more — the Dáil’s bad news loop was back on its axis.

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