Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill couldn’t resist trying to capitalise on the Jeffrey Donaldson scandal. 

She claimed to the media it was clear lots of people in the DUP knew about his double life, including Emma Little–Pengelly, who she said needs to be ‘open and transparent about what she knew‘.

Warming to her theme, and in a scene worthy of Monty Python, Ms O’Neill opined cheerfully that ‘it’s very clear that the culture in the DUP was to turn a blind eye to what was happening’.

Looking like she was very much enjoying her view from the high moral ground, Ms O’Neill was suddenly knocked back down to earth when my colleague Brian Mahon read out a tweet from Máiría Cahill saying Sinn Féin abandoned the Stormont justice committee’s 2014 vote for an inquiry into what republicans knew about her case and Liam Adams.

‘Are Sinn Féin not hypocrites?’ asked Brian Mahon. 

‘This isn’t about Sinn Féin,’ said Ms O’Neill before uttering the immortal line that ‘Sinn Féin are not hypocrites’.

Forget the irony of the leader of a party whose murky connections to paramilitarism have yet to be consigned to the dustbin of history moralising about ‘heinous crimes’, openness and transparency.

And let’s allow for the party’s former press officer Michael McMonagle turning out to be a predator and jailed in 2024 for a string of child sex offences.

While McMonagle was under investigation for said crimes he was quietly dropped by the Shinners, but he landed a gig with the British Heart Foundation (BHF). 

Sinn Féin gave him a reference, essentially a free rein to abuse in his new job, despite the suspicions about him.

In an act that stretched credulity further, O’Neill’s insisted she knew nothing about his new job. 

Even when shown photos of her standing a few yards from him in Stormont while he brandished a BHF banner, she didn’t budge. 

It’s baffling that she considers herself qualified to preach about openness and transparency.

Her self–righteous sermonising didn’t cause a single loyalist supporter to defect to Sinn Féin because she was preaching to the converted.

But it was a massive own–goal because O’Neill only succeeded in reminding us that, when it comes to safeguarding, Sinn Féin and the DUP are bedfellows.

When confronted by Máiría Cahill’s and Áine Tyrrell’s claims about her father, Liam Adams, the Sinn Féin leadership was ambivalent at best and at worst guilty of emulating the Catholic hierarchy’s response to the clerical sex abuse crisis and ignoring the victims.

As for Mary Lou McDonald, standing at Ms O’Neill’s side throughout the press conference – her face betrayed no remembrance of the Niall Ó Donnghaile saga which reflected so poorly on her.

Once a Sinn Féin rising star, Ó Donnghaile’s career came to a shuddering halt amid allegations of him sending inappropriate texts to a teenager.

Yet when he quietly resigned his Seanad seat, Ms McDonald lionised him in the Dáil, covering up the reason for him leaving.

He also was allowed to claim expenses courtesy of the taxpayer long after he resigned.

Ó Donnghaile’s victim couldn’t have been further from Ms McDonald’s mind although, in fairness, she later acknowledged that ‘with the benefit of hindsight’ she shouldn’t have praised him so glowingly.

Indeed. Perhaps Michelle O’Neill will have a similar epiphany about the wisdom of rounding on her political rivals so vehemently .

As the God–botherers in the DUP might say, ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’.

In her latest TV exposé about her torrid life, Katie Price’s children Princess and Junior Andre discuss her downward spiral from loving mum to washed–up druggie. 

Both seemed like sweet and, considering their upbringing, surprisingly grounded young adults, as they recalled crying themselves to sleep and waiting up for Katie to come home. 

The only thing that didn’t ring true was their moaning about microwave dinners in the absence of home–cooked meals. 

From what we’ve seen of Katie Price’s attempts at ‘cooking’ in previous documentaries, ready meals would be a massive upgrade on anything she’d rustle up. 

Between Prince Harry’s defeat that has landed him with an eye–watering £50million (€59million) legal bill and the wedding of Taylor Swift it hasn’t been a great week for the celebrity classes. 

 Guests left the so–called wedding of the decade amid bitter complaints about queuing for food at the buffet, being on their feet for ages while the happy couple exchanged vows – only A–listers were seated for that – and seeing the champagne run out early. 

Desperate, isn’t it, the indignity of being treated like mere mortals?