Santa’s naughty and nice list – who’s on it?

Paschal Donohoe – Nice list

Paschal has been a very good boy this year, and a very generous boy, too. He's given presents to everyone in the country this Christmas, and hasn't forgotten anyone or left anyone out. (I hope he's not eyeing up my job! Ho! Ho! Ho!). He's balanced the books very nicely in his first budget (Mrs Claus would approve!) but my only complaint is that Paschal has spread all the jam a bit thinly, to say the least. There's something for everyone, for sure, but that something doesn't seem to amount to much. Imagine if I did the same to all the kids who asked me for Lego, and they came down to the tree on Christmas morning to find just one or two Lego pieces instead of a full set. Well, everybody got Lego, didn't they, so what's the problem, Paschal might reason. If Paschal wants to stay on the nice list, he needs to learn that he's not Jesus and that you can't feed the five thousand with just one Millennium Falcon.

Theresa May – nice list

Theresa has been trying so hard all year to be a very good girl – not easy with all those very bold boys in her cabinet trying to sabotage her Brexit negotiations and undermine her job as head prefect. (I’m watching you, Boris!) And it’s not her fault that disaster seems to follow her wherever she goes. If she’s standing near a Christmas tree, you can bet one of the baubles will fall off. She’s not inherently a bold girl – she means well, and she’s got the best intentions – but the poor girl is so far out of her depth, I’m thinking I might need to give her a canoe instead of the soft Brexit she’s been asking me for all year. Only problem is, she’s likely to forget the paddle, take a wrong turn and find herself up you-know-what’s creek.

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Kim Jong-un – Naughty list

Jong-un has been an exceptionally naughty boy this year, and he certainly won’t be getting that nuclear chemistry set he’s asked for this Christmas. In fact, I’m seriously considering avoiding North Korean airspace completely this year – it’s too dangerous dodging all those dratted missiles. Rudolph finds it very stressful, especially with all the other reindeer blaming his red nose for making us an easy target, Jong-un has been doing a lot of nasty namecalling lately, and picking on one poor little boy in the playground just because of his orange skin, which is not a very nice way to treat a person with intellectual difficulties. I know if any of my elves called me a dotard, I’d . . . I’d . . . sorry, what was I talking about just then?

Bono – Nice list

Bono has been a good boy all year – he hasn't shot his mouth off (all that much), he hasn't taken too many selfies with the pope or Angela Merkel, and – most importantly – he didn't sneak U2's new album into everyone's Christmas stocking this year. He's realised that no one wants a new U2 album to just drop into their lap(top). That would be too easy. They prefer to queue up all night in the freezing cold outside the record shops and snap up their deluxe copy for 30 quid, just like Christmases past, when The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby were the big stocking-fillers.They certainly don't want me slipping the new album under the Christmas tree – I know that because I haven't had a single letter asking me for a copy. If Bono continues being a good boy, I might just give him that world peace he's been asking me for since 1983.

Leo Varadkar – Undecided

It’s hard to work out whether Leo is being naughty or nice – frankly, the boy has me baffled. On the face of it, he’s nice as pie, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, but some are saying he’s all style over substance – which might explain why he’s asked me for a My Very Own PR Company set for Christmas. The elf on the shelf has has been keeping an eye on him, and reckons the nice guy stuff is all an act, and that Leo is doing lots of naughty things behind the scenes, like installing his own choice of attorney general without telling the other parties, and sneakily moving his own party to the right. I’ll have to keep a close eye on young Leo in the run-up to December 25th.

Donald Trump – Nice list

You might be surprised to see Donald on the nice list, but let me explain. Donald has been a very bold boy all year, so I put him on the very top of the naughty list. Ever since I gave him his toy White House last Christmas, he’s been acting like he owns the world, telling big fibs and being perfectly horrid to people on Twitter (and being super-nice to some perfectly horrid people). But he didn’t take too kindly to being put on the naughty list. He tweeted that it was a “fake naughty list” and then called me a “beardy nutjob”. Ho, ho, ho, I’ve been called worse than that in my time (the Grinch can be very foul-mouthed). But Donald was so annoyed at being put on the naughty list that he bought up the entire North Pole, took over the running of my workshop, and moved himself over to the nice list. He then tried to fire me, accusing me of using an unsecured account to reply to kids’ Santa letters. Of course, a number of my elves knelt during Jingle Bells in protest, but to no avail. Donald reckons he can do my job better than me, so expect a man in orange to come down your chimney this Christmas, bringing Trump-branded paper towels and potus hats for all the good little alt-right boys and girls. And guns.