You may have missed the big interview with Leo Varadkar in the Sunday Independent.   We learn about his family, his personal trainer and the fact he does not do clinics and emails constituents instead, and his views on abortion.

Just in case you hadn’t heard them yourself and were wondering I thought I’d reprint his views on the latter.Might make some in the Labour Party think a bit about the young pups and the future of that party in coalition with Fine Gael – not that they would find much different in Fianna Fáíl.  I’m just wondering about his future patients as he has 100 hours left of training to take to qualify as a GP.

Despite his medical background, his views on some controversial medical issues are quite black and white — such as abortion. “I would accept a lot of Catholic social teaching. I’m not a practising religious person, but I would accept that. I wouldn’t be in favour of abortion. The only thing that would be a grey area is if there’s a genuine threat or risk to the life of the mother.”

What about the provision of abortion services for rape victims? “I wouldn’t be in favour of it in that case, and, you know, first of all, it isn’t the child’s fault that they’re the child of rape. You can say the same thing about disabled children. You know, some people would make that argument in favour of abortion. It’s not their fault they’re disabled. I wouldn’t be in favour of it in those circumstances either.

“Even, how would that work practically? Would someone have to prove that they’ve been raped? I think where that’s been brought in in countries it has more or less led to abortion on demand,” he adds.

Is it not double standards to have more than 5,000 women a year travelling to the UK and elsewhere for abortions? “I don’t think that’s double standards. People travel overseas to do things overseas that aren’t legal in Ireland all the time. You know, are we going to stop people going to Las Vegas? Are we going to stop people going to Amsterdam? There are things that are illegal in Ireland and we don’t prevent people from travelling overseas to avail of them.”

Yes he did say that women can keep travelling just like the people who go to gamble in Las Vegas or do whatever in Amsterdam.

By the by I noted tonight that Leo was also watching PrimeTime and Eamon Ryan’s defence of higher fuel prices, Leo took to his computer and threw around a few rattles.

Wonder will he repeat that next time he’s in the Dáil chamber.  All that statesman like image building and working out and a tweet like that shows us that it’s all a load of fluff.