While the Clint Eastwood ‘conversation’ with an empty chair has prompted much hilarity and derision to be directed at the Republican National Convention in Florida, there’s a darker thread running through this story.

It’s not so much the fact that shoving an eighty-two year old man onto a stage in front of millions and expecting him to successfully reprise a role he played over thirty years ago implies the Republicans ideas department is run by idiots. We could have figured that one out for ourselves. But appointing a man who is entirely associated with firearms, killing and rightful vengeance in the cultural psyche as some sort of figurehead for your party? Just days after yet another high profile fatal shooting on the streets of America?

And there was me thinking the right wing don’t understand irony.