I am not the feminism police. I appreciate that women’s experiences vary greatly, that sexism appears in many guises, and that being the actual target of prejudice can give you a radically different perspective compared to an impartial observer watching the same incident.

That said, I also believe in calling out shameless excuses when I see them, and every so often, a woman will attempt to mask blatant incompetence with claims of misogyny.

The culprit this time round is Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster. In 2012, when Foster was minister for enterprise, trade and investment, she set up the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme to encourage businesses to invest in renewable energy. The scheme subsidised businesses for using low-carbon heating systems (which, incidentally, included burning wood pellets).

So far, so good. But the flawed way RHI was calculated meant recipients could claim more in subsidies than the fuel actually cost them. You don’t need to be a market expert to figure out what happened: since the government was effectively paying businesses to use more fuel, with no upper limit, that’s exactly what they did. Thanks to Foster’s mismanagement of the scheme, Northern Ireland is now left with a bill of approximately £490 million extra, lavished on claimants like the farmer who reportedly received £1 million for heating an empty shed.