European Parliament Elections 2024 - Friday, June 7th

I'd say she'll be doing her best to talk more about Gaza than about Russia. I see she got a few endorsements in the last week or so (Susan Sarandon, Norman Finkelstein) for what that's worth.

If she's asked about Russia she'll likely do her usual trick

1. "I have always been critical of the Russian attack on Ukraine"
2. "….but anyway NATO, Joe Biden, Israel, NATO, NATO"

Somebody should definitely ask her follow up questions and that should be the host of the debate.

Not sure what to make that debate last night. Certainly compared to the candidates in MNW the level of candidate seemed to be higher. I don't think anyone had a particularly bad night. I must say that Miriam O'Callaghan's questions in particular were annoying me. I don't know if she writes them herself but they were all just "gotcha" type questions. Like "You said X but your party did Y. Does that not make you a hypocrite?"

I dunno maybe it's the format of it. 8 people is a lot. I understand you don't want to just let them reel off slogans but what does anyone ever learn from a 10 second response before they are cut off.

In a world of Youtube could they not have 1 on 1 interviews where a host interviews a single candidate for half an hour and asks lot of follow up questions where they drill into topics. I understand that that wouldn't be for everyone but it would really allow those that are interested to listen to any of the candidates that they are considering and really get a feel for them.

These people are auditioning for a job that requires no debating. It does require thoughtful consideration of ideas and technical topics. We don't learn anything about how they might fare at those from this kind of format.

No I don't think the far-left will ever coalesce either. I think the far-left parties tend to disagree over actual policy differences though. The fact that it's not about wanting to be the leader is evidenced by the fact that the groupings often don't even have leaders. That's the case with all of PBP, Solidarity and I4C.

Far easier for the far-right to coalesece since they often want the same things (typically to bring the country culturally and demographically back to the 1950s). They are currently in their arse-sniffing phase though. A strong leader will eventually emerge from that and draw people toward them (that's often how it goes in other countries anyway)

That can't be true. I received 3 different Euro candidate's flyers in my letterbox yesterday morning with my post.