Presidential Election 2025

NATO Barry Andrews hitting back at Chambers, criticising Martin but pulling his punches a bit....in a shocking announcement he's voting for HH - well of course he is.

No criticism of Jim Gavin though for telling lies...

What did Chambers say earlier?

I didn't detect direct criticism of Martin, but if the process of selecting the candidate. Implied criticism of Chambers though

In the Middle Ages rebels often blamed "evil counsellors" rather than the king. I don't see Andrews as a rebel though. For kings, advisors were often scapegoats to be dispensed with to take heat off of them.

If it's anything like his RTE interview earlier this morning there's not a lot in it.

Public speaking is difficult. But it's a fundamental prerequisite for a ceremonial role. Gavin was indeed a poor choice from that aspect too.

He said they were mislead. Its the truth dont why others have a problem with that, This is something only Gavin could tell them.

Is this the first election FF won't have a candidate?

They technically didn't have a candidate in 2011 or 2018. Although Sean Gallagher was somewhat ousted as a supporter of theirs in 2011 and 2018 they and FG put their weight behind Mickey D

I don't think they were worried about CC winning, personally I'm worried she won't win, although less so now with JG out of the race. I think the 30% undecideds from last weeks poll will swing towards HH which is the biggest problem for CC

Brian Cowen was the patsy for Bertie Ahern. He took over after Bertie Ahern resigned. Martin saw his opportunity and took it. Cowen was left as Taoiseach while Martin was leader of FF. If you don't understand how grudges form part of Irish politics then you don't understand Irish politics.

I think in public he omitted information rather than lying. I think the implication is that FF released a statement to the Indo on Friday based on information Gavin had given to them which has turned out to be false. So lies internally at least…

I haven't heard her talk about immigration. I think we should be careful of rehashing the "deplorables" label because that backfired on Hillary Clinton.

I wouldn't have voted for her. But most people did maybe agree with some of her points in the Family/Care referendum. Ironically, Connolly was on the no side in one of those, concerned that the new wording could leave women with even less protection than now.

Older feminists would have campaigned for laws against sex discrimination. How to reconcile that with trans rights has divided feminists in the UK, spawning the term "TERF" and in the LGBT community the term LGB.

There are shades of grey on some of these issues, not always absolutes.

I'm well aware populists are trying to tear down Western liberal democracy. I don't see Steen as being in that mould. Every movement has some over zealous and extreme supporters.

where is Micheal Martin this morning… any comment from him yet? I wonder were the disenfranchised in FF responsible for finding the dirt on Gavin.

Im not rehashing the deplorables commentary. And yes it certainly backfired for Clinton. No doubt you and I could agree on a lot of policy regarding elections.

All i can do is discuss what i have seen. Steen was backed by large quantities of fringe characters, and some are known Anti Immigration councillors. Gavin Pepper, Malachy Steenson, are the obvious examples, but there are many more. People can do their own research into the list of supporters who backed Steen.

In terms of Steen herself, she gave a prepared statement on what it 'means to be irish', its on youtube. And its quite liberal and tolerant - so much so that several anti-immigration activists felt it necessary to 'address this' and 'reassure' their supporters that Steen remained the candidate to back.

Again all of this is in the open, public, and a moments examination will provide the links. Any contentious topic that is presented publically tends to be jumped upon, by the above block, including trans-activism and debate. But describing the majority of the Irish Political Landscape as 'woke', tends to be the main starting point. That and, RTE/IrishIndo et al, are woke biased mass media, who refuse to engage the 'real issues' facing ireland.

It should be pointed out that Gript, and John McGuirk, who is a very prominent member of this bloc, is painfully pro israel on the issue of Israel/Palestine. His latest article argues that the Irish Government is now entirely 'GAZAHOLIC', for debating the conflict.

Its all there, for anyone interested. If someone cannot find the links, message me. I refuse to give needless publicity to this fringe bloc, lest it inadvertantly increase coverage for their abhorent positions.

I don’t see Connolly “rolling back” on anything TBF- it’s probably why she is where she is in the first place so diluting that with retrospective thinking will actually hurt her more than help her.

But I agree she does need to expand her messages and move away from some of her more controversial topics- she won’t win many new votes sticking to these same topics