Presidential Election 2025

No, you can vote for change every time we vote for our MEPs. I agree that alternatives to the current EU strategy should be explored. Your vote is your means of initiating change.

I agree fully with you, they ousted Eamonn Ryan and supplanted Roderic in his place. There have been a lot of agitators in the Green Party, most of whom would be better off defecting to PBP/Solidarity.

There was a leadership challenge to Ryan in 2020 by Catherine Martin. Ryan was competent enough to see it off. Martin turned out to be one of the worst ministers ever. There was also a split (Rabharta Glas) from the Greens which was more Social Justice types but it seems to have sunk without trace. There was also an earlier split (Fis Nua) which also sank without trace. O'Gorman and his followers were toxic for the Greens and shifted them away from Green issues where the Greep Party had a unique selling point to the flooded Social Justice section of the political spectrum. No USP, no votes. Some of the real Greens might find Connolly to be too Left to support. Equally, they would find Humphreys to be a weak Right wing candidate. Those who might have been PBPish were probably in the Rabharta split.

I would vote the way I vote in all elections, I don't generally differentiate based on the office. I generally vote for whom I consider the left candidate that best reflects my views, obviously compromise is often necessary..

Generally, left independents, possibly PBP. LP or SD would occasionally get a pref but that would be rare enough. SF again probably candidate dependent but only preferences. I voted for Ni Riada last time out but only because I knew MDH was a cert and the rest didn't merit anything.

Its a topic which one can debate. But perception, while being a factor of international relations, cannot be argued as being a root cause of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Putin, being former head of the KGB, has always viewed NATO as being analogous with the Warsaw Pact. That is, expansionist and domineering of its members. He served during the Cold War, when NATO was in conflict with the Soviet Union, and its clear to many he has continued to view the alliance as an adversary of Russia.

Many have sought to engage with this topic, and pointed to supposed agreements made between the US and the USSR, on NATO not admitting any of the eastern block countries. But that was with the Soviet Union, which ceased to exist 24 odd years ago. It is entirely understandable that the former eastern block and in particular the baltic states, would seek alliance with the west. They endured hardship under Soviet Rule, and dont ever wish to be under the thumb of Moscow again.

Using all of the above as a backdrop, Putin has argued against NATO since assuming office. He has fostered the impression that it is 'expanding' in Russia's direction, and the Ukraine would be next. Despite assurances that Ukraine couldnt join NATO, made before the war, he used the 'NATO Threat' as a justification for his invasion in 2022.

It is not logical to blame NATO, an organization that has done everything it can to AVOID a confrontation with Russia, for the latters invasion of Ukraine. It is also irrational to claim that NATO, and organization that states must apply to, for membership of, is 'expanding'.

Thats my opinion, - its open to debate im sure.

If anything, Higgins is a champagne socialist. Connolly is the real deal. That is quite a difference in that the electorate, based on the polling, seems to be comfortable with that. It is also why FFG's targeting of Connolly as being on the Left is failiing. The electorate already knows that.

Unfortunately, politics is the art of the possible.

Her reasoning on the six one news, you can't praise US for arming Ukraine because they also arm Israel!

….and yet the German Greens are diametrically opposite in their views re rearmament to Connolly and are strongly pro-Ukraine and anti-Ruzzian.

No mature rational person believes that it makes sense to have more immigrants than the houses that are built can accommodate.

Unthinking irrational people may think otherwise.

He has a point

You can’t be condemning the playground bully by just saying he’s a naughty boy

You need to take away his sweets and protect the bullied

Show the consequences

Otherwise there’s anarchy

Cc has this unnecessary bang of what I call over neutrality

So neutral that the aggressors can ignore the criticism

It’s particularly noticeable with her and SF’s attitude to Russia which is very hypocritical given the current Russian regime is Tsarist,ie monarchical in structure and capturing and occupying other countries ie imperialist

Huge smack of hypocrisy there given the Notth

Huge bang of a lack of self awareness

And what Russians have been “hurt” is what I’d be asking her.

By her logic, all sanctions should be lifted against North Korea too because people are “hurting” there - even though we know, the ordinary citizens wouldn’t see one additional grain of rice if sanctions were lifted