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Hard to see Boris garner this ad-hoc support;

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-met-enormous-crowd-20938678

Yeah, "ad-hoc" 

Tory lead down to 7

https://www.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1XZ23K

To say you are selective in what you post would be an understatement

Too right. I presume that's the ICM poll he is citing. Their other polls in recent weeks had the Tory lead at 7, 8, 10 and now 7, much smaller than any of the other polling companies. Only two other polls out of the 20 odd in the past fortnight have the gap in single figures. And the Tory vote is staying above 40% in all but one of them.

One of the items on the tories manifesto is the introduiction of ID for Voting which seems to be an massive issue in the UK, what am i missing ? How difficult would it be to have formal ID , in this day and age i cant see you can fuction without ID so surely makes sense to have it?

It is sensible for sure. Also this idea of proxy voting that appears to be permitted surely cannot continue, wide open to abuse.

New Westmeath jersey. Pretty sure it's basically last year's Galway jersey with a different crest and sponsor.

That Renault logo still as hideous as ever.

[The stoops are a quasi-unionist party]

There's just a complete apathy with regards politics up North, SF are failing the nationalist community and have been doing so for about a decade now, they have sold out on any ideals for whatever populist trend has happened. They do have a lot of long term representatives though that I would have a lot of time and respect for but you can even sense they are completely and utterly disillusioned with the top brass right now.

The stoops are a quasi-unionist party, always have and always will be and then you have the unionists themselves so who do you vote for.

There is a lot of rancour with SF here among the O6 residents which is understandable.

I have to say though I find the unfiltered hatred from chaps like Owenmoresider (and other free staters) of SF and northern nationalism as utterly bizarre. a) who is he to be so opinionated on something he knows nothing about the North or the troubles and has no experience of  it and b) what triggers it? You'd imagine for the most part SF are an irrelevance down south, what is it that rankles so much hatred and bitterness from a sizable portion down there? Is it a guilty conscience about the passive role their state and government played when they left their own defenceless in a brutal sectarian state that has manifested into a defensive mode.

I really don't get it.

This is simply not true.

Not true?

Their current leader established a partnership with FF - a party which has refused to operate in the north since it's formation and which has consistently argued, regardless of the circumstances of the day, that "the time is not right" to even discuss Irish reunification. Since establishing the link with FF, Colm has been busy parroting his new master's line that "the time is not right". This is the same Colm who went into an Assembly voting pact with the UUP ("Vote Colm, get Mike!").

Their previous leader, Alasdair McDonnell, attempted to forge links with the partitionist right wing PD's and regularly invited the right-wing, borderline racist Michael McDowell to canvass with him.

Their leader before that, the poppy wearing Margaret Richie, has just sworn her allegiance to the British monarchy and now prefers to be known as Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick.

Their leader before that, Mark Durkan, last year ran for the unionist and partitionst Fine Gael in the European elections.

Their leader before that, John Hume, described the party as not nationalist, but "post-nationalist".

Their leader before that, Gerry Fitt, also swore his allegiance to the British Monarchy in return for a peerage.

Their former Deputy Leader, Seamus Mallon, recently re-appeared into the public domain to argue against the GFA provisions for a border poll to pass with a simple majority, instead arguing that there should effectively be a unionist veto.

This is a party throwing all it's eggs into the Westminster basket where it's voting record includes supporting the retention of Diplock courts, supporting a the compulsory inclusion of Irish citizens in the north on a British National Identity Register and backing a motion (just days after the 40th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday) to "salute the bravery of the armed forces serving in Afghanistan".

I don't really have time to refute all those claims just now, but this Vote Colm get Mike is one I want to come back on.
Of course it is Vote Colm, get Mike. IT'S MANDATORY COALITION! Who do you think you'd get? Angela Merkel? It was an plea to the middle ground. Like it or not Stormont was a power sharing executive. SF shared power with IAN PAISLEY!! And as Eastwood and Nesbitt both pointed out at the time - Vote Michelle or Arlene and you'll get Theresa May! So this just doesn't stand up to any scrutiny at all.

It might have been a catchy slogan if not a well advised one, but at that time after almost a decade of DUP/SF dominating Stormont and marginalising their rival parties with the help of the powersharing setup, the SDLP and UUP decided to try something different and offer an alternative to them, as they were perfectly entitled to do. This was incidentally after a relatively poor series of elections for SF in terms of their votes dropping. Then by the end of the year they moved to bring the Executive down.

I have to say though I find the unfiltered hatred from chaps like Owenmoresider (and other free staters) of SF and northern nationalism as utterly bizarre. a) who is he to be so opinionated on something he knows nothing about the North or the troubles and has no experience of  it and b) what triggers it? You'd imagine for the most part SF are an irrelevance down south, what is it that rankles so much hatred and bitterness from a sizable portion down there? Is it a guilty conscience about the passive role their state and government played when they left their own defenceless in a brutal sectarian state that has manifested into a defensive mode.

I really don't get it.

Unfiltered hatred my arse, but whatever about having a hatred of SF, but of northern nationalism? Where the f**k did you pull that one out of?

As for the rest of that nonsense, curiously enough we are entitled to express about anything we like here, and few if any here grumble when those in the North opine on matters in the Republic, more so since I can't recall making much or any comment about the troubles here at any stage. And I'd be fairly sympathetic towards the republican campaign compared to most, I do come from what is often classed as a "border county", Enniskillen is closer to me than Dublin or Galway, and I'd have visited it more often growing up. I just don't like SF as a party, and too many of its party reps and its supporters online and offline make it easy to feel that way. SF is not northern nationalism much as some of its more devoted fans will try to portray it as such. And they arethe third largest party in ROI so they're not entirely an irrelevance as you suggest, though they seem rather unwilling to partake in government when the opportunity presents itself.

[I often find their supporters to be fairly thin-skinned; they take criticism of the party very personally.]

My impression of SF is that they're run along military lines. You follow orders from the top and don't question them, which is why a leadership contest in SF looks so strange and infrequent.

I often find their supporters to be fairly thin-skinned; they take criticism of the party very personally.

Am I alone in this and completely off the mark?

Not at all, especially that bit in bold.

4–13 to 0-1 now.
Kilmaine are a decent enough side but surely the Sligo county  champions should be able to put in a better show than that.
Their champs won Connacht last year at this grade

Not that much better really, the club scene here is quite poor as you can tell from the senior results, and with only 23 clubs in all the junior grade has very few clubs involved, only three could have gone forward from it. Michael's aren't much of a team at all and in fact all they had to do to reach Saturday's final was to beat our club in the county semi final two months back, as the other finalists were a second team and Leitrim had no team to go forward. We would have been seen as clear favourites to win junior but Michael's got us on a day and a ground that was made for them rather than us, and there may have been a certain complacency involved too. Not that we'd have beaten Kilmaine anyway but we may have fared a bit better.

Citing Easkey winning last year isn't really relevant, as Easkey really should never have been in junior to begin with, they suffered two straight relegations, and weren't far off going back up to senior this year. Our reps record in junior is pretty dire aside (and our own crew are 0/3 in that regard) and it's not much better in intermediate either.

Incidentally I see it was yet another case of a Mayo team going all Flat Track Bully on Sligo opposition, 1-13 to 0-1 up and game well over as a contest, in so far as it ever was, and then they go running in four goals after that. Just like AOS, they might find out that it's not so easy getting goals when you might actually need one or two when it matters.

Its a Mayo thing to really beat the shite out of ya, when your down. When the heat comes on them, they shit the nest, then we can have a good laugh.

WTF - giving out about a team not taking it easy on ye? FFS lads, take up a different pass-time.

Really? Into the second half, 15 points up against 14 men, who've only managed a single point, and who would probably be quite relieved if the ref was to blow it up and end their ordeal early, and they go out of their way to score a couple more goals to really ensure the victory? FFS indeed.

If it was an underage game, then you would have a point.
However this is an adult game and as such the opposition is perfectly entitled to play to the whistle.
I'd be more insulted if I was playing in a game where my team was getting hammered and the other team took their foot off the pedal and stopped going for scores.

The most bizarre complaint I have ever seen on this board.
Imagine a team in a final playing to the final whistle!
Add the snide AOS blindside thrown in for good measure.

I've been on the wrong end of a fair few hammerings down the years but I've never heard anyone complaining about the other team continuing to score!

It's not continuing to score itself, it's going for goals when you're already 15-20 points up I'm taking issue with. Not like it was a league game where score difference might perhaps come into the picture in the final standings, the game was long over and the cup was only waiting to be handed over, why go out of their way to pile on the humiliation on them?

What would Owenmore Gaels have done?

We wouldn't have won anyway, if that's what you mean. Might have done a bit better but then maybe not, we'd be different to Michael's in being a slightly better footballing side in general, and having more pace in the team, but then we'd be a lot lighter and less physical, which has cost us more than once in recent years, including that damp evening in Coola a while back.

Corbyn wants to give everyone free broadband and pay them the same money for working less hours...

What a horrible b**tard I vote Boris!!

It's some money tree he has found

Doesn't matter.  Brexit has shown that you can throw out as many lies as you want and then deal with them once you have achieved the desired result.

The election is Brexit vs Remain

https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1195613856594366464

In a NI context I can't for the life of me understand why anyone who supports a 2nd referendum would vote SF?

I can't recall SF looking a referendum on Abortion in the North. They were happy for the government of the UK to push that through. That same government they don't participate in or want any part of.

Westminster rule suited them then alright. Hypocrites. And the SNP cheerleading for it too.

4–13 to 0-1 now.
Kilmaine are a decent enough side but surely the Sligo county  champions should be able to put in a better show than that.
Their champs won Connacht last year at this grade

Not that much better really, the club scene here is quite poor as you can tell from the senior results, and with only 23 clubs in all the junior grade has very few clubs involved, only three could have gone forward from it. Michael's aren't much of a team at all and in fact all they had to do to reach Saturday's final was to beat our club in the county semi final two months back, as the other finalists were a second team and Leitrim had no team to go forward. We would have been seen as clear favourites to win junior but Michael's got us on a day and a ground that was made for them rather than us, and there may have been a certain complacency involved too. Not that we'd have beaten Kilmaine anyway but we may have fared a bit better.

Citing Easkey winning last year isn't really relevant, as Easkey really should never have been in junior to begin with, they suffered two straight relegations, and weren't far off going back up to senior this year. Our reps record in junior is pretty dire aside (and our own crew are 0/3 in that regard) and it's not much better in intermediate either.

Incidentally I see it was yet another case of a Mayo team going all Flat Track Bully on Sligo opposition, 1-13 to 0-1 up and game well over as a contest, in so far as it ever was, and then they go running in four goals after that. Just like AOS, they might find out that it's not so easy getting goals when you might actually need one or two when it matters.

Its a Mayo thing to really beat the shite out of ya, when your down. When the heat comes on them, they shit the nest, then we can have a good laugh.

WTF - giving out about a team not taking it easy on ye? FFS lads, take up a different pass-time.

Really? Into the second half, 15 points up against 14 men, who've only managed a single point, and who would probably be quite relieved if the ref was to blow it up and end their ordeal early, and they go out of their way to score a couple more goals to really ensure the victory? FFS indeed.

4–13 to 0-1 now.
Kilmaine are a decent enough side but surely the Sligo county  champions should be able to put in a better show than that.
Their champs won Connacht last year at this grade

Not that much better really, the club scene here is quite poor as you can tell from the senior results, and with only 23 clubs in all the junior grade has very few clubs involved, only three could have gone forward from it. Michael's aren't much of a team at all and in fact all they had to do to reach Saturday's final was to beat our club in the county semi final two months back, as the other finalists were a second team and Leitrim had no team to go forward. We would have been seen as clear favourites to win junior but Michael's got us on a day and a ground that was made for them rather than us, and there may have been a certain complacency involved too. Not that we'd have beaten Kilmaine anyway but we may have fared a bit better.

Citing Easkey winning last year isn't really relevant, as Easkey really should never have been in junior to begin with, they suffered two straight relegations, and weren't far off going back up to senior this year. Our reps record in junior is pretty dire aside (and our own crew are 0/3 in that regard) and it's not much better in intermediate either.

Incidentally I see it was yet another case of a Mayo team going all Flat Track Bully on Sligo opposition, 1-13 to 0-1 up and game well over as a contest, in so far as it ever was, and then they go running in four goals after that. Just like AOS, they might find out that it's not so easy getting goals when you might actually need one or two when it matters.

It was said the Semi finals and Final would be on TV,tbc Its an incentive for Counties to reach a Semi Final. Wicklow and Leitrim proposed the idea of second tier, so it was probaly that Counties would get some TV coverage too.

Because they weren't aiming for much  coverage in the Qualifiers.

No Horan said that hopefully they would be on, and sure there was the "text" from McBennett that the Congress delegates were told about in case too many were unwilling to believe the Croke Park propaganda.

[No county to my knowledge has a senior championship with less that 10 teams in it other than Kerry]

Nothing to stop any county limiting the clubs to 8 in their championship, although creating divisional sides cannot be easy when starting it off.

Kerry have had divisional sides forever almost...the underlying premise being that a good player, no matter how poor his club team. will have the opportunity to shine on a bigger stage.   Like the soccer players, it was his only chance to "be seen" by county selectors.

If a divisional side made it to the semi-finals of the county championship, you'd always see one or two of previously unknown players getting a run in the league games before Christmas.  The fact that they'd be fitter due to being involved in the late stages of the county championship would only help themselves and the county in the league game as well.

Another unrelated theory was that a county minor should be making a good impression in the senior championship the same year.

But none do, to me it reeks of manipulation.

No county to my knowledge has a senior championship with less that 10 teams in it other than Kerry and Kerry is a county with a huge football tradition, a big population and a huge number of clubs. It's designed to manipulate their advantage at intermediate and junior level and in the AI series and I don't think they should be permitted to enter clubs in junior and intermediate AI level while they run their senior championship is such a closed shop manner.

Fermanagh, Offaly and Carlow.

Oxford University are banning clapping as it causes anxiety.

Can't access twitter but check out @Nigelrefowens

Not the first English university to do this I think, but you'd have to wonder where all this madness is going to end up.

Is Aontú standing in this election or have they folded?

I doubt if both members of that party had the capacity to run an election campaign.

They're running in Foyle and West Belfast fwiw.