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Some of the lads need to familiarise themselves with the term "the lesser of two evils". By their very nature no politician is going to tick every box but if you find yourself rooting for the Tory candidate *ever* then you need to take a look at yourself.

I haven't seen anyone here rooting for the Tory candidate. And there's no question that Labour is the lesser of two evils, but the point is that as far as Kier Starmer himself goes, you could barely more than slide a cigarette paper between himself and your average Tory.

Brolly is a cnut

Incredible the level of bile can be expressed here regarding Joe Brolly but suggest Mickey Harte isn't the man and boys be clutching their pearls calling for the moderators.

Are you OK with the bile Joe uses in his repeated personal, nasty, vindictive attacks over the years on the likes of Mickey Harte and Enda McNulty?

Harte is not squeaky clean either yet when he is criticised here, its a crying match.

I didn't say he was squeaky clean, but in any case that wasn't the question I asked you.

Some of Brolly's comments have been OTT and personal, I agree. Point I'm making is I made suggestions at the weekend that Harte is past it and won't bring Derry on any further. Innocuous enough and as well as getting hammered for it, accused of previously been here against Harte under different names was a shout made to the moderators... but is okay here to call Joe Brolly a 'cnut' ?

Wouldn't it be nice if there were no such things as personal attacks eh? But if someone with the platform that Brolly has can go on his podcast and sanctimoniously preach about the importance of kindness (as he does routinely) but simultaneously uses the same platform to attack and belittle people (I couldn't count how many times I've heard him use the phrase "f**k Mickey Harte" or "f**k off Mickey" for instance), then I think you're being a little sensitive about people with no such platform taking a pop back at him on an internet forum.

At the end of the day, if he's happy enough to dish out abuse, he probably doesn't require you to jump to his defence when he's the target of it on this little tiny corner of the internet.

And as for your last point, I listen to his podcast most weeks because while I think he's an egotistical, narcicistic hypocrite; when it comes to domestic and international politics (which he discusses reguarly), I agree with most of his views and find his arguments with Fanning to be very entertaining. I hope that's ok with you!

Brolly is a cnut

Incredible the level of bile can be expressed here regarding Joe Brolly but suggest Mickey Harte isn't the man and boys be clutching their pearls calling for the moderators.

Are you OK with the bile Joe uses in his repeated personal, nasty, vindictive attacks over the years on the likes of Mickey Harte and Enda McNulty?

Harte is not squeaky clean either yet when he is criticised here, its a crying match.

I didn't say he was squeaky clean, but in any case that wasn't the question I asked you.

what'd he say about enda mcnulty? Paul Grimley, David Gough and Cavanagh way out of line with. I haven't really listened much to him since. Doesn't seem to understand that RTE were absolutely bang on to get rid of him.

He's been relentlessly mockinging him for years seemingly for no other reason than because Enda writes self-help books, which are something Joe dislikes. He's written numerous columns down the years attacking him and mocking him for it, and he had a podcast a few months back obstensibly about his views on self-help books but which was essentially just an episode dedicated to Enda bashing. It included a bit where he told a story of how he and Enda were once both speaking at a school prizegiving in Newry and the general gist of the whole story was: 'When Enda's speech was over, I was introduced as the main speaker and I got up and belittled Enda and oh the place exploded and everyone thought I was hilarious'.

Brolly is a cnut

Incredible the level of bile can be expressed here regarding Joe Brolly but suggest Mickey Harte isn't the man and boys be clutching their pearls calling for the moderators.

Are you OK with the bile Joe uses in his repeated personal, nasty, vindictive attacks over the years on the likes of Mickey Harte and Enda McNulty?

Soem of you need to accept Corbyn is gone and isn't coming back ffs

Who suggested otherwise, Kidder?

[a politician]

You specifically referred to "a politician that runs on one manifesto intending to do something else"

I'm simply pointing out that Kier Starmer has some significant form when it comes to running on on the back of manifesto pledges that he has no intention of honouring.

a politician that runs on one manifesto intending to do something else is no help.

Well let's examine some of the pledges that Starmer made during his Labour Party leadership contest.

Back then, he pledged to nationalise Water, energy, rail and mail. By 2022, it was announced that Labour, under his leadership, would not nationalise water, energy or rail.

He had a list of other pledges on his website at the time, which included pledges on eg tuition fee abolition. Once he won the leadership, he rowed back on each of the pledges and the info was removed from his website.

Another of his pledges was to "bring back" free movement of people and to defend migrant's rights. By November 2022, he announced his intention to end 'immigration dependency', a stance so right wing that he won the priase of Nigel Farage (he also complained that there are too many foreigners working in the NHS).

He pledged that he would "work shoulder to shoulder with trade unions to stand up for working people". Since taking the party leadership, he banned Labour frontbenchers from attending picket lines and even sacked one of his MPs for standing alongside striking RMT workers.

He pledged to tackle climate change with a £28bn spend. Then he got his bum in the seat and slashed that committment to £4.7bn.

He also pledged to end factionalism in the party and end attacks from within on Jeremy Corbyn, and I don't think I need to say more on how well he stuck to that one.

Well whatever happens, we know that the next British PM will be a Tory.

Western standards laid bare for all to see:

I'm not sure the term "Western" is appropriate, every west European country and Canada, Australia and New Zealand support the ICC.

The USA don't.

Then the post should have referred to the USA and not to "Western".

While your post shouldn't have made the claim that "every western country" supports the ICC.

Western standards laid bare for all to see:

I'm not sure the term "Western" is appropriate, every west European country and Canada, Australia and New Zealand support the ICC.

The USA don't.

Anybody seen Snowfall?

Great show

So I'm hearing. Never heard of it until this week but the reviews I've seen since all seem to be fairly unanimously positive.

Anybody seen Snowfall?

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/coalition-attacks-mary-lou-mcdonald-for-attending-boston-barbecue-instead-of-bombing-anniversary/a288464594.html

That's the coalition led by the FG party who were also the senior coalition Party at the time of the bombing? Which didn't send as much as a TD to the annual commemoration until 1992 - almost twenty years after the event? Which refused to hold a national day of mourning when they discovered it wasn't an IRA bombing? And which tried to refuse to fly the national flag at half mast after it? And went on to do it's level best to cover up the truth of what happened? That Fine Gael?

The b*****ds have more neck on them than the giraffe enclosure at Dublin Zoo.

[Ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the programme asks why no-one was ever brought to justice]

Thurs night.  21:35  RTE  Prime Time
Ahead of the fiftieth anniversary of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, the programme asks why no-one was ever brought to justice

Dublin-Monaghan bomb gang investigator says 'there was collusion'

The officer leading the inquiry into the activities of the loyalist gang suspected of being responsible for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings has said he has no doubt there was collusion between the gang and the British security services.

Sir Iain Livingstone heads up Operation Denton, which is examining allegations relating to the activities of the so-called Glenanne Gang, which was based in County Armagh and Mid-Ulster during the Troubles, including its role in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

There's been a lot on the radio over the past few days, but given the scale of the bombings in terms of civilian lives lost, its amazing how little has been said about it over the years.
I was in school in the 80s and 90s and it was a footnote in history class at best - there was certainly no in depth coverage or analysis. 
It seems many people have been unhappy with the Irish state response to it - presumably in terms of pressuring the British government to investigate probable collusion.  Why would the Irish state be reluctant to press the Brits about that though?

Well consider the reaction of the FG/Labour government in the aftermath. Their interest in the bombing evaporated once it became clear that they couldn't get away with blaming the IRA. It was better for them to deny the families truth/justice than allow, in the words of the Barron Report, "publicity which might have led to an increase in popular support for the IRA" by confirming loyalist and British state collusion.

The very day after the bombing, ministers in the Dáil made statements attempting to pin responsibility on the IRA.

Despite it being the single biggest mass murder of the troubles north or south and the largest mass murder in the history of the state, the FG/Lab government was found by the Barron Report to have had "little or no interest" in it. It refused to hold a national day of mourning and initially attempted to refuse to fly the national flag at half mast. It was not until 1993 that any government minister attended the annual commemoration.

The Gardai wound up its special investigation unit for the bombings within just 8 weeks of the attack and 'lost' vast amounts of evidence.

The Justice Department also refused to offer any documents to Barron and according to Barron, the Department's files on it subsequently went "missing in their entirety". These were the only Dept of Jusitce files from the era to go missing.

Even after the RUC said they had a number of suspects, the Gardai did not even ask for their names.

Then Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave even refused to assist the Dáil subcommittee on the Barron Report saying that he has "retired from public life". Up to his death he refused to give interviews or answer questions about the bombings.