Itās like Sea the Stars against Frankel.
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So basically if Catherine Martin wins the Greens leadership itās another General Electionā¦
I donāt know if thatās the case. She is leading the negotiations and may well feel that they have secured enough in the negotiations to go into government. The leadership issue is separate.
Whatās the green party membership demographic like @Rocko? Full of old hippies or greatly outweighed by new young hipster environmentalists? If itās the second I can see them shafting Ryan easy.
The greens need anyone else in charge. Heās rubbish (unrecylable)
On the one hand heās overseen a party rebuild and theyāve increased their number of councillors, MEPs and TDs quite substantially in recent elections.
On the other hand they were coming from such a low base they couldnāt but grow, and polling 7% at the general election in the midst of a global climate change focus/agenda was fairly underwhelming.
Edit: Maybe fairly underwhelming is a touch harsh.
Heās had a few high profile gaffs (gaffs as in errors not P Flynn/Gerry Adams type ) but I think he can be decent enough when given a brief. I thought he was a decent minister for energy and think heāll be wiser second time round. Also, Iāve a south facing garden and reckon weāll all get seeds aplenty.
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Sheās hopelessly compromised as a negotiator in that situation - sheās already expressed doubts about the talks and now it would likely be in her personal interest (and her personal ambition seems to be the main factor behind the heave here) for those talks to be unsuccessful. The other parties would assume sheās acting in bad faith and theyād prob be right.
He might be a grand TD, but heās no leader. No vision. No message, other than Iām a big green hippy, you should be one too.
The Green agenda should never be easier to push than right now. They only bounced because people who didnāt want FF/FG couldnāt stomach voting SF. Every non mainstream party did better than expectations really, except labour, but they are kind of mainstream and a couple bucket of shite.
If we voted again in the morning the Greens would lose seats IMO
Itās like Collins and Dev. He sent her in so sheād have her name on it and couldnāt back out then
It will be a real shot in the arm for Dublin Rathdown to have the Green Party leader, Neale Richmond (FG) and Minister Madigan (FG) as our TDs.
And first off the subs bench the wonderful minister Ross.
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You said it was sensible politics yesterday to have a sceptic leading the negotiations?
I donāt think she is a mad driven type who will sacrifice the party so she can be leader of it. I donāt think her personal ambition is the driving force here at all. There are people who simply donāt think Ryan should be automatically reelected unopposed, mostly because heās too conservative about social issues and too friendly with FG types.
As unpalatable as it must be for many of the senior members, thereās a cohort in the party who suspect there wonāt really be a long term future for the GP and they are best off getting the best deal they can, implementing as much change as they can, and then the hippy environmentalist types (Grace OāSullivan, Ryan probably) can stay in an environmentalist GP while the more social policy leaning types (the Nessa Hourigans of this world) can move to Soc Dems or somewhere.
I donāt see that happening in the short term but it is a possibility. They were a mostly single-agenda party. Now theyāre not. And you have tension there between the pure environmentalist types and those who see it as part of a wider social change. But most would probably agree that there is an urgent need to tackle climate change and if they embedded some long term changes, then the urgency that binds them together now might not be enough to keep them together in the future.
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Horseshite
A shot in the arm with a rusty shit covered needle if youre counting josepha
She was proposed by a few influential members. There is undoubtedly a group who want changes. Martin is far from the forefront of that group. Sheās just senior enough to be a credible alternative.
Ryan strikes me as a lovely man - full of great intentions etc. etc ā¦ but heās a spacer. The green agenda is here to stay and they will need a strong leader as they get bounced around between parties over the next decade and beyond. I know nothing about Martin but iām not sure Ryan is their man going forward as every time he opens his mouth he makes a show of himself.
Donāt talk about Grace O Sullivan like that you cunt. Sheās walked the walk. She was on the Rainbow Warrior
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I think Ryan is good when he had time to prepare himself but has an absolute inability to speak off the Cuffe, or unprepared. This has not been a barrier to any of our recent Taoisigh. Heāll be forever haunted by the salad comments though.
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