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EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie casts its eye over events inside and outside Leinster House that have got people talking.
As the saying goes: ‘You win some, you lose some.’ So here are our political winners and losers from the past seven days:
1. Sinn Féin
After the storm of controversy that has engulfed them in recent weeks, the opposition party will have been glad to have gone about it’s business with little fanfare this week.
Mary Lou McDonald generated a few headlines with her “naughty step” antics but that was it. Furthermore the difficulties that the Socialists got into this week (more of which below) won’t have done Sinn Féin any harm.
2. Nigel Farage
The UKIP leader saw his party win a second seat in the House of Commons after Tory defector Mark Reckless held his seat in the Rochester and Strood by-election. The new UKIP MP claims that more in the Conservative Party are ready to defect to UKIP. All of which makes good news for leader Nigel Farage
3. Joan Burton
The Tánaiste would have preferred if last Saturday’s events in Jobstown hadn’t happened but she has benefited from significant support and sympathy over the shocking scenes in Tallaght.
1. Noel Coonan
The Fine Gael TD compared some water charge protesters to ISIS. Not the smartest move and he correctly withdrew the remarks.
2. Government ministers
Three of them reportedly cancelled interviews on two NPR journalists who were in Ireland this week.
3. Phil Hogan
Big Phil may be having a great old time in Brussels as the EU’s Agriculture Commissioner but back at home even former colleagues are dumping on his legacy as his successor at Environment, Alan Kelly, said the ex-Fine Gael TD “could have done better” when setting up Irish Water.
4. The Socialist Party
While it’s been a good year for the party generally having won Dáil by-elections, the two new TDs, Paul Murphy and Ruth Coppinger, have done themselves no favours this week in trying to justify those troubling scenes in Jobstown last weekend.
Have the changes to water charges saved the government’s bacon or is it a case of too little too late? Is the coalition a winner or a loser after this week’s announcement?
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Lol that Trump is still running the grift of taking donations for a campaign he already lost, and the Trumpists are falling for it.
Yup, you’d have to be particularly challenged if you’re an Ordinary Joe to hand over your hard earned to (a supposed multi-billionaire) the orange grifter. Businesses yep can see it, because they’ll have their Lobbyists chasing for their pound of flesh in return. But normal working folk, all Trump see’s is an opportunity. Like setting them up to march on Capitol Hill, pretending he was going to be there with them. And still they drink from his KoolAid fountain….
Small.print says not all the funding has to go to legal challenge. This is a scam to raise campaign funds for 2025
@John Mulligan: There will be no campaign by Trump Senior in 2024, 100%. That’s money will end up in a family account, like the Charity scam the Trump org ran before his Presidency. He’s a one termer, a couple of years out of office and he won’t want to go through any the bull involved in campaigning again. He’ll be 78 too, and I don’t see his health getting better unless they wean him off McDonald’s…..
@John Mulligan: remember though, if he’s impeached, he is banned from running for office, for life!
@Peter Cavey: and he doesn’t get the 200k pension, or access to security briefings as ex presidents do if impeached. Which as you know would be used and abused.
@Peter Cavey: Watch Trump junior though, he’s free to run!
@Charlie: the Trumps have burnt far to many bridges with the Republicans to run agian.
@Peter Cavey: Only if he’s found guilty and convicted. Impeachment alone does not prohibit holding federal office at a future date.
@John Mulligan: He will be a short lived independent in the 2025 election
@John Mulligan: small print also says up to 50% will be used to pay off 2016 campaign debts. Suckers just keep giving.
@John Mulligan: It is a slush fund. Impeach Trump senior: stops him running again. Next thing is to ruin the trump brand to stop the kids. Hit them where it hurts: go after financial irregularities; watch the sponsors and partners pull away like the PGA. Make the brand as toxic as the individuals. Sure he’ll still have the redneck followers but they can’t afford Trump resorts and those who can afford it won’t go there.
Populist nonsense, what we should be worried about is large companies picking and choosing who they want to do business with and for what reason. While I have no time for Trump I have no time for those who choose to wait to kick a man when he’s down. It would have been a much more powerful statement to have carried out this action at the beginning of his term.
@Sean Higgins: Businesses can deal with whomever they want to. Doesn’t matter what your position is in life.
@Sean Higgins: 100% agree, it’s opportunistic and disingenuous to say the least. All of these firms contribute to Rep and Dems on a regular basis and now see the populist wind blowing away from the lunatic Trump they decide to get morals/conscience,if he had succeeded in his challenge they would’ve put out some generic mealy mouthed press release and kept on dealing with him. This doesn’t bode well for further discourse or debate or difference of opinion in the US ,and as usually does such attitude will seep to rest of the world, with their famous first amendment under serious threat from revisionists. But to the victor go the spoils I guess.
@Sean Higgins: that’s the point really isn’t it. Like Twitter banning his account after the fact too.
@Sean Higgins: quite enjoy seeing him being kicked while he is down.
@Sequoia: eh.. not exactly true Companies are not allowed to do business with whomever they like and not those they dislike that is the actual definition of discrimination.
It’s almost as if fame is lucrative and fickle.
@Sequoia: which reminds me of a controversial news that a religious business owner who refused to make cakes for homosexual couples years ago. The time has changed.
Too little too late from Stripe. They were happy to channel payments when payments were high and the gravy train was flowing. Stripe are only now P.R. campaigning and virtue signalling in an attempt to dissassociate themselves from a failed politician and at a time when his fund payments have significantly slowed. The Collissons brothers merely trying to save face.
@Shane McGrath: The Collison brothers are trying to save face ????? Are you having a laugh
If only Twitter and others went after those who actually incite voilence.
This tweet from June 3rd 2018 violates Twitters TOS, yet still stands: https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1003332853525110784
Hypocrites.
@Daniel Dunne: Unfortunately because it’s not popular or in mainstream media Twitter won’t bother about this one.
@Daniel Dunne: twitter should be boycotted for the complete bias.
They’re all a bit late with this! There is nothing surprising about what trump did. Remember Charlottesville? They all continued to enable him after that. Hypocrisy
@Critical Thinker: I think if they took this step before last Wednesday they would have been open to all sorts of litigation
@Dannys Dentures: not just such companies, but politicians, the media etc. They were happy enough to go along with it previously
@Critical Thinker: when you say they all, you really mean the GOP? Because they have had control of the senior house during his Presidency and as a party could have brought him into line much earlier if they had a mind to. Like Mitch McConnell on Wednesday when finally condemning Trumps challenge of the election results, they can and should have done the right thing from day one of Trumps candidacy. But they left him on a long leash because they knew he would do the dirty work for them, and in the aftermath they will look to put the blame entirely on his shoulders alone….
Nothing more than PR. Any and all of these companies could have made s moral stand 6 months ago when he said the protesters (KKK) were good people.
Rats deserting a sinking ship
@Rhoda Cunningham: these companies had 4 years to dump Trump, yet they all jump on the bandwagon when he’s two weeks from leaving office.
Why did this not happen years ago?
Sad populist, bandwagon jumping nonsense
Why bother? Tokenism at this stage
All these platforms can remove a president. They can remove you. That’s the message here, look at the rise in decentralized platforms this year. Nobody can remove your access to bitcoin.
That’ll hit him hard.
Unfortunately, we’ll. ever get to hear what the Don thinks of all these actions
@Sequoia: really heartfelt of them. I mean now that Trump is officially politically destroyed it’s safe financially to do the right thing or be seen to do so. Much of the worlds problems right there folks
Now they need to pull it from all his businesses.
@Gillian O’Coinne: no they don’t!!
My post was deleted. If the company had genuine moral problems with Trump and had any courage they would have done this years ago. A toothless decision for cheap publicity.
Why wait this long? Where there’s a buck to be earned….
Bit late
That’ll hit him hard.
Unfortunately, we’ll. ever get to hear what the Don thinks of all these actions
@Sequoia: If Donald Trump isn’t back on social media soon I will be amazed. And if he doesn’t invest in a platform or hosting services for that platform I will be equally surprised.
@Jim Lingk: hopefully
@Jim Lingk: he will put up a platform….until he figures out how much it costs to run it ……won’t be long dumping it then……
Big friggin deal!!!
You wonder what the valuation of Stripe has to do with Trump.
But he was encouraging violence long before this happened so why didn’t they act before now?
Wow… banking sanctions on the peoples republic of Trump
Dissenting opinion won’t vanish because tech CEOs ban it. That’s not how life is.
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