Cal

This is good and I like it better than Monument but I was rooting for Hero or Feel Again. :(

I actually can't at this. I know it has its appeal and it's certainly different but no. Just no.

Although there's no chance Kentucky at large will go blue some counties that Clinton won there by something like 53% are now showing Biden up at 80%. While it doesn't matter in deep red states like Kentucky, if this is replicated in some swing states then Trump is in deep trouble. Worth remembering that he BARELY won the election in 2016 to begin with.

The fact that states like Montana, Alaska, Missouri and Texas are now competitive is something I would have laughed at this time last year. I don't expect Biden to win any of them but the GOP should be very worried about the polling coming out of these states. If they go from solid to likely/lean then the GOP just needs to implode and start over again.

Et Cetera still bangs (and it's still played on nights out :lol:)but the staging was woeful, which is what I think stopped it from qualifying. If this has the right staging and she can pull off a great performance then I think it can do relatively well.

OK that's kinda shit? 'Human' was a bop. :(

I'm now loving this and I'm not even sorry. Her LLS performance was PATCHY to say the least but she can hit the notes so it just needs lots of practice. Here's hoping the staging isn't a hot mess.

Good choice! Anna and Dotter were my top two but The Mamas were a close third so I'm happy. Such a lovely entry and I hope they do well in May!

Hannah's song is great but I don't get the staging at all.

Awful song but I wouldn't kick him out of bed.

Ok this isn’t the worst. It’s a tad dated but I think it could, with the right staging, be a bit of a bop.

will try to soon xoxo EDIT: also, congrats lew! <3

Shame about Zappone but not entirely surprising. I think the National Childcare Scheme she introduced was a good idea but it was too little too late.

Sinn Fein and the Greens are the only two parties to increase their share of FP votes since the last election. Everyone else's vote collapsed or fizzled out. Even Independents got a hammering. Shane Ross losing his seat was delicious. Even Zappone might lose her seat which is actually a shame because as far as Independents go she was one of the better ones. Time will tell with that but she may lose to the Greens on transfers. Definitely an election to remember and transfers played a key role. Also amazing to see the far-right vote was 1% in total and even Immigration was listed as a concern among just 1% of voters. Housing, Health and Climate were the issues at play and the main parties just couldn't grasp that, which is insane because the public + media have been screaming about them from the rooftops for years.

I actually HOWLED when I saw FG won on first preferences. Obviously margin of error and all and transfers are just as important but like how gas is it that even after all of the failures by this Government FF still can't capitalise off the back of it. Byeeee. I voted: 1 - Greens 2 - Soc Dems 3 - PBP (some of their candidates are awful but my candidate has a long history of civil rights advocacy so she's a hun) 4 - I4C 5 - Labour (don't judge me but they did well in the debates) V left wing (it's a VERY left-wing Dublin district) but I couldn't put a preference on the rest (all right wing + SF). Depending on your constituency sometimes ALL of your preferences are counted (like, if you number the entire sheet) so careful voting is key. I think my district is OK but I wasn't taking any chances. :P 100% agree with you but I think any civilian (non-military) casualty in the original fight for independence would not have been premeditated/intentional. The Troubles was an entirely different case where civilians were targeted heavily by both sides. Don't get me wrong, I despise the Unionist side as much as the Republican side, but as SF are the ones running here that's why I'm so against them. If the DUP or any Unionist party even thought about running for election down here I'd chain myself to the Dáil. :P I definitely think the media tries to bring down SF, but that's only because the majority of the electorate remember the history. To be honest people will only give SF a chance if they weed out the old guard and confront their history head on. It's slightly similar to Die Linke (their founding/merger parties) in Germany as in it technically wasn't directly involved in such situations but it kind of was but no-one is willing to admit it.

Anna's song is fantastic and I'm so glad she got DTF! I'd say it's one to watch. Dotter is also a great qualifier. Such simple staging but so effective. Delighted for both!

Because the original fight was against the British political establishment for independence. The (Provisional) IRA lost the battle in the North when they started targeting civilians. Most people (myself included) would support the civil rights movement for Catholics in the North, but there was a line between a movement and a terror campaign and the (P)IRA crossed it. Some SF members had no choice but to admit it because they served time and it's literally public record. I'm also not really buying the "people under X age don't remember the conflict" argument people are spinning. If you're old enough to switch your vote to Sinn Fein then you're old enough to remember the Omagh bombing. Of course most people running in the election for SF had nothing to do with any of the conflict but the party policy is controlled by an unelected (and anonymous) group so party members and representatives literally have no say in the direction or image of their party or the policies it supports. In practice it is probably one of the least democratic parties in the country.

Not really as there's a major difference between the IRA (or any resistance movement) from the start of the 1900s to the ones operating up to the late 90s. I don't think anybody would it hold it against either FF or SF in participating in the original fight to end British occupation. In addition to that, the IRA when it first started had lines that they would not cross (no civilian casualties etc.). It starts to get a little murky when SF deny any knowledge of any of its members being in the modern IRA when there's clear proof some of their most senior members were heavily involved in the Troubles (and some were actually convicted by the Special Criminal Court). Their candidate for Dublin North-West is a former IRA member and explosives expert and was sentenced to 10 years in the 80s. It's cases like this that make people very reluctant to vote for SF. I get why people are angry and why they want change, I just don't think SF are the ones who deserve the opportunity to deliver it.

To be fair they have never had this amount of support before. People are tired of the FG-FF seesaw we've had since the last 50 years and people want an alternative. SF was doing well in the opinion polls in 2016 (around 20% I think) but they ended up only getting 13%. They were also hammered in the EU and local elections in May so they probably weren't expecting this. I don't think any of us were. I think people my age and older still can't separate them from the IRA links so I'm finding it hard to get my head around the jump in support. That said, their social policies are on point and their economic policies are pure fantasy but it all makes a very nice package and it's obviously resonating with a lot of people. The debate tonight will decide where this election will go. FG and FF will have to be very careful about how they approach their disdain for SF.

The National Party are the ones running a bunch of candidates this year (one being in my constituency) and they're gross. They're basically Youth Defence rebranded because they knew they'd lose the Abortion referendum by a landslide so now they're going after immigrants. They won't win a single seat which is great but they're an ominous bunch with links to the neo-Nazi movement in Germany. This was all well-known when they were Youth Defence so I guess you can't polish a turd. :) I've never voted Fine Gael, Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein and I won't be doing so any time soon. If I had to choose it would be Fine Gael because even though we have some major problems facing us they're a hundred times better than Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein combined. Their handling of Brexit was flawless and I think most people would agree on that. Fine Gael will lose a handful of seats on Saturday, Fianna Fail will gain some (most people have not forgotten what they did - we're all still paying for that bloody Bank Guarantee) and Sinn Fein will be the big winners. It's the younger generation who don't have to negative view of Sinn Fein that will get them a huge increase in seats. They're economically illiterate as well so if they do form a Government I look forward to them rolling back on every promise they've made. The Greens will do well after being obliterated from Government in 2011. They did remarkably well in the EU and local elections in May and they've grown stronger since. Labour will remain obsolete and will probably win 5 or 6 seats, if even. The Social Democrats will win as much as they can (I'd say 3 or 4) but they're not established enough to do any better. They need to run big names in more constituencies to have any impact. I'm voting Green and SocDems on Saturday and not sure who else I want my transfers to go to. I suspect this election will be a bloodbath when it comes to transfers which always makes it exciting. I'm sure Galway West will be the last to declare yet again as they tend to have about 20 candidates on the ballot so there's usually between 13 to 15 rounds of counting :lol:

Confirmed something I was going to send a couple of months ago. Couldn't find anything else I wanted to send. :wacko:

Sorry for being blunt but what the f*** are you on about? I’m far from a Varadkar fan but he’s 100% correct when he says the border on the island of Ireland is a British border, not an Irish one. The border makes no f***ing sense which is half the reason why it’s so controversial. The border being the Brexit backache is DELICIOUS because it’s England’s colonialist history coming back to bite them on the arse. I’m not a nationalist by any means (I would never vote Sinn Fein; they’re abhorrent) but Northern Ireland deserve a voice and a future. The UK (mostly England tbf) has shown no interest in the North since partition. Let the people of NI decide their future. The Irish Government are no fools. They know how to deal with the likes of Boris; they’ve had to put up with it for decades. And just FYI it takes more than one veto from the likes of Hungary to veto an entire agreement. Ireland punches way above its weight in the EU so the rest of the bloc will side with us before they side with the likes of bloody Hungary.

70 finals and I have yet win to win one of them. Je suis Muriel’s Wedding. </3 6th this contest is fabulous though. Thank you all and amazing winner! 💜

*.* Thanks all! Doing far better than expected already!

The ignorance of Brexit supporters is mind-numbing. Bonnie Greer's statements on the BBC last night is what the Irish government (and the EU) have been saying for years. Ireland does not need to compromise. After all these years do you really think Ireland is going to turn around and do the UK government a favour? Brexit is the UK's problem and it's not up to Ireland to fix. Despite Trump's support for Boris, the UK are very much on their own in this mess and Boris will be hard pushed to find any type of substantial trade deal with the US if there's No Deal. Pelosi will not let that happen. The GFA is a legally binding international treaty lodged with the United Nations and cannot just be rewritten or disregarded by the UK, a co-signatory. The people on the island of Ireland know what the GFA means and voted for it overwhelmingly (71% in NI and 94%(!) in the Republic). Arlene Foster and the DUP need to be flushed and should not hold so much power when they're not even in power in the North. Let's not forget the DUP voted AGAINST the GFA so they're talking pure shite when they say they don't want a hard border. The vast majority of people in the North want to stay in the EU and/or the Customs Union. The latter is easily achievable and needs to be the way this is dealt with. If NI is dragged out of the EU by the DUP and the Conservatives with a hard border then Reunification will be sooner rather than later. Add that with Scotland about to leave and all that's left is England and, at a push, Wales. You know it's an absolute mess when Wales are like "wait, what???".