Donkey Votes

This week we're talking vulture funds in Ireland and lament the absence of any talk of personal responsibility in the debate. From PTSB we go to Michael D who, despite promising not to before the 2011 election, now wants a SECOND term. Greedy boy. Who dares run against him? Noone it seems, except Gerard Craughwell. Who, you say? Exactly. We talk some Brexit where we try to parse through the hysteria around the Good Friday Agreement and finish with Germany where the far right AfD are now the second most popular party. That tends not to end well in Germany.

This week the somewhat eccentric Ross Barry Grainger gets a chance at redemption after his LBC dressing down...but first we talk Leo rising high, a basic income experiment in Finland and the M5S movement in Italy. Hit us up at donkeyvotes@gmail.com.

New Year, New DV... we're back with the DV outlook for 2018 with an eye to what's a brewing around The Med, the release of Fire & Fury and we tee up the rebuttal of Donkey Votes contributor Ross Barry Grainger following his Brexit ding-dong with LBC's James O'Brien. donkeyvote@gmail.com / @donkeyvotes

Donkey Voters, We are bank with a bang though and in today’s episode we interview Peter Hitchens, long-time Eurosceptic, Mail on Sunday columnist and brother of the late Christopher. Peter has generated controversy over his criticism of our beloved Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and ignited a subsequent twitter storm with Irish tweeps about the 1916 rising and German involvement therewith. More here: http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/08/would-the-irish-have-put-up-with-being-treated-like-this-.html We discuss with him in some more detail his criticism of our Leo, why he believes the Good Friday Agreement was a surrender to paramilitaries and his preference for direct rule – an idea which was shortly after taken up by Michael Gove (who initially supported the deal) in his ‘Price of Peace’ essay. We noted his suggestion that when (the what he sees as inevitable) reunification of the island happens, Irish soldiers may well end up patrolling the Shankill in the face of disquiet from the Unionist minority. We also discuss Brexit, why he sees referendums as unfair and increasingly so, and his view that Britain should stay in the Single Market despite the loss of sovereignty that will entail. Finally, we discuss his view on the Kevin Myers controversy.