Hugh Linehan is joined by Pat Leahy and Cormac McQuinn to discuss the week in politics:

· Rishi Sunak’s decision on Wednesday to announce a snap election for July 4th, four months earlier than predicted, caught everyone off guard. Will it prove to be a gamble worth taking?

· Cormac was present at Fianna Fáil’s European election launch this morning where tensions boiled over as Senator Niall Blaney got into a public disagreement with Fianna Fáil leader, Tánaiste Micheál Martin, over the level of support he was getting from the party amid their three-candidate strategy in the Midlands North-West constituency.

· And on Friday, June 7th – the same day voters across the country will elect representatives to local councils and the European Parliament – the people of Limerick will decide who will be the country’s first directly elected mayor. But what powers will the successful candidate have to go with their €154,000 salary?

And the panel pick their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

· Laura Slattery writes about “king of the airwaves” Pat Kenny.

· The passing of Ireland’s first business superstar, Tony O’Reilly.

· Pedestrians best be on their guard against the quiet threat of electric vehicles as outlined by Shauna Bowers.

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The upcoming US election will see a presidential rematch for the first time since Eisenhower and Stevenson in 1956. That contest is between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the two most unpopular candidates in living memory. But who is likely to prevail once the votes are finally counted?

In a special live event last week, Head of Polling at Ipsos US, Cliff Young, joined Hugh Linehan to dig into some of the big questions that have defined the presidential race thus far.

Why is Joe Biden performing so poorly in the polls? Why have so many minority voters who would traditionally have voted Democrat, decided to make the move towards the Republican party? And despite his legal woes, does Trump’s anti-establishment stance still retain its potency?

And in terms of what issues are front and centre for US voters, Cliff explains why it’s the economy, more specifically inflation, that is having a ‘nasty effect on the political calculus’. But can that be changed in any significant way before election day?

Produced by Declan Conlon.

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Hugh Linehan is joined by Cormac McQuinn and Jennifer Bray to discuss the week in politics:

· The last fortnight has seen several incidents of councillors being verbally and physically attacked while out canvassing for the forthcoming local elections. A disturbing trend that hasn’t been a feature of previous elections.

· The panel dig into what the Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll results say about the volatility of public opinion right now.

· And neither current First Minister of Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill, or former First Minister of Northern Ireland, Arlene Foster, came away from the UK Covid-19 inquiry unscathed.

And the panel pick their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

· Ronan McGreevey writing 50 years on from the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.

· Laura Kennedy does the arithmetic of emigration.

· Stephen Collins writes of Micheál Martin’s political enemies postponing their big move.

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