Reform Alliance "Monster Meeting" RDS 25th January

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Well why isn't this happening then?

There's already two established centre right parties and Labour bleed off some of this vote as well by not being "too" left wing for the last decade and more. If Labour went harder on the 70s left wing rhetoric and FG harder on the Bible you'd have a large vacuum in the centre (which is pretty much why FF is there and why both Labour and FG do neither of these things these days).

Is there a secular centre right vote? Definitely. The thing is those people are already voting for parties and might not change to a new one that fast so a fresh faced centre right party might die in its infancy despite there actually being a vote out there for it because it'd be so difficult for it to distinguish itself from its competitors for those voters.

It's much easier for a hard left or hard right party to distinguish themselves from the larger parties but since there are much fewer votes on the hard left and hard right this isn't their main problem.

nesf wrote: »

There's already two established centre right parties and Labour bleed off some of this vote as well by not being "too" left wing for the last decade and more. If Labour went harder on the 70s left wing rhetoric and FG harder on the Bible you'd have a large vacuum in the centre (which is pretty much why FF is there and why both Labour and FG do neither of these things these days).

Is there a secular centre right vote? Definitely. The thing is those people are already voting for parties and might not change to a new one that fast so a fresh faced centre right party might die in its infancy despite there actually being a vote out there for it because it'd be so difficult for it to distinguish itself from its competitors for those voters.

It's much easier for a hard left or hard right party to distinguish themselves from the larger parties but since there are much fewer votes on the hard left and hard right this isn't their main problem.

In my view democracy is fairly effectively self-correcting. If there really was this vast reservoir of potential support for a party to the right of FF and FG, someone would have come forward to cater for it.

Case in point, John McGuirk, one of the most prominent media right-wing ideologues, stood for 'New Vision' in the last GE in Cavan Monaghan, and came in third last on 2.5% of first preferences. I remain to be convinced anyone else would do much better on that sort of ticket, despite all the media chatter.

nesf wrote: »

Define "to the right of FF and FG" to begin with. Do you mean more fiscally liberal? Sure these people exist but they're not one coherent group.

Primarily this, especially people in SMEs who are getting crucified by the tax system. Seems like these people will just keep voting for FF or FG, or Lowry-type independents, come hell or high water...

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Primarily this, especially people in SMEs who are getting crucified by the tax system. Seems like these people will just keep voting for FF or FG, or Lowry-type independents, come hell or high water...

Yeah but SME owners vary from red blooded Marxists to people who sleep with Hayek under the pillow. You might get them interested in "lower taxes for smalll business" and then lose half of them as soon as you open your mouth on social issues or discuss tax treatment of multinationals.

SME owners vote across the spectrum, I would put money on a majority of them being on the right economically but I'm not sure how big a majority this would be. It's not that unusual to meet a small business owner who has pretty strong views on social responsibility (i.e. their issue isn't so much that you tax them but that you spend the taxes poorly).

Also, don't fall into the trap of thinking all SME owners are in ISME or the SFA. They're very much not.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

But even if you just took that majority, surely there should be enough votes to support a PD/GP-size party, if most of them voted according to their economic self-interest. But it seems like it's an insurmountable challenge to persuade them to do that...

Note, I said right economically, I didn't say a word about their social views. They're not a coherent group simply because they are SME owners! That's just one aspect of them as voters. They could be Republicans, Conservative Catholics, Libertarians, Very Centrist Socially, Greens or whatever other category you want. They could be young 20 somethings thinking about future kids and needing a house or 50 somethings more worried about their kids college prospects and healthcare for themselves. Are they rural folk or urban? Dublin or any other city?

Really, you can't just take one "tag" like "SME owner" and get any kind of coherent group from this. What you need to do is figure out roughly what the most common other "tags" attach to this group and try and take a large slice out of it but it's problematic and usually much simpler to target better spread "tags" like parents, pensioners or whatever because you don't want to paint yourself into a corner where your core vote doesn't exist in half the country to any great extent (SF's current biggest hurdle).

raymon wrote: »

Im taking this poll with a grain of salt. It is interesting none the less. It was conducted in Lucinda's constituency.

Good news for Lucinda , Quinn , Murphy and Andrews.

Terrible news for FF being bottom of the barrel here, showing that the recent poll showing FF unpopular in Dublin and more unpopular amongst younger people to be about right.

Creighton 26, Quinn 19, Murphy 15, Andrews (SF) 15, Humphreys 10, O'Callaghan (FF) 8, Flynn (ind) 8

https://twitter.com/patleahysbp/statuses/425273026578374656

Re FF, the Andrews situation makes this constituency unique, so I wouldn't give up hope of a revival in Dublin yet if I was them. Possibly also they need a higher profile candidate than O'Callaghan, I hear Peter Matthews is looking for a political home and he isn't too fussy what jersey he wears.:p

As regards Lucinda, I thought she'd struggle to hold her seat outside of FG, but this kind of nixes that. Although of course her numbers will fall away after FG pick their second candidate. She may conclude on the basis of this that her best chance of reelection is to ditch the RA and run as a pure in on the basis of her personal popularity in the constituency, as Denis Naughten seems intent on doing.

spank_inferno wrote: »

Today is the day!

Anyone going?

I went out of cursity and to be honest the existing parties have nothing to fear. There are some interesting and serious suggeations coming fron the floor (centralised IT in health to store all health records of a patient, splitting dept of health in two like finance was, having 5 ministers appointed from taoiseach's nominees. list system, hold senate elections on same day as dail elections etc). You can debate the merits of the proposals but there are some people here with ideas for reform. But there seem to be an equal number of extremists (freemasons run the country, women arent able for politics, flouride is a conspiracy to poison us).

Walking around at lunch deliberately tuning into conversations some things I heard. "Ronan Mullen and his rosary brigade will kill this before it gets started" vs "Olivia O'Leary is clearly pro abortion and it is a disgrace that she was even left into the building" Or "There are too many ex Fianna Fail people here looking for a way back in". vs "This place is like a Fine Gael lifeboat. They are running everything". Or "Its all dubs speaking. If you have a country accent you get booed". vs "who gives a **** about all these small country hospitals".

There are a lot of angry people around here and I cant see the Reform Alliance pulling them together into a single party. Maybe a couple of small parties will emerge but nothing to worry the established parties.

To pull a body of people (who are politically motivated to attend a meeting such as this) with numerous different issues ranging from local to regional to national issues together requires somebody of real pedigree, intellect, integrity, talent and charisma, I simply cannot see this movement providing that person.

I think if this republic is to reform from top to bottom we need to dig deeper, these politicians are not the only problem, our people need a greater understanding of themselves, what makes us as people behave the way we do, we are a great nation but we have not figured ourselves out yet, we haven't figured out how to protect ourselves from our weaknesses.

Ok I'm back home after it. I have to say the panels were very good. Tom McGuirk and David McWilliams were the stars with Philip Blond and Alison Cowzer close behind. I felt the health discussion lacked a strong chair (June Shannon was very out of her depth given the experience of the panel and the emotive topic).

It was hard to see anything coming out of it. Olivia O'Leary made a good point on the need for a Kamikaze party that would ride the current wave of discontent into power and force through the changes. But it's hard to see any of the current TDs, including the reform alliance TDs, voting that through. Turkey's and Christmas sprung to mind. What is needed is a party led by Tom McGuirk and David McWilliams not Lucinda and the lads. In fact if you were to take the panels and drop them in the cabinet you would get a generally great set of ministers.

There were some good suggestions from the floor but the format meant most were left hanging without being properly outlined and debated. There were also some spine shuddering moments. Freemasons, Flouride, citizens party, women not being able for politics etc all came up showing there were quite of the conspiracy theory forum floating around. The most telling moment was when Olivia O'Leary clearly angered some people with a thinly veiled pro-choice opening to her speech. Then when it was thrown open to the floor the biggest cheer (cheering, applause, thumping the floor) was for some old lad who said the biggest problem in politics was Fine Gael going back on its promise and legislating for abortion. About 80% of the room cheered and the other 20% of us started looking for an exit. It is the one issue that united the most of the people and I fear any party that emerges will be a predominantly catholic ethos issue party. They won't be able to agree on other topics.

Demographic wise it was mainly male, mainly in the 55+ age group and based on dress code I would say mainly middle class professionals. From the accents etc I would say most were from from Dublin (to be expected I suppose). Sure there were exceptions to that but that was the majority.

Tom McGuirk and David McWilliams! Destiny is calling....... Unfortunately Tom and David can't come to the phone right now, this is Lucinda can I take a message?

touts wrote: »

Ok I'm back home after it. I have to say the panels were very good. Tom McGuirk and David McWilliams were the stars with Philip Blond and Alison Cowzer close behind. I felt the health discussion lacked a strong chair (June Shannon was very out of her depth given the experience of the panel and the emotive topic).

It was hard to see anything coming out of it. Olivia O'Leary made a good point on the need for a Kamikaze party that would ride the current wave of discontent into power and force through the changes. But it's hard to see any of the current TDs, including the reform alliance TDs, voting that through. Turkey's and Christmas sprung to mind. What is needed is a party led by Tom McGuirk and David McWilliams not Lucinda and the lads. In fact if you were to take the panels and drop them in the cabinet you would get a generally great set of ministers.

There were some good suggestions from the floor but the format meant most were left hanging without being properly outlined and debated. There were also some spine shuddering moments. Freemasons, Flouride, citizens party, women not being able for politics etc all came up showing there were quite of the conspiracy theory forum floating around. The most telling moment was when Olivia O'Leary clearly angered some people with a thinly veiled pro-choice opening to her speech. Then when it was thrown open to the floor the biggest cheer (cheering, applause, thumping the floor) was for some old lad who said the biggest problem in politics was Fine Gael going back on its promise and legislating for abortion. About 80% of the room cheered and the other 20% of us started looking for an exit. It is the one issue that united the most of the people and I fear any party that emerges will be a predominantly catholic ethos issue party. They won't be able to agree on other topics.

Demographic wise it was mainly male, mainly in the 55+ age group and based on dress code I would say mainly middle class professionals. From the accents etc I would say most were from from Dublin (to be expected I suppose). Sure there were excepti5ons to that but that was the majority.

Tom McGuirk and David McWilliams! Destiny is calling....... Unfortunately Tom and David can't come to the phone right now, this is Lucinda can I take a message?

Pretty much sums it up I think. I went out of curiosity really, I usually like David McWilliams, he really does like the sound of his own voice though. Quite impressed by Alison Cowzer, Phillip Blond and Dr Molloy.

Id vote for the speakers not for that group of politicians, I was in that 20% looking at the door. As someone who has never been to anything political before, it had a whiff of a publicity stunt off it I think.

I actually found the foot stomping etc a bit disturbing, strange day.