Latest Red C poll

New_Departure06

Latest Red C poll for Sunday Business Post tomorrow:

FF:Fianna Fail 34% (-1)
FG:Fine Gael 26% (no change)
Lab:Labour 12% (-2)
PD:3% (no change)
SF:9% (+1)
Green:Greens 7% (+1)
Ind:9% (+1)

What do you make of this? I make of it that the Mr.A affair has not damaged the PD's electorally compared to before, and that McDowell may well hold his seat. After all on 3% and with FF transfers you would expect at least 3 and maybe 4 PD seats and McDowell would obviously be one of them given his high profile imho.

Also FF will be relieved that the damage to them is only slight. Labour is down 2%. Perhaps their voters do not like them selling their soul to an increasingly conservative Fine Gael. Also the Rainbow and govt are almost level (38%-37%). And even with the Greens, it only comes to 45%, which might not be sufficient to form a govt. The govt would be a motley-crew of FG's increasing conservativism, lefties, far lefties and probably crazy lefties on the Independent benches. How on earth can such a govt be stable and provide coherent answers to the nation's problems?

In contrast, it is not totally outside the realms of possibility that FF could join forces with SF (they are 43% together) and if the PD's won't join in, they could rely perhaps on former FF Independents to scrabble together a majority?

Santa Claus

New_Departure06 wrote:

In contrast, it is not totally outside the realms of possibility that FF could join forces with SF (they are 43% together) and if the PD's won't join in, they could rely perhaps on former FF Independents to scrabble together a majority?

Hasn't Bertie publically stated before that he'll never form a coalition with Sinn Fein ?

I can't see the PD's giving up the chance of getting into any goverment....no matter who else is in it !

lostexpectation

well the rte commentator said that the reason it didn't go down so much cos it was already so low,


who are the far lefties and probably crazy lefties in the dail?

New_Departure06

lostexpectation wrote:

well the rte commentator said that the reason it didn't go down so much cos it was already so low,


who are the far lefties and probably crazy lefties in the dail?

I would consider Joe Higgins to be on the far-left of Irish politics. Remember he was expelled from Labour because of this. Gawd preserve Ireland if he gets to dictate a Rainbow economic policy. As for crazy lefties, no comment!

flogen

As a friend of mine pointed out polls like these, while the best that we have to go by are very unrepresentative of a PR based election.

In relation to a FF/SF coalition, it won't happen with this election but do you think FF will reject any votes from SF in favour of naming Bertie Taoiseach?

lostexpectation

New_Departure06 wrote:

I would consider Joe Higgins to be on the far-left of Irish politics. Remember he was expelled from Labour because of this. Gawd preserve Ireland if he gets to dictate a Rainbow economic policy. As for crazy lefties, no comment!

ok so we've got one far lefty..... so stop talking BS ND6

New_Departure06

lostexpectation wrote:

ok so we've got one far lefty..... so stop talking BS ND6

That was but an example.

lostexpectation

name the rest thats what I asked you :mad:

constitutionus

flogen wrote:

In relation to a FF/SF coalition, it won't happen with this election...

actually i'd dispute that, bertie aint gonna be leader when the next gov ends. i wouldnt be suprised if he formed a gov with SF and said feck public opionion in order to get 3 full gov terms as taoiseach under his belt and left the mess to his successor (more than likely cowan). irish politics is repleate with examples of "untenable" alliances being formed. hell people defect from FF to FG and co and no ones really all that surprised anymore. look at the u turn spring did in 91.
the real question is will SF go into government with FF. Its far easier to get votes as the opposition and build your party there than have to produce the goods in government and more than likely loose votes (look at the PDs, i reckon no matter what the poll says theyre gonna be decimated next year. they'll be lucky to keep 3 seats in my opinion)

New_Departure06

lostexpectation wrote:

name the rest thats what I asked you :mad:

I would consider Tony Gregory and Seamus Healy to be hard-left too. And who knows how many will join them next time.

flogen

constitutionus wrote:

actually i'd dispute that, bertie aint gonna be leader when the next gov ends. i wouldnt be suprised if he formed a gov with SF and said feck public opionion in order to get 3 full gov terms as taoiseach under his belt and left the mess to his successor (more than likely cowan). irish politics is repleate with examples of "untenable" alliances being formed. hell people defect from FF to FG and co and no ones really all that surprised anymore. look at the u turn spring did in 91.
the real question is will SF go into government with FF. Its far easier to get votes as the opposition and build your party there than have to produce the goods in government and more than likely loose votes (look at the PDs, i reckon no matter what the poll says theyre gonna be decimated next year. they'll be lucky to keep 3 seats in my opinion)

It is my opinion that SF will be at their strongest after the next election; as Northern Ireland normalises the time between 2007 and 2012 will see focus on the party shift from its work there to its Domestic policies, which are far from mainstream. I think they know this as well as anyone else.

For that reason I see a coalition involving SF as unlikely too; their core policies are too far off FG and SF to find a common ground; that may change by the following election but who knows?
FF would alienate their voters by going SF and that's something that you cannot do; besides that it would be too soon for SF to be in Government in the Republic because (depending on what happens next) devolution in NI will either still be stalled or will be taking tentative early steps at that point; either way both the Irish and British Governments will still have a role to play and Bertie can't be seen to be in union with SF.

Let's just say that there is no devolution in the near future, as it looks at present... Unionists in NI are going to have a hard enough time dealing with Irish influence on their affairs, now imagine if that influence came from a Sinn Fein government?!!! That would effectively mean that SF would have a say where UUP/DUP/PUP didn't. Not a chance of that working.

Philistine

constitutionus wrote:

look at the u turn spring did in 91.

Oooohh my blood still boils when I think of Labour going into government with FF that year !!!

LovelyHurling

flogen wrote:

For that reason I see a coalition involving SF as unlikely

I have to say I agree entirely with this. I think Bertie Ahern would rather foresake departments to almost anyone else but SFIRA. I think that while it's inevitable that they will pick up seats in the south they will probably be taking them from the more fragile Independent/ Special Interest TDs and Labour as opposed to FF/FG.

However I dont think that FF would turn away SFIRA purely for policy reasons. If it means getting into office they'd get into bed with Trevor Sargent. FF will probably never share power with them imo, but I do expect them to be the big political players down south in 15 years time.

civdef

What was the margin of error in the poll?

flogen

LovelyHurling wrote:

However I dont think that FF would turn away SFIRA purely for policy reasons. If it means getting into office they'd get into bed with Trevor Sargent. FF will probably never share power with them imo, but I do expect them to be the big political players down south in 15 years time.

But the greens have more rational policies than SF... Sinn Fein want to nationalise everything, raise corporate taxes to obscene levels and revoke land from British people in Ireland; the Green party are hardly centred but Sinn Fein are miles away.
As was pointed out to me, though, regardless of the outcome in the next election Ahern will be the first to be nominated for Taoiseach; should FF and the PD's bag 77 seats, for example, and SF get 10 do you really think Ahern wouldn't go to McAlease with the 87 votes, even if they are pushed over the line only by SF? He won't go into coalition with them, but as FF showed on Monday gone they're happy to use SF to thwart the opposition and hold them from office.

lostexpectation

New_Departure06 wrote:

I would consider Tony Gregory and Seamus Healy to be hard-left too. And who knows how many will join them next time.

so now we've got a new category called hard left? still no looney lefties, are the hard left, further left then the far-left?

lostexpectation

flogen wrote:

But the greens have more rational policies than SF... Sinn Fein want to nationalise everything, raise corporate taxes to obscene levels and revoke land from British people in Ireland;

will they really do that?

flogen

I don't think they'll have the opportunity; they'll only get into government if they soften their politics (which I think is the next step in the repackaging of the party which has changed so much already; I'm not sure if Gerry Adams will be able to justify it though)

ArthurDent

And on the back of this Labour and Fine Gael are going to table a motion in the dail next week for an early general election according to this

http://www.thepost.ie/breakingnews/breaking_story.asp?j=187729636&p=y8773x34z&n=187730396

Not that they have a snowballs chance in hell of that happening. :rolleyes:

lostexpectation

flogen wrote:

I don't think they'll have the opportunity; they'll only get into government if they soften their politics (which I think is the next step in the repackaging of the party which has changed so much already; I'm not sure if Gerry Adams will be able to justify it though)

exactly so they won't so the no matter how many times jim cusack writes that it won't happen...


a motion to call an early election , ok yeah right,

whats the lowest FF numbers have gone in the last ten yrs?

flogen

lostexpectation wrote:

exactly so they won't so the no matter how many times jim cusack writes that it won't happen...

I don't quite get your point; I was pointing out that a coalition involving SF is pretty much impossible because their policies are too extreme.
I think the only way Sinn Fein will get their way is if they magically become a majority party themselves (that or change just what it is they want to achieve)

zepp

As for looney left. Finian "I think Cuba is a democracy" McGrath