Latest Poll, Red C

Pride Fighter

FF 23 (-1) FG 33 (-2) Labour 24(+7) SF 6 (-4) Green Party 6 (+1) Others 8 (=)

http://www.irishelection.com/2010/05/red-c-poll-may-2nd/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20Irishelection%20%28IrishElection.com%29&utm_content=Twitter


A Labour led government looking extremely likely now.

IrishTonyO

I can't believe the Greens have increased support

Smiley Burnett

Pride Fighter wrote: »

FF 23 (-1) FG 33 (-2) Labour (+7) SF 6 (-4) Green Party 6 (+1) Others 8 (=)

http://www.irishelection.com/2010/05/red-c-poll-may-2nd/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20Irishelection%20%28IrishElection.com%29&utm_content=Twitter


A Labour led government looking extremely likely now.

stop being ridiculous! LAB/FF Coalition with a Lab Taoiseach will not happen!

Pride Fighter

Smiley Burnett wrote: »

stop being ridiculous! LAB/FF Coalition with a Lab Taoiseach will not happen!

I know that Labour will never go in with Fianna Fail. If the swing continues Labour will be leading Fine Gael :D

Macha

IrishTonyO wrote: »

I can't believe the Greens have increased support

Woohoo!

IrishTonyO

You left out labours score, it is 24

Pride Fighter

IrishTonyO wrote: »

You left out labours score, it is 24

Edited

Sulmac

Great news for Labour! That's a huge swing from the last poll just a few weeks ago. I take it the recent conference has a lot to do with it.

Fine Gael will (and should) be worried, not only did Fianna Fáil go down 1%, but they went down 2% - not a good sign. Fine Gael are failing to capitalise on Fianna Fáil's demise as well as they should. Could the swing to Labour be public sector workers hoping for their pay cuts to be reversed, or Sinn Féiners moving?

I wouldn't be surprised if we start hearing a few mumblings about Enda Kenny's leadership now.

When was the poll taken, does anybody know? Was it during the whole pension debacle? Labour and Fine Gael both showed Fianna Fáil up immensely there.

Very surprised the Greens are up (although it's margin-of-error stuff), and Sinn Féin down by a huge 4%.

I wonder if Labour will manage to stay this high, anytime they've gotten this far they've dropped down a good bit by the next poll.

edit: Any ideas when the next Irish Times/MRBI poll will be? They often contrast with SBP/Red C!

mike65

The Greens are well within the margin for statisical error so they are really as you were. Labour rising is good news for FG. The Shinners should be flying at times like these, if only in poor urban areas/border.

moonpurple

polls mean nothing

bring the election bring it

hallelujajordan

Pride Fighter wrote: »

FF 23 (-1) FG 33 (-2) Labour 24(+7) SF 6 (-4) Green Party 6 (+1) Others 8 (=)

A Labour led government looking extremely likely now.

How do you work that out ? All this means is a FG led government with a Labour partner who is stronger than they otherwise would have been. Oddly, I would have preferred FG to be rising. The stronger FG are, the more stable the next government is likely to be !

Biggins

IrishTonyO wrote: »

I can't believe the Greens have increased support

Don't forget with a 3% margin of error!

ChocolateSauce

They'd still need a 10% labour swing to realistically be in charge.

nkay1985

I'd be taking the Labour jump with a severe pinch of salt. No way there's a 7-point swing in such a short while. Taking a 3% margin of error and bring it back to a 4-point increase makes it just about believable.

Surely FG can't be failing so terribly to capitalise on the anti-government feeling that Labour are benefitting so much? Although, with Labour in favour of reversing the pay cuts, maybe some people would be drawn to them but you'd imagine most staunch union supporters would have already been Labour voters.

Liam Byrne

IrishTonyO wrote: »

I can't believe the Greens have increased support

+1 (with due respects to the comments re margin for error)

I also can't believe that FF are only down 1, considering that all of their lies about Anglo are being exposed, and their unwillingness to interfere in everything that costs us money is an almost daily occurrence.

trapsagenius

nkay1985 wrote: »

I'd be taking the Labour jump with a severe pinch of salt. No way there's a 7-point swing in such a short while. Taking a 3% margin of error and bring it back to a 4-point increase makes it just about believable.

I definitely can see there being a 7 point swing.FF, Lenihan excepted, are floundering in office and FG are floundering in opposition with a leader who is more of a liability than an asset to the party.Therfore, Labour the other real alternative (yes, I'm discounting SF and the greens), can expect to be the big gainers.Populist he might be, but Gilmore articulates very well and seems to have a good handle on what he's talking about.Labour will definitely be getting my vote in 2012.

Euro_Kraut

Biggins wrote: »

Don't forget with a 3% margin of error!

True. They could be at 9%

In fairness their support does seems to have stabilized of late. At the same time there have eek out a few concession from FF. Its been relatively good last 3 months for them.

Interesting to see FF down at 23%. My guess was that their base vote was 25% and they really could not go any lower. Nice to see I was wrong. Would love if they ended up behind Labour in the next General Election - if only on the popular vote.

Sergeant

A very strange poll result. People say they want politicians to be honest and straight with them, yet Gilmore spouts unobtainable rubbish, and gets a 7% bounce in popularity?

There is a seething anger out there, and Gilmore is using populist claptrap without offering any real solutions. There could be a bit of a "Clegg effect" taking place as well.

Smiley Burnett

trapsagenius wrote: »

I definitely can see there being a 7 point swing.FF, Lenihan excepted, are floundering in office and FG are floundering in opposition with a leader who is more of a liability than an asset to the party.Therfore, Labour the other real alternative (yes, I'm discounting SF and the greens), can expect to be the big gainers.Populist he might be, but Gilmore articulates very well and seems to have a good handle on what he's talking about.Labour will definitely be getting my vote in 2012.

what do you think of labour's policies re dealing with the defecit in the public finances?

GarlicBread

Sergeant wrote: »

A very strange poll result. People say they want politicians to be honest and straight with them, yet Gilmore spouts unobtainable rubbish, and gets a 7% bounce in popularity?

There is a seething anger out there, and Gilmore is using populist claptrap without offering any real solutions. There could be a bit of a "Clegg effect" taking place as well.

Looks like somone is getting worried .

Dob74

It's a three way race. Popular vote wont matter as much as vote transfers.
And where the vote is. If Labour can get 2 in 4&5 seaters in Dublin they can be the largest Party.

skelliser

Nice mis-direction here lads!

The real story is the fact that Fianna Fail are now third on 2 different polls.
People now know they are solely to blame for the economic mess we are now in.
Looks like this could be the begininng of the end of them.

Thank god!

Sergeant

GarlicBread wrote: »

Looks like somone is getting worried .

Not worried, me not believing the Labour Party line, or indeed the whole broad church of socialism, does not make me a FF voter. In fact, I'm very glad to see them have to clean up after the mess they made.

I just see a surge in Labour support as being strange. How are they going to handle the reform of the public service, how do they intend to curb the growing national debt, how do they intend to create employment. You know, policies.

GarlicBread

Sergeant wrote: »

Not worried, me not believing the Labour Party line, or indeed the whole broad church of socialism, does not make me a FF voter. In fact, I'm very glad to see them have to clean up after the mess they made.

I just see a surge in Labour support as being strange. How are they going to handle the reform of the public service, how do they intend to curb the growing national debt, how do they intend to create employment. You know, policies.

Labour are much apart of the public service, they are the party that can fix that issue with maximum social cohesion. The growing national debt can be curbed by removing FF asap before they piss away any more of our resources. We are stuck with unemployment for another 10 years at least so thats not an easy one.

Pride Fighter

Smiley Burnett wrote: »

what do you think of labour's policies re dealing with the defecit in the public finances?

Some of Labour's policies in improving the public finances are as follows. A temporary 5.5% VAT rate for the hospitality and leisure sectors. This would stimulate these industries, helping create new jobs and holding existing ones. Additional policies include getting people back to education and training in trades. At the last budget Labour proposed this, which would have gotten 30,000 people off the dole and into retraining.

The main thrust of Labour's policies in reducing the deficit is by creating jobs. Currently 20 billion is spent on unemployment benefit. That is too much. By getting people back to work less money will be spent on social welfare and more money will be brought in through the taxes the newly employed will be paying.

A jobless recovery is no recovery at all. By getting everyone back to work we can deal with the deficit in a better, more coherent and fairer manner.

Berti Vogts

Increase in Labour support just goes to show that you can never give the Irish public too much populism. It worked for FF for years so why wouldn't it work for Labour?

irishh_bob

yet more proof that kenny needs to be replaced as leader

trapsagenius

Smiley Burnett wrote: »

what do you think of labour's policies re dealing with the defecit in the public finances?

Well the idea reversing the pay cuts is just ridiculous I'll admit, but I'm fairly confident its just a vote-winner and they won't actually implement these policies in office, once they have to face up to the economic reality.I'd say at heart Gilmore isn't really a left wing idealist, just a pragmatist.

Also, see Pride Fighter's response.

trapsagenius

Possibilities wrote: »

Increase in Labour support just goes to show that you can never give the Irish public too much populism. It worked for FF for years so why wouldn't it work for Labour?

In fairness, it's not like FG haven't been trotting out populism since the 2007 GE, so how do you explain their relative lack of support? (yes they're still number 1, but they should be far, far higher up the polls)

Berti Vogts

trapsagenius wrote: »

In fairness, it's not like FG haven't been trotting out populism since the 2007 GE, so how do you explain their relative lack of support? (yes they're still number 1, but they should be far, far higher up the polls)

Yes they have been populist but not to the same extent as Labour.

Sully

Ill never get why we must insist on a leader rather then a party. This includes the attacks against FF/Greens/Labour etc. We seem to look at the leader a lot of the time and use that as a basis of whether a party is credible or not.

Its sad, because FG have an awful lot of credible policies and TDs/Senators/MEPs. They are an excellent party in respect but we cant seem to see past Enda, whome may not be the best but is much further from the worst. I believe he is a more credible leader then Cowen who has shown to be offering nothing.

It was FG who were calling for Anglo to be shut down but FF were insisting it wont be. Then Europe says it should be and FF then call for it! Yet, nobody even looks at FG for it and dismisses the party as "Oh, Enda? Never". Yet Varadkar, Hayes, Creighton, Bruton and Waterford's Paudie Coffey, and Maurice Cummins are bringing together a string of political plans - education, economy, health and political reform being a selection. They have, IIRC, something on agriculture taking shape now from what I gather. But - all dismissed because of Enda.

So, what, do FG need to hire a good looking entertainer, who can talk with absolute ease and be impressive to get people to consider the real structure and political power behind the very man who put it together in the first place? Ludicrous.

Look at Labour - water politics. Have very little potential and offer very little bar throwing punches at the government and making speeches that will win over public service workers and the general public - hitting the right notes and winning them over with stuff they want to hear. There a slow party in terms of policies and plans. They seem to offer very little in terms of front bench.

Yet, Gilmore is the face of the party and a damn good speaker winning over the hearts and minds of the voters with "Whatever you want, Labour will give" approach. Hey presto, the party jumps in support and looks to get an overall majority by robbing the voters blind just like FF did. Just not corrupt or in bed with bankers - just in bed with public sector unions and making speeches that people want to hear even if its unrealistic.

SF need an overhaul. Doesn't matter what they come out with, they will never be considered by the large majority to be an alternative.

Personally, I would prefer the party that can offer real change. Real reform. Real and fair politics. Even if it meant being "stuck" with a leader who isn't the best at public engagements and winning over the hearts and minds with political bull****.

Seems like this country wants change - but not the right type of change. Same circle we will remain in, just a different shower.