Labour Must Wait!

Killer Pigeon

Do you think that the Labour Party would do better if they decided not to go into coalition with Fine Gael?

If they stayed out of coalition they could dominate the opposition, even more than Fianna Fáil. For the first time the Dáil would have a proper Left-Right wing divide with FG/Independents in government and Labour/ULA/Sinn Féin in opposition. It could be similar to Britain were they have either Labour or the Tories dominating the opposition. Over the ensuing years people could get disheartened by FG's Thatcherite policies (soz for the bias) and turn to Labour as an alternative.

jacool

Re the bias. Is that in your post or your signature?

jimmycrackcorm

I beleive that they would do better out of coalition this coming term as we're not going to get any better over the next 5 years. However they will likely have to go into coalition with the likes of SF / ULA in the next election.

bijapos

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

If they stayed out of coalition they could dominate the opposition.....

Dominating the opposition ensures that no policies of yours get through.

Syferus

If in five years we're still in the doldrums, sure, Labour may have a shot at capitalising on another bout of voter anger but even if our outlook isn't totally sunny it's hard to imagine that Fine Gael will be as weak as the out-going government and, conversely, Fianna Fail as weak as they are now.

And the idea of right/left is so skewed in this country anyways - we've got universal health care and huge welfare provisions, and all parties support policies that continue those, albeit in different forms. The fact Fine Gael and Labour's universal health insurance plans mirror each other just serves to highlight the reality that there isn't going to be a huge sea change whoever occupies the Taoiseach's office.

The reality is all three parties are a few degrees left or right of the center. A red government won't be unrecognisable from a green or blue one. The party faithful will rarely see it that way, of course.

Dirk Gently

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

Do you think that the Labour Party would do better if they decided not to go into coalition with Fine Gael?

If they stayed out of coalition they could dominate the opposition, even more than Fianna Fáil. For the first time the Dáil would have a proper Left-Right wing divide with FG/Independents in government and Labour/ULA/Sinn Féin in opposition. It could be similar to Britain were they have either Labour or the Tories dominating the opposition. Over the ensuing years people could get disheartened by FG's Thatcherite policies (soz for the bias) and turn to Labour as an alternative.

Labour aren't left wing and they aren't an alternative. Sorry to rain on your parade but (hollow socialist sound bites aside) Labour have far more in common with FG than any of the leftie parties you mentioned.

gizmo555

clown bag wrote: »

Labour aren't left wing and they aren't an alternative. Sorry to rain on your parade but (hollow socialist sound bites aside) Labour have far more in common with FG than any of the leftie parties you mentioned.

Agree 100% - I remember hearing Ruairí Quinn on radio just after his election as Labour leader describing himself as a proud socialist. I thought at the time that it was nice to know there was still at least one left in Labour . . .

But, maybe an FG-only government would be the incentive they need to get back to their left wing roots instead of going further and further to the centre to chase the fickle middle-class floating vote, as they've done for decades now. It says a lot about the state of Irish left wing politics that a party like Fianna Fáil - up to the last election anyway - had a much bigger and more solid working class vote than Labour.

andrewire

clown bag wrote: »

Labour aren't left wing and they aren't an alternative. Sorry to rain on your parade but (hollow socialist sound bites aside) Labour have far more in common with FG than any of the leftie parties you mentioned.

Some Labour stances are indeed left-wing, e.g. support for same-sex marriage, universal health care, support of trade unions, opposition to privatisation of State bodies, separation of church and State, their stance on climate change, etc.

Anyway, if by left-wing you meant absurd things like Trotskyism, oh yes! The Labour Party isn't left-wing in that case, thank god.

nesf

andrewire wrote: »

Some Labour stances are indeed left-wing, e.g. support for same-sex marriage, universal health care, support of trade unions, opposition to privatisation of State bodies, separation of church and State, their stance on climate change, etc.

Half of those aren't left wing. Support for same-sex marriage, universal health care, separation of Church and State, support for Climate Change policy are only "left wing issues" in the US. In Europe and Ireland they're very much centrist issues. Christ, I'm very much on the right wing of Irish politics and I'd support all of those, albeit in a slightly different form than a lefty but I'd support them nonetheless.

andrewire

nesf wrote: »

Half of those aren't left wing. Support for same-sex marriage, universal health care, separation of Church and State, support for Climate Change policy are only "left wing issues" in the US. In Europe and Ireland they're very much centrist issues. Christ, I'm very much on the right wing of Irish politics and I'd support all of those, albeit in a slightly different form than a lefty but I'd support them nonetheless.

Last time I checked you weren't the only person in the right-wing side of the political stream. The ones I've mentioned are commonly-attributed stances of the left-wing.

What's your definition of left-wing then? Communism?

nesf

andrewire wrote: »

Last time I checked you weren't the only person in the right-wing side of the political stream. The ones I've mentioned are commonly-attributed stances of the left-wing.

No, I merely pointing out that the right contains both conservatives and social liberals. There are conservatives on the left too you know, it's just they're rarer. Quite a few FF voters would fit into the idea of a conservative slightly left winger from my experiences with people.

andrewire wrote: »

What's your definition of left-wing then? Communism?

Nah, I'd define left wing as favouring more Government intervention in the economy, somewhat higher taxes and higher spending and similar. e.g. favouring more regulation in general would be left wing policy while one could favour more regulation for specific sectors and be centrist or even right wing. These things aren't as black and white as some people like to make out.

andrewire

nesf wrote: »

No, I merely pointing out that the right contains both conservatives and social liberals. There are conservatives on the left too you know, it's just they're rarer. Quite a few FF voters would fit into the idea of a conservative slightly left winger from my experiences with people.



Nah, I'd define left wing as favouring more Government intervention in the economy, somewhat higher taxes and higher spending and similar. e.g. favouring more regulation in general would be left wing policy while one could favour more regulation for specific sectors and be centrist or even right wing. These things aren't as black and white as some people like to make out.

Yeah I agree, it's definitely not black and white. Although I still disagree that centrist politicians would favour same-sex unions. If that were the case, then same-sex unions would be more common accross Europe. I think it is pretty much a left-wing stance.

irishh_bob

nesf wrote: »

No, I merely pointing out that the right contains both conservatives and social liberals. There are conservatives on the left too you know, it's just they're rarer. Quite a few FF voters would fit into the idea of a conservative slightly left winger from my experiences with people.



Nah, I'd define left wing as favouring more Government intervention in the economy, somewhat higher taxes and higher spending and similar. e.g. favouring more regulation in general would be left wing policy while one could favour more regulation for specific sectors and be centrist or even right wing. These things aren't as black and white as some people like to make out.

fianna fail are traditionally left wing on economics ( especially dev ) and conservative socially , classic catholic political stance

randomhuman

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I beleive that they would do better out of coalition this coming term as we're not going to get any better over the next 5 years. However they will likely have to go into coalition with the likes of SF / ULA in the next election.

I highly doubt that any of those parties would entertain the idea of forming a coalition with each other. The Socialist party are particularly uncompromising, I'm surprised they even agreed to contest this election under the banner of the ULA.

nesf

andrewire wrote: »

Yeah I agree, it's definitely not black and white. Although I still disagree that centrist politicians would favour same-sex unions. If that were the case, then same-sex unions would be more common accross Europe. I think it is pretty much a left-wing stance.

The problem for centrist politicians is their conservative flank on these issues. For instance both FF and FG, as well as to a much lesser extent Labour, need to be very careful about not alienating their conservative flank of core support and not scaring away more conservative floating voters. It's an issue for Labour because there's a sizeable minority of people who are conservative on social issues but who favour Labour's big Government social democratic rhetoric. If Labour gets too progressive you might see these people leaning FF or SF. For FF and FG it's even more acute with conservative right being split between both parties and if either appears to be too soft on social issues they'll bleed votes in more conservative constituencies to the other party which could mean the difference between 2 seats and 1 in a 3 seat rural constituency. So you'll see something like FF's policy on gay unions being extremely careful not to use the word marriage to describe them because that'd rile up their more conservative base.

nesf

irishh_bob wrote: »

fianna fail are traditionally left wing on economics ( especially dev ) and conservative socially , classic catholic political stance

They were but populations in general across the West have been drifting rightwards economically for over 50 years now and FF have followed the crowd. You still do get some older left wing economically, conservative socially voters though. It's just they're not very common in the under 60s.