After this election will FF become a Rural only party

gandalf

This morning having my morning coffee and mulling over the various newspapers I had a thought. If FF do as per a lot of polls and strike out in Dublin and only see Michael Martin returned in Cork and Willie O'Dea returned in Limerick does that mean that they will become a rural only party. It seems as if they rely totally on Parish Pump politics to get support and what a lot of urban voters are now looking at is policies and action on a National platform.

Will they come back with vengeance in 2016 or will the left fill the vacuum that has been left by them and mean that finally a left/right balance will dictate politics in Ireland at least at an urban level?

If they get less than 20 seats at the next GE should they disband as a political party?

If a list or partial list system is brought in will it be the final nail in their electoral coffin given they will not be able to rely on the politics of personality or family names anymore?

Before this election I believed that FF would come out the other side intact, however the more I see of Michael Martin and the total lack of any enthusiasm from the General Public the more I feel this may be the terminal decline of the so-called soldiers of destiny.

CDfm

I very much doubt it as Ireland is a small country and the left right divide is not really there.

Currently, the labour movement are fighting to protect the rights of the "haves" within the public sector.

FG on the other hand seem to have a lot of anger towards Labour, the Unions and the public sector.

So there are major changes in the offing -yes.

It is too close to call on whether it will revive and the poll samples are not large enough to.

I imagine the trends in local elections when they occur mid term will indicate whether the local party has survived.

Its all to play for yet and the canvassing this week will tell a lot.

A lot of big names retired too so you do not have those creating momentum.

makl

The more people that vote Fine Gael in this election = the more people that will vote Fianna Fáil in the next one.

Fianna Fáil just have to wait for Fine Gael to make a mistake. They won't have to come up with a new ideology as they are virtually the same, they just have to be there as an alternative centre party.

Dublin City - tough to come back - partially due to leftwing success. Other cities and rural areas, will see Fianna Fáil eventually overtaking Fine Gael - probably just in time for the 100th anniversary of 1916.

CDfm

makl wrote: »

The more people that vote Fine Gael in this election = the more people that will vote Fianna Fáil in the next one.

the effort of the local parties and the transfers will make or break them.

Fianna Fáil just have to wait for Fine Gael to make a mistake. They won't have to come up with a new ideology as they are virtually the same, they just have to be there as an alternative centre party.

Spot on.

Dublin City - tough to come back - partially due to leftwing success. Other cities and rural areas, will see Fianna Fáil eventually overtaking Fine Gael - probably just in time for the 100th anniversary of 1916.

I imagine that Labour and the Public Service Unions should brace themselves for a big hit.

There is no going back to the previous politics of Social Partnership that has been there since the late 1950's.

Dealing with the current issues is very much here and now business.

I reckon proposing strike action wont move the EU/IMF as public sector wages are so much higher then the EU averages. THe elephant in the room.

THere is major change "thesis, antithesis,synthesis" as any student of Marx will recognise.

So the urban vote will still be up in the air in 5 years time.

yeahme

Unfortunately the more things change in Ireland, the more they stay the same,

FF will be back, they are like a fly to 5hite they just wont go away.

Daegerty

Being from a rural area myself I can safely say that FF are most definitely not a rural party. There are some die hards out there but you get them in the city too. The cronyism associated with FF was fairly rampant in the heart of Dublin too I believe.

The only people canvassing in my area are those who have had favours (very publically) done for them by their local Fianna Fail representative. But parish pump politics will only get you so far, but if you do small things for the community and then screw them over on a national level people soon wake up and smell the coffee.

Fianna Fail isn't some old rural traditional party, quite the opposite in fact. During the boom they would buy into all sorts of pointless modernisation schemes and anything that was handed down from Europe was seen as universally good. If anything they have been a very urban and pro-Dublin party.

Around here people are quite annoyed with them; except for their die-hard fanbase of course. When you see the roads in some parts of this country its no wonder that people feel left out after all the Dublin based white elephant projects FF threw their money at when they had it. All the tax increases are not going down too well in areas that have seen little change since before the boom (apart from a few empty housing estates) are not going down well either.

oppenheimer1

What makes you think that urban areas are less likely to vote for politicians that campaign on local issues? Tony Gregory was the greatest parish pump politician on them all, and he wasn't from North Kerry :rolleyes:

Liam Byrne

How can a party with 2 politicians in 2 cities be "rural only" ?

*Assuming the two objectionable idiots mentioned get elected, which is unfortunately probably the case.

johngalway

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

What makes you think that urban areas are less likely to vote for politicians that campaign on local issues? Tony Gregory was the greatest parish pump politician on them all, and he wasn't from North Kerry :rolleyes:

Agree with the above. To say that only rural constituencies partake in "parish pump politics" is a blinkered view of the world. There are parishes, pumps, and politicians in cities too.

CDfm

Daegerty wrote: »

Being from a rural area myself I can safely say that FF are most definitely not a rural party. There are some die hards out there but you get them in the city too. The cronyism associated with FF was fairly rampant in the heart of Dublin too I believe.

The only people canvassing in my area are those who have had favours (very publically) done for them by their local Fianna Fail representative. But parish pump politics will only get you so far, but if you do small things for the community and then screw them over on a national level people soon wake up and smell the coffee.

Fianna Fail isn't some old rural traditional party, quite the opposite in fact. During the boom they would buy into all sorts of pointless modernisation schemes and anything that was handed down from Europe was seen as universally good. If anything they have been a very urban and pro-Dublin party.

Actually , I have always looked on FF as being an urban party.

All the tax increases are not going down too well in areas that have seen little change since before the boom (apart from a few empty housing estates) are not going down well either.

A lot of area's did not participate in the boom and a lot of rural area's have not benefited from infrastructural changes.

If you were living in a cottage on an acre with no mains water then that has not changed.

If you were living in a village with 1 bus a day - then the only changes you may have seen are the stricter drink drive laws and smoking rules will have shut a local pub.

The boom was really an urban phenomena Dublin, Cork etc.

johngalway wrote: »

Agree with the above. To say that only rural constituencies partake in "parish pump politics" is a blinkered view of the world. There are parishes, pumps, and politicians in cities too.

Of course not, & things like housing list allocations etc would be an urban phenomena.

I see little in terms of service delivery that can be brought to a rural area except of the local school. Maybe a water scheme ?

Agricultural politics are handled on a national level.

Even things like A&E are an urban/city phenomena.

Ghost Estate

CDfm wrote: »

If you were living in a cottage on an acre with no mains water then that has not changed.

What has changed however is that (if it's up to FF/Labour/SF) you'll have to pay a fairly hefty sum every year just to be allowed continue living in it. In order to pay for the **** up of FF

gandalf

I think people are getting their knickers in a twist because they misread what I have said. I never said that city politics don't have their own version of parish pump politics, I am well aware of Mr Tony Gregory. What I have said is that during this election (and I hope subsequent elections) that people are looking beyond this and from the polls it appears that this is the case more so in urban areas. Now that is my reading on it and it may be the case in rural areas as well and if it is I apologise.

If the polls (and I mean the non boards ones) are in anyway accurate then it appears FF will be lucky to get one seat in Dublin along with one in Cork and Limerick. If this is the case the majority of their TD's will be based in rural locations (I would expect FF to get around 20-25 seats based on all polls). If as CDfm says he always considered them a urban party then they are really bunched after this election if the predictions come to fruition because they will be relying on their rural TD's to keep the party alive.

CDfm

And I wouldnt really comsider FF Centre Right either I would think they are centre left economically.

Free market with a socialist twist .

upmeath

Doubtful. The bankers and developers aren't rural, and they'll always be there and they'll probably still side with FF in 5 years' time. A lot of nationalists in urban areas are diehard FFers, and will be in 5 years' time.
After Obama's election in '08 a lot of U.S. analysts predicted the G.O.P. was heading for the doldrums and a bit of soul-searching was needed. 2 years later they take the House of Representatives by a margin not seen since FDR was in the White House.
FF will return to grassroots and rebuild, from there they'll tap into people's angst and they'll be back. But I'd prefer to see a merger of FG with the remnants of an obliterated FF, give the people a straight choice between left and right instead of a 75% conservative/centrist ballot sheet which a lot of constituencies will be presented with next week.

[Jackass]

FF will win with a landslide in 2016 and will be hailed high kings of Ireland again. Sure, there'll be corruption and incompitence, but things wont be so bad then, after the ship is steered back on course, so it'll be time for FF to come in and eff it all up again, because unless they've personally fu*ked up your life and you see it every day, as happens every decade after a FF stint, most people will vote FF...

ugggh this country...