Euro polls, Labour facing disaster as SF surge

ChicagoJoe

Well we all known opinion polls are not sacrosanct only voting is, but they do give us something to chew over And if the latest MRBI polls are right, Labour are heading for disaster. When you consider that the 2011 general election was their best ever result at 19.5% and 3 years later they are facing oblivion in the Euros, it says it all. Meanwhile Sinn Fein seem to be surging and if the polls are right will top the poll in Dublin, Midlands-Northwest and 2nd in south. SF will most likely top the poll in the six counties, it could be quite a result for them to top the poll in 3 out of the 4 of the Ireland's constituencies and will be sending out quite a message to all others on their ambitions.

Nessa Childers has made an excellent move dumping Labour and Ming Flanagan could pull it off in Midlands-Northwest. However I'd question some of the accuracy, it's hard to see Brian Hayes struggling for 3rd in Dublin, and FF's Crowley to get 36% in the south appears waaay too high. As for the great FF revival, Thomas Byrne is at 2nd in Midlands-Northwest while Mary Fitzpatrick at 4th is in with a shout in 3 seat Dublin.

What are your thoughts folks ?

golfball37

Made for interesting reading but we are still 4 weeks out from the actual vote so I'd take a lot of it with a pinch of salt.

Labour getting what they deserve imo. I cannot fathom the Crowley figure, a real sop to the Irish mentality there. He has achieved absolutely nothing in Europe for his country yet will get elected everytime. To be honest if I were from FF HQ I'd be a bit disconcerted that with 39% of the vote they won't get 2 seats in Ireland south yet FG will in all probability do so with less.

I expect SF to take a seat in all of the constituencies and who would have thought that possible a few years ago. This will be the true legacy of the patronage Politics practised by the Troika of FG/FF/LAB. The sanitisation and acceptance into the mainstream of Sinn Fein.

alastair

golfball37 wrote: »

The sanitisation and acceptance into the mainstream of Sinn Fein.

A party who've opposed EU membership and every treaty to date. Strange to see an essentially euro-sceptic party (admittedly far more watery than they used to be, but still) do so well on the back of anti FF/FG/Lab sentiment.

golfball37

alastair wrote: »

A party who've opposed EU membership and every treaty to date. Strange to see an essentially euro-sceptic party (admittedly far more watery than they used to be, but still) do so well on the back of anti FF/FG/Lab sentiment.

Not really- In Eire we vote on how the government is doing regardless of what the election is for, in my experience.

ardmacha

This is not about Europe, but about local issues. Labour lied before the last election "Labour's way or Frankfurt's way" "No increase in university fees", etc, saying things which they knew not to be true. Now SF can lie about what can be done, and get their vote.

alastair

ardmacha wrote: »

This is not about Europe, but about local issues. Labour lied before the last election "Labour's way or Frankfurt's way" "No increase in university fees", etc, saying things which they knew not to be true. Now SF can lie about what can be done, and get their vote.

We didn't elect a Labour government, so it's not that surprising that we didn't get a Labour platform for government. You can criticise Labour for opting to compromise in forming a coalition, but in fairness, unless any party gets a majority, all their electoral promises are aspirations, rather than lies. Even Ruairi Quinn's commitment to education fees was to oppose and campaign against them, not block them.

jank

alastair wrote: »

We didn't elect a Labour government, so it's not that surprising that we didn't get a Labour platform for government. You can criticise Labour for opting to compromise in forming a coalition, but in fairness, unless any party gets a majority, all their electoral promises are aspirations, rather than lies. Even Ruairi Quinn's commitment to education fees was to oppose and campaign against them, not block them.

True but you need to tell Labour supporters that. They think that because they are in government no cuts would have happened and the gravy train of public money would have kept on rolling. Labour also over sold themselves. I suppose FG are more pragmatic about the situation but they are struggling now more so due to personalities really rather than policy.

SF doing well but sooner or later they will be called upon to be a power broker and make some decisions. Its astounding that they are against cuts in the south that they have implemented in the north themselves. Again however, there is a cohort of voters out there that don't live in the real world and will be against anything and everything. The voting merry go round so to speak.

Charlie George

Sf seem to be getting a protest vote.

jank

Yes, and if/when SF get into power and actually have to govern and make hard decisions that protest vote will go to 'New' Labour. Rinse repeat..

Charlie George

Will be a sad day if sinn fein get into power.

Loafing Oaf

alastair wrote: »

Even Ruairi Quinn's commitment to education fees was to oppose and campaign against them, not block them.

I'd need to see the precise words of the pledge to verify this but I doubt if many of the students who voted for Labour would accept this bit of casuistry.

On child benefit though, Gilmore specifically said Labour would "not agree" to cuts, I can't see how he can wiggle out of that one. There are other formulas he could have used like "Labour will resist FG plans" if your defense of their actions was to stand up.

Charlie George

These cuts that the government did on child benefit was well overdue and i say this as a parent with 3 children u18.
Labour are supposed to stand up for the working man(what a joke),they seem now to stand up for the people that are claiming social welfare for the last 15 years and will never look for a job,big turn around for labour and i hope they get what is due to them in the elections.

oscarBravo

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

On child benefit though, Gilmore specifically said Labour would "not agree" to cuts, I can't see how he can wiggle out of that one.

I can. But then, I'm not the sort of voter who makes the assumption that every single thing every politician says before an election is a binding oath written in blood.

I'm not sure when we started having such unrealistic expectations of campaign promises. Did I somehow fail to notice that right up to the last election every single campaign promise by every single candidate was fulfilled without question?

If two parties promise different things, and then enter into coalition talks, one of two things will happen: the talks will break down irretrievably within five minutes, or a program for government will be agreed that is at odds with at least some of both parties' respective promises. If you want to hold the Labour party to all its pre-election promises, elect a majority Labour government.

Loafing Oaf

oscarBravo wrote: »

I can. But then, I'm not the sort of voter who makes the assumption that every single thing every politician says before an election is a binding oath written in blood.

I'm not sure when we started having such unrealistic expectations of campaign promises. Did I somehow fail to notice that right up to the last election every single campaign promise by every single candidate was fulfilled without question?

IMO that's because previous campaign 'promises' had tended to be vague aspirational things like "we will be more open and accountable" that you could always make some sort of case to be fulfilling. I'm not a great student of political history, but IIRC it was pretty novel for Labour to be giving (what sounded to most people like) binding commitments on specific policies like not bringing back student fees. Now it's entirely understandable in electoral terms why they would feel the need to do that but you're clearly giving a massive hostage to fortune in straitened economic times. And that's why there is such fury with Labour: most people accept that tough decisions must be taken on economic policy but they can't stand being played for fools...

oscarBravo

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

IMO that's because previous campaign 'promises' had tended to be vague aspirational things like "we will be more open and accountable" that you could always make some sort of case to be fulfilling. I'm not a great student of political history, but IIRC it was pretty novel for Labour to be giving (what sounded to most people like) binding commitments on specific policies like not bringing back student fees. Now it's entirely understandable in electoral terms why they would feel the need to do that but you're clearly giving a massive hostage to fortune in straitened economic times. And that's why there is such fury with Labour: most people accept that tough decisions must be taken on economic policy but they can't stand being played for fools...

So you would have had more respect for Labour if they had refused to give an inch in the PfG negotiations, and walked away from government rather than compromise on a single one of their campaign promises?

LuckyLloyd

oscarBravo wrote: »

So you would have had more respect for Labour if they had refused to give an inch in the PfG negotiations, and walked away from government rather than compromise on a single one of their campaign promises?

Yes, of course. A willingness to forego power because of a commitment to an electoral platform would be admirable. The 'get into power at any cost of compromise' mentality should be loathed.

Loafing Oaf

oscarBravo wrote: »

So you would have had more respect for Labour if they had refused to give an inch in the PfG negotiations, and walked away from government rather than compromise on a single one of their campaign promises?

They shouldn't have made such undeliverable but (apparently) binding promises to the electorate in the first place. But yes, once they had made them, the honourable thing to do was to ask FG to commit to them as well in PfG talks and if they weren't prepared to do that don't go into government.

oscarBravo

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Yes, of course. A willingness to forego power because of a commitment to an electoral platform would be admirable. The 'get into power at any cost of compromise' mentality should be loathed.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

They shouldn't have made such undeliverable but (apparently) binding promises to the electorate in the first place. But yes, once they had made them, the honourable thing to do was to ask FG to commit to them as well in PfG talks and if they weren't prepared to do that don't go into government.

So you vote for a party with (say) ten policy platforms. They can get eight of them agreed to in PfG negotiations, but not the other two. So the right thing to do is walk away from government, and not implement eight of the ten things you elected them to do?

We have this bizarre obsession in this country with deriding politicians for wanting to be in government, as if they can more effectively implement policy from the opposition benches.

LuckyLloyd

oscarBravo wrote: »

So you vote for a party with (say) ten policy platforms. They can get eight of them agreed to in PfG negotiations, but not the other two. So the right thing to do is walk away from government, and not implement eight of the ten things you elected them to do?

We have this bizarre obsession in this country with deriding politicians for wanting to be in government, as if they can more effectively implement policy from the opposition benches.

Well, 80% is something. That might be an acceptable compromise. If you then came out and were clear over what issues have been dropped then the electorate may well understand and forgive you for it.

But in this case it wasn't 80%, and there wasn't a clear statement of what was dropped. And they will be decimated in future elections as a result and rightly so.

Politicians in this country (well, most politicians) have an obsession with being in government as an end in itself. They don't have strongly held and logically consistent policy positions and stands on points of principle are an extreme rarity. I think they deserve to be derided on that basis.

Loafing Oaf

oscarBravo wrote: »

So you vote for a party with (say) ten policy platforms. They can get eight of them agreed to in PfG negotiations, but not the other two. So the right thing to do is walk away from government, and not implement eight of the ten things you elected them to do?

We have this bizarre obsession in this country with deriding politicians for wanting to be in government, as if they can more effectively implement policy from the opposition benches.

Again you appear to be eliding the difference between 'policy platforms' and the kind of binding commitments Labour gave before the last election. If they had said "we are strongly imposed to" or "we will resist any attempt by FG to impose" the reintroduction of student fees and the Ruairi Quinn went and did it, well people that would have been part of the give and take of politics, although it would not have gone down well with their supporters. But for Quinn to publicly sign that pledge and then go back on it, to me that is a whole other order of betrayal. I can see we're not going to agree on this but the electorate will ultimately be the judge...

Leroy42

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Well, 80% is something. That might be an acceptable compromise. If you then came out and were clear over what issues have been dropped then the electorate may well understand and forgive you for it.

Therein lies the problem. When in PfG talks, both (or more) parties want to come out as the winners and want to be seen as achieving everything they said they would.

Most people understand this is not possible so I don't understand why parties like Labour don't come out after the PfG agreement and lay out the things they did and did not get.

'We got tax breaks but cut salaries' or whatever. Then people can easily judge if the compromise was worth it. For some it won't, others it will, but presently all parties hide behind secrecy trying to fool the public.

When it comes to election time they all want to talk about what they have achieved but we have little to judge that against as apparently pre-election statements are not to be taken as true and not knowing what was actually in the PfG (details) it is hard to see if they actually achieved what they got as part of the compromise.

They can't have it both ways.

oscarBravo

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Well, 80% is something. That might be an acceptable compromise. If you then came out and were clear over what issues have been dropped then the electorate may well understand and forgive you for it.

But in this case it wasn't 80%, and there wasn't a clear statement of what was dropped. And they will be decimated in future elections as a result and rightly so.

Well, if the outcome you are hoping for is that politicians will row back from making anything other than vague hand-wavy promises framed so equivocally that they can easily row back on them, you may well get your wish. Yay.

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Again you appear to be eliding the difference between 'policy platforms' and the kind of binding commitments Labour gave before the last election.

I've never taken anything a politician said in an election campaign as a binding commitment. I'm at a loss as to why so many people seem to have decided that this one party in the run-up to this one election were suddenly going to become the first party ever to be completely 100% committed to every word said on the campaign trail.

Leroy42

OscarBravo, what are you voting on then? You surely must put some store in the stated aims of each party otherwise you are just sticking a pin.

The Election campaign is really the only time that politicans talk directly to the public, yet you propose that we should pay no heed to what they say and not base our vote on it?

While I don't believe much of what they say either that does not equate to not holding them accountable for what they say. If a candidate only deals with summations and no details then I would question their ability to get the job done as they don't seem to have put much thought into the actual delivery.

Loafing Oaf

oscarBravo wrote: »

I've never taken anything a politician said in an election campaign as a binding commitment. I'm at a loss as to why so many people seem to have decided that this one party in the run-up to this one election were suddenly going to become the first party ever to be completely 100% committed to every word said on the campaign trail.

Well I've done my best to explain why Labour's 2011 commitments/pledges/promises/ whatever you want to call them seemed to me qualitatively different to those of other parties before other elections. Perhaps someone else of like mind but more eloquent and knowledgeable than me can have a go...

oscarBravo

Leroy42 wrote: »

OscarBravo, what are you voting on then? You surely must put some store in the stated aims of each party otherwise you are just sticking a pin.

The Election campaign is really the only time that politicans talk directly to the public, yet you propose that we should pay no heed to what they say and not base our vote on it?

That's a false dichotomy. You appear to believe that only two things are possible: that we should take every word every politician says as a solemn oath; or that we should ignore everything that every politician says.

There's a pragmatic middle ground: evaluate a politician on how much of what he or she says turns out to be true, taking into account the reasons why it may not have turned out to be so.

You can punish Labour for failing to deliver, if that's what floats your boat, but if the standard you're setting for a politician is that they never deviate in any way from anything they've ever set in the past, you'll have a long and lonely quest for your ideal candidate.

oscarBravo

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Well I've done my best to explain why Labour's 2011 commitments/pledges/promises/ whatever you want to call them seemed to me qualitatively different to those of other parties before other elections. Perhaps someone else of like mind but more eloquent and knowledgeable than me can have a go...

Do you feel they would have served you better by staying out of government completely rather than compromise on the principles you thought they were not for moving on?

Loafing Oaf

oscarBravo wrote: »

Do you feel they would have served you better by staying out of government completely rather than compromise on the principles you thought they were not for moving on?

I haven't said anything about who I vote for or my own political beliefs at all, I've just been arguing that Labour deserve the hammering they're getting. But yes I heard Neasa Childers on the radio last year putting the case very eloquently that it would have been better for Labour and for progressive politics in Ireland more broadly if Labour had told FG to form a minority government.

oscarBravo

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I haven't said anything about who I vote for or my own political beliefs at all, I've just been arguing that Labour deserve the hammering they're getting. But yes I heard Neasa Childers on the radio last year putting the case very eloquently that it would have been better for Labour and for progressive politics in Ireland more broadly if Labour had told FG to form a minority government.

Fair enough. If we're going to admire a party for forcefully stating that they won't compromise on any of their principles, and demand that that party stay out of government rather than give an inch, it seems to me that we're condemning that party to perpetual opposition, which just seems a little pointless to me. I don't see a great deal of point running for election when your core appeal is that you'll almost certainly not be in government.

Leroy42

oscarBravo wrote: »

That's a false dichotomy. You appear to believe that only two things are possible: that we should take every word every politician says as a solemn oath; or that we should ignore everything that every politician says.

I clearly said that I don't believe much of what any politician says but do believe that we should hold them to account based on what they do say. We should take account of what they say, and it is up to them to explain why they moved from that position.

oscarBravo wrote: »

You can punish Labour for failing to deliver, if that's what floats your boat, but if the standard you're setting for a politician is that they never deviate in any way from anything they've ever set in the past, you'll have a long and lonely quest for your ideal candidate.

Again, I never said that. I, and I would wager most people, understand that politics is all about compromise. But within that should be some core principles that define a party that they are not willing to compromise. A party should stand for something. They made a compromise to get into government but never bothered to explain to the people what they had compromised on and why. No party does this has they hope that people will forget the original claims in the run up the previous election.

It seems (from the poll numbers at least) that most people have not forgotten and Labour have failed to explain why they didn't keep their word. While there may be a very good reason, I, nor anyboby else, seems to know it.

eire4

Charlie George wrote: »

Will be a sad day if sinn fein get into power.

Not as sad a day as the Fianna Fail bank guarantee was in my opinion.

eire4

Charlie George wrote: »

Sf seem to be getting a protest vote.

Or maybe a growing number of voters like what they hear from Sinn Fein more then what they hear from other parties.

Leroy42

I always like the way when smaller parties start to move up in the polls are the commentators say its a protest vote, like UKIP in the UK and SF here.

Maybe people just agree with waht they are saying! Maybe people are fed up with getting the same thing over and over again form the traditional parties and believe its time to give something new a try.

comongethappy

eire4 wrote: »

Or maybe a growing number of voters like what they hear from Sinn Fein more then what they hear from other parties.

Why wouldn't they.

Its easy to tell the public you will greatly increase public spending while reducing taxes.

Not so easy to deliver that magic trick while in office though.

NipNip

How are SF polling post Adams' arrest? Has there been much change?

comongethappy

NipNip wrote: »

How are SF polling post Adams' arrest? Has there been much change?

There hasn't been a poll yet.

There will probably be something next Sunday.

Leroy42

comongethappy wrote: »

Why wouldn't they.

Its easy to tell the public you will greatly increase public spending while reducing taxes.

Not so easy to deliver that magic trick while in office though.

Its easy to tell the pubic that you are going to make fundamental changes to the way things are done, greater transparency, more accountability.

Easy to say you're going to cut down on waste, reduce the quangos, reduce the 'jobs for the biys' culture.

Not so easy to deliver that magic trick while in office

Boldberry

Whatever about Sinn Fein's dodgy members, I think a lot of their policies are impossible to implement in the current economic climate. They are good on social issues like gay marriage and reproductive rights so I wouldn't be totally against them. But still not sure about them.

NipNip

Boldberry wrote: »

Whatever about Sinn Fein's dodgy members, I think a lot of their policies are impossible to implement in the current economic climate. They are good on social issues like gay marriage and reproductive rights so I wouldn't be totally against them. But still not sure about them.

I like their rhetoric in general. As they have never been in a position to implement policies as yet, it is impossible to predict how they would behave in the event and indeed what impact such policies might have on the economy. To an extent I think it's a case of 'better the devil you know'!

alastair

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

I'd need to see the precise words of the pledge to verify this but I doubt if many of the students who voted for Labour would accept this bit of casuistry.

Here you go:

I, Ruairi Quinn, Education Spokesperson for the Labour Party hereby pledge that if elected, we will oppose and campaign against any new form of third level fees including student loans, graduate taxes and any further increase in the Student Contribution.

...

Furthermore, we pledge to use our position in Dáil Éireann to protect the Higher Education Maintenance Grant from any and all cuts. This Grant is often the only source of funding students have to support their studies.

...

If the State and the Government are to truly cherish all the children of the country equally, then this Grant must be supported and we will not support any Government that fails in this regard.”

Loafing Oaf

alastair wrote: »

Here you go:

Cheers. Okay well we have a nifty bit of Clintonesque linguistic trickery here:

, Ruairi Quinn, Education Spokesperson for the Labour Party hereby pledge that if elected, we will oppose and campaign against any new form of third level fees...we will not support any Government that fails in this regard.”

Sounds like they're pledging to pull out of govt if FG insists on imposing student fees...but a
good lawyer could get them off the charge. But surely for a supposedly principled progressive party like Labour this isn't good enough. If I had voted for Labour primarily on the basis that they would not reintroduce fees I would be so furious at being conned like this I would vote tactically even for right-wing parties to ensure my local Lab TD didn't get re-elected...