Way to go Sinn Fein

DubVelo

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I think the most likely scenario for the next government will be a FF/SF coalition with FG as the main opposition.

This I think would be good for the country as we would finally have a clear left-right split.

I think I'd actually have to agree with you there, the two republican parties could be a good balance of socialism and a pro-business approach.

The thought of a FG/FF coalition is just too awful.

carpejugulum

tayto lover wrote: »

The chickens have come home to roost. No point blaming the parties that gained lads. The signs were there but were ignored.

Labour unlike their fellow socialists in FF couldn't fund their pie in the sky promises by a bubble and debt that will take decades to sort out.
And neither will SF or any other socialist party be able to for some time.

Ironically, I and many other tax payers blame Labour for keeping enormous welfare payments, PS pay and inefficient state services.

Iwasfrozen

DubVelo wrote: »

I think I'd actually have to agree with you there, the two republican parties could be a good balance of socialism and a pro-business approach.

The thought of a FG/FF coalition is just too awful.

Could actually work for them too because FF will be entering into government when the economy is picking up.

tayto lover

LordSutch wrote: »

All kinds of rumours abound, including one which even suggests that Gerry Adams was in the PIRA :eek:

... have we sorted out the Royal family's culpability in any of that carry on yet?

I often wonder what these lads were up to as I lived quite close to the area -

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/argus/localnotes/night-gardai-and-army-arrested-eight-armed-sas-men-in-omeath-26905231.html

uch

uch wrote: »

Yep, in Blackrock, poor memories there

And i thought it was only us simple culchies, south of newlands cross that persist with gombeens :rolleyes:

Wicklowrider

tayto lover wrote: »

I often wonder what these lads were up to as I lived quite close to the area -

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/argus/localnotes/night-gardai-and-army-arrested-eight-armed-sas-men-in-omeath-26905231.html

One of those sas members was the same soldier who was left swinging upside down on the rope at the iranian embassy siege. Just when you thought this thread could not go any further off topic.....

Bannasidhe

swimming in a sea wrote: »

If some ass wants to live in a sprawling housing estate, that's there business. Supply and demand, the fascist policy's of FF's bank guarantee scheme was the problem. It should have been a property firesale, busted banks and we would be back in business now..

You mean we should have burned the bondholders?

:cool:

If someone has no option but to live in a sprawling housing estate in the middle of nowhere as thanks to tax initiatives pushing up property prices and the regulator asleep at the wheel leading to unsustainable bank lending practices because they can no longer afford to live near where they work then it is the government's business as they were the ones giving out tax incentives to developers like candy.
Problem is, the whole country is now paying the dentist for the filling to plug the resultant cavities .

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

FF are the party that stuck through social partnership through thick and thin.

They spent money inflating the property bubble from which money was flowing into government coffers from stamp duty, VAT, PRSI and income tax during the boom and it all got spent out again.

Even during the worst of the burst our public services were the highest paid in Europe.

Sensible right wing fiscal conservatives they were not.

Doesn't make 'em left either. Left wing governments don't tend to give private developers huge tax incentives or promise private companies large profits from tolls roads which will be paid by the state should the profit margin prove less...



Makes 'em populist which is what I have been saying all along. Or do you expect us to believe that FF would not insist wikipedia correct their entry on them if it was incorrect?

FF grouping in the EU is the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party - not exactly singing the Intentional are they?

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Doesn't make 'em left either. Left wing governments don't tend to give private developers huge tax incentives or promise private companies large profits from tolls roads which will be paid by the state should the profit margin prove less...



Makes 'em populist which is what I have been saying all along. Or do you expect us to believe that FF would not insist wikipedia correct their entry on them if it was incorrect?

FF grouping in the EU is the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party - not exactly singing the Intentional are they?

Right wing would be the companies pay for the road themselves. These public private partnerships are center left policies. Exactly what I've been saying about FF.

FF are populist no argument there. A populist center left party.

Their European grouping is a grouping of centrist parties.

Nodin

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Right wing would be the companies pay for the road themselves. These public private partnerships are center left policies. Exactly what I've been saying about FF.

FF are populist no argument there. A populist center left party.

Their European grouping is a grouping of centrist parties.

Nonsense.

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Right wing would be the companies pay for the road themselves. These public private partnerships are center left policies. Exactly what I've been saying about FF.

FF are populist no argument there. A populist center left party.

Their European grouping is a grouping of centrist parties.

Centre does not equal left.

FF are not left not even fractionally.

I'm beginning to suspect you don't understand what 'left' means tbh...

Iwasfrozen

Nodin wrote: »

Nonsense.

I'm not going to engage with you if that's the best rebuttal you can offer.

A Dub in Glasgo

Congratulations to Martina Anderson, elected on the first count

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Centre does not equal left.

FF are not left not even fractionally.

I'm beginning to suspect you don't understand what 'left' means tbh...

No but center left equals center left.

Social partnership.
The expansion of the welfare state.
Public-private partnerships.
Increasing the power of the unions.
Increased public spending.

Sounds pretty left to me.

On the other hand they did have some right wing policies,

Lower taxes,
Less regulations

that's why they're center left populist. Hell even look at their support base. The rural and urban working classes.

Not exactly fiscal conservatives are they?

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I'm not going to engage with you if that's the best rebuttal you can offer.

Seems a perfectly accurate response to me. You are talking nonsense.

FF is allied to the liberal democrats - that is European style liberal rather than American. Saying FF is left is akin to saying the Lib-Dems are left wing. They aren't. They are old school European liberals.

liberal =! left - if it did there would have been no need for a Labour Party in the UK as the Whigs would have served the purpose of bring a left-wing party.

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Seems a perfectly accurate response to me. You are talking nonsense.

FF is allied to the liberal democrats - that is European style liberal rather than American. Saying FF is left is akin to saying the Lib-Dems are left wing. They aren't. They are old school European liberals.

liberal =! left - if it did there would have been no need for a Labour Party in the UK as the Whigs would have served the purpose of bring a left-wing party.

I don't think you understand the difference between left and center left.

And yes, Lib Dems are very much center left, just like FF.

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

No but center left equals center left.

Social partnership.
The expansion of the welfare state.
Public-private partnerships.
Increasing the power of the unions.
Increased public spending.

Sounds pretty left to me.

On the other hand they did have some right wing policies,

Lower taxes,
Less regulations

that's why they're center left populist. Hell even look at their support base. The rural and urban working classes.

Not exactly fiscal conservatives are they?

They may look left to you out there on the right but that really only goes to show that you think old fashioned liberals are left-wingers and have no idea of what the left actually is.

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

They may look left to you out there on the right but that really only goes to show that you think old fashioned liberals are left-wingers and have no idea of what the left actually is.

That's a nonsense argument I could just as easily say you only see FF as right wing because you're so far out to the left.

dxhound2005

Left everywhere else except in Ireland favours taxing private property. Of course Right does too. In fact all versions of politics will tax any asset or economic activity that they can, hence income tax, VAT, motor/road tax, water tax etc. But the strange thing is that the Left in Ireland (but not Northern Ireland) don't want to tax private property.

Even stranger is that Sinn Fein claim there is no tax on private property in Northern Ireland. Apparently it is a service charge. Which then would mean that someone paying three times as much as someone else should get three times as many services.

Here are the figures for a private house in Newry worth €125,000 and another one worth €375,000. Domectic rates €900 on the first one, €2700 on the second. I converted everything to Euro for convenience and the figures are rounded a bit.

So the person in the second house gets their bins collected three times more frequently, gets nicer roads to drive on and is supplied with three times as much water. In fact three times as much of everything. It's a progressive system in ways but would it work here?

But maybe it isn't really a service charge, it is in fact a property tax calculated on the value of the house. If someone from SF would be honest enough to just acknowledge that.

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I don't think you understand the difference between left and center left.

And yes, Lib Dems are very much center left, just like FF.

LIBERAL NOT LEFT.

Sweetest divine - I am left wing so I reckon I know far more about what is constitutes left than you to be honest.

I'm done with this bicker now as I have dig out my red flag and join my lefty friends in a rousing chorus of the International while we watch another left-wing candidate get elected to the European Parliament from Ireland.

Oh how we will laugh as I tell them a bloke on the interweb insists FF are left too.

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

That's a nonsense argument I could just as easily say you only see FF as right wing because you're so far out to the left.

I think you already made that argument to be honest.

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

LIBERAL NOT LEFT.

Sweetest divine - I am left wing so I reckon I know far more about what is constitutes left than you to be honest.

I'm done with this bicker now as I have dig out my red flag and join my lefty friends in a rousing chorus of the International while we watch another left-wing candidate get elected to the European Parliament from Ireland.

Oh how we will laugh as I tell them a bloke on the interweb insists FF are left too.

I don't see anyone here saying FF are left wing.

I did however say they were center-left.

You seem to think center left is waving red flags and singng L'Internationale.

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I think you already made that argument to be honest.

Where?

Bannasidhe

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I don't see anyone here saying FF are left wing.

I did however say they were center-left.

You seem to think center left is waving red flags and singng L'Internationale.

and the rest of the world says the are centre -right

and I was making a joke.

I don't need to dig out my red flag - I am already waving it at the bulls*it

steddyeddy

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I don't think you understand the difference between left and center left.

And yes, Lib Dems are very much center left, just like FF.

Could you explain them objectively? Left and right seem to be higely subjective terms now a days.

dxhound2005

steddyeddy wrote: »

Could you explain them objectively? Left and right seem to be higely subjective terms now a days.

Left means nothing in a capitalist system. For Left see Cuba or the ex Soviet Union.

Iwasfrozen

Bannasidhe wrote: »

and the rest of the world says the are centre -right

and I was making a joke.

I don't need to dig out my red flag - I am already waving it at the bulls*it

Alright let's cut through the bull**** then, tell me why exactly, you believe FF are center-right. What policies do they have that brings you to this conclusion? What are their support base?

I've already given you a list of their policies that are left wing.

Social partnership.
The expansion of the welfare state.
Public-private partnerships.
Increasing the power of the unions.
Increased public spending.

And policies that are right wing.

Lower taxes,
Less regulations

Which leads me to believe they are center-left. You clearly disagree but as of yet you haven't said why or given any counter examples. That and your bad language makes me think you're here to soapbox not debate.

I am pie

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Alright let's cut through the bull**** then, tell me why exactly, you believe FF are center-right. What policies do they have that brings you to this conclusion? What are their support base?

I've already given you a list of their policies that are left wing.

Social partnership.
The expansion of the welfare state.
Public-private partnerships.
Increasing the power of the unions.
Increased public spending.

And policies that are right wing.

Lower taxes,
Less regulations

Which leads me to believe they are center-left. You clearly disagree but as of yet you haven't said why or given any counter examples. That and your bad language makes me think you're here to soapbox not debate.

Fianna Fail are populist jokers, they'll swing whichever way they think will get them near the top of the polls. They spent heavily whilst lowering taxes leaving nothing in the coffers. You are paying them undue compliemts by suggesting they are ideologically coherent. Their only consistency is their posturing on the national question and constant thirst for power at all costs.

Iwasfrozen

I am pie wrote: »

Fianna Fail are populist jokers, they'll swing whichever way they think will get them near the top of the polls. They spent heavily whilst lowering taxes leaving nothing in the coffers. You are paying them undue compliemts by suggesting they are ideologically coherent. Their only consistency is their posturing on the national question and constant thirst for power at all costs.

Oh yeah I totally agree with you there, FF are populist posers but in terms of economics they're certainly more on the center-left side of things than center-right.

steddyeddy

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Oh yeah I totally agree with you there, FF are populist posers but in terms of economics they're certainly more on the center-left side of things than center-right.

Can you explain these in your own words?