Way to go Sinn Fein

Bannasidhe

swimming in a sea wrote: »

I always saw them as a party of the left, during the 00s they inflated the civil service to heights way above the poor private workers whose taxes paid for it. They should have kept the spending tight and cut the taxes, that's how to run an economy.

But not the way to buy votes and that is why they didn't do it.

FF play a short game but they play it better than anyone else. They are masters of it. They rely on FG to be elected (not that there has been any other realistic option) and on FG to be stern daddy and sort the mess out sure in the knowledge that the methods FG will employ will turn the electorate against them and vote FF back in as the economy is entering recovery who will starting reversing the cuts and buying votes. Repeat cycle ad infinitum.

They are far more interesting in being 'big men' at home and strutting bantam cocks on an international stage then effecting any change in Irish society.

Banjo String

dxhound2005 wrote: »

A Donegal man on the TV was just remarking how many houses there belong to SF politicians from other parts of the country. The only one that I knew about was Gerry's and he has one in Louth and another in Belfast at present. The Donegal man was perplexed how this is possible when they are all on the average industrial wage.

I didn't think he owned a house in Louth. Sure wasn't that the highlight of some whinging around here? How he can be a TD in Louth when he didn't even live there.

I was aware he had a house in Donegal (that he was having financial difficulty with) and his family home, (ex council house) in Belfast.

Attempting to portray him as owning some kind of multi million euro property empire is doing you no favours.

Birdie Num Num

Banjo String wrote: »

Attempting to portray him as owning some kind of multi million euro property empire is doing you no favours.

You see through strange coloured glasses. How did the poster attempt to portray him as owning some kind of multi million euro property empire?

Banjo String

Birdie Num Num wrote: »

You see through strange coloured glasses. How did the poster attempt to portray him as owning some kind of multi million euro property empire?

Well if someone is trying to claim he owns no less than 3 properties, a family home, a home in Donegal and another in Louth, that, ok might not necessarily mean the three combined could total in excess of 1m.

However, the reality is, he lives in the family home in Belfast (at his age I'd imagine mortgage free) he had (has?) a cottage in Donegal that was fairly widely published, that he was having financial problems with.

He doesn't, never did, own a home in Louth (i will stand corrected on this, but a new one on me)

Making him out to have a property portfolio is spurious in the extreme.

Santa Cruz

swimming in a sea wrote: »

I always saw them as a party of the left, during the 00s they inflated the civil service to heights way above the poor private workers whose taxes paid for it. They should have kept the spending tight and cut the taxes, that's how to run an economy.

Labours big mistake was pulling the plug on the Reynolds Government for short term gain. They lost out on the good years when they could have made a big difference. Now the "dustbin of history" beckons

tayto lover

Santa Cruz wrote: »

Labours big mistake was pulling the plug on the Reynolds Government for short term gain. They lost out on the good years when they could have made a big difference. Now the "dustbin of history" beckons

If they elect Burton or Howlin as leader their problems will only get worse.
They need new blood at the helm.
I also think FF need to get rid of Martin as leader to progress and Sinn Fein will do even better when Adams and Mc Guinness retire.

Banjo String

tayto lover wrote: »

If they elect Burton or Howlin as leader their problems will only get worse.
They need new blood at the helm.
I also think FF need to get rid of Martin as leader to progress and Sinn Fein will do even better when Adams and Mc Guinness retire.

The press conference yesterday was a sight to behold, it was like a scene from a canteen in a retirement home.

Bannasidhe

tayto lover wrote: »

If they elect Burton or Howlin as leader their problems will only get worse.
They need new blood at the helm.
I also think FF need to get rid of Martin as leader to progress and Sinn Fein will do even better when Adams and Mc Guinness retire.

However, if they elect Alex FG-Lite White they will compound their problems.

The LP threw away the left wing vote which swung Ind/SF/SP - if they do not elect a leader that represent the disaffected left but appeals to the centre then they may as well join the great FF/FG merger.

tayto lover

Bannasidhe wrote: »

However, if they elect Alex FG-Lite White they will compound their problems.

The LP threw away the left wing vote which swung Ind/SF/SP - if they do not elect a leader that represent the disaffected left but appeals to the centre then they may as well join the great FF/FG merger.

Did not all of the contenders vote to cut medical cards for special needs kids and sick people?

Some Labour party.

Bannasidhe

tayto lover wrote: »

Did not all of the contenders vote to cut medical cards for special needs kids and sick people?

Some Labour party.

Indeed.

mickydoomsux

Lynn Boylan is on Radio 1 now.

She dodged a question about whether she agreed with the armed struggle and when she was asked about public salary capping she said that consultants, for example, are paid less in other countries so it shouldn't be a problem.

Welfare rates are less in other countries as well so I presume she has no problem cutting those to bring them in line with our foreign counterparts.

DeanAustin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Oh, I'm not disputing that.

My argument is that the motivation behind the party determines their position on the left-right spectrum rather than the policies they actually implement/legislation they introduce.

FF's policies can vary between extremes but the underlying motivation remains the same - let's get in/ stay in power. They have little in the way of motivating political ideology. So I put them in the centre. Neither fish nor fowl.

FG I would place right of centre as they have an attitude that society as a whole is fine so no need for real change combined with a hint an old school school principle 'straighten up and fly right' towards those they perceive as not playing the game - not quite Tebbit's on yer bike but certainly 'firm father figuresque'. Absolutely fowl but a wren rather than an eagle.

LP - FF with added Political Correctness and a nod at an ideology but no real desire to bring about any radical change - sure if a few schemes mean some members of 'minorities' rise to the top of the socio-economic ladder that'll do. A fishy fowl.

SF are fish - they want to change Ireland including the most radical change of all - to bring the Unionist Presbyterian into the fold of a United Ireland - that will really stir things up. However, it remains to be seen how much they want to change the way society itself is structured. Some accuse them of being Marxist but they really are not that radical by a long shot. So, the interesting thing is will they seek a big tweak* or will they try and build something genuinely new.

Our founding father's failed to build something new, they simply adopted the existing UK structure of the turn of the 20th century they were used to and then began to tinker as they went along. Not always successfully.

So - the question is - is SF a minnow, trout, pike or swordfish?



*á la NHS style of 'social engineering' - to explain, opponents at the time worried that free healthcare would result in the rise in the numbers of working class tipping the vote balance away from the traditional ruling political elite. It did - Labour replaced the Whigs

Jesus lads, does it really matter what label you put on them in terms of the political spectrum? Whether you think they are right, left, centre - who cares? Their policies are their policies. Judge political parties on those rather than some label that people seem to interpret differently.

Banjo String

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Lynn Boylan is on Radio 1 now.

She dodged a question about whether she agreed with the armed struggle and when she was asked about public salary capping she said that consultants, for example, are paid less in other countries so it shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe she didn't. Newsflash though, that finished waaaaay back in the 90s.

Kind of irrelevant. Move with the times.

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Welfare rates are less in other countries as well so I presume she has no problem cutting those to bring them in line with our foreign counterparts.

Ireland's expensive.

Birdie Num Num

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Lynn Boylan is on Radio 1 now.

She dodged a question about whether she agreed with the armed struggle and when she was asked about public salary capping she said that consultants, for example, are paid less in other countries so it shouldn't be a problem.

Welfare rates are less in other countries as well so I presume she has no problem cutting those to bring them in line with our foreign counterparts.

And why not also bring the state pension rate to a similar lower level as they currently oversee in the north.

mickydoomsux

Banjo String wrote: »

Ireland's expensive.

For everyone.

Banjo String

mickydoomsux wrote: »

For everyone.

I agree.

USC is crippling.

K-9

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Oh, I'm not disputing that.

My argument is that the motivation behind the party determines their position on the left-right spectrum rather than the policies they actually implement/legislation they introduce.

Well you can argue motivation is more important than policy and I'd agree, but for me Irish political reality and history is more important than some debate about left and right politics, which has seen huge shifts to the center anyway over the last 20 years.

My point is FF have always targeted Labour voters and indeed many Labour TD's and members would agree with me. A big reason we never had a strong Labour party was because FF did a very good job at stealing their votes.

FF's policies can vary between extremes but the underlying motivation remains the same - let's get in/ stay in power. They have little in the way of motivating political ideology. So I put them in the centre. Neither fish nor fowl.

Like all parties they've varying sections of support. To be that politically successful they were all things to all men. Really so what if they are center or center left? Sure Labour have moved into that spectrum over the last 2 decades and SF are now following suit. While FF were the masters at auction politics all the other big parties copied them, FG, Labour and SF from the 2007 election on.

The Irish electorate do not like the more extreme parties, hence why SF have toned down a lot of their hard left rhetoric and policies, a point Ruth Coppinger made on the VB show when attacking Toibin of SF.

FG I would place right of centre as they have an attitude that society as a whole is fine so no need for real change combined with a hint an old school school principle 'straighten up and fly right' towards those they perceive as not playing the game - not quite Tebbit's on yer bike but certainly 'firm father figuresque'. Absolutely fowl but a wren rather than an eagle.

Yep and never got an overall majority. The electorate wants Labour to go into coalition with them whenever they get a sniff of power to put a leash on the more rabid right wing dogs, and to soften their more liberal economic policies, something the electorate obviously feels they've failed to do.

LP - FF with added Political Correctness and a nod at an ideology but no real desire to bring about any radical change - sure if a few schemes mean some members of 'minorities' rise to the top of the socio-economic ladder that'll do. A fishy fowl.

Maybe.

SF are fish - they want to change Ireland including the most radical change of all - to bring the Unionist Presbyterian into the fold of a United Ireland - that will really stir things up. However, it remains to be seen how much they want to change the way society itself is structured. Some accuse them of being Marxist but they really are not that radical by a long shot. So, the interesting thing is will they seek a big tweak* or will they try and build something genuinely new.

Our founding father's failed to build something new, they simply adopted the existing UK structure of the turn of the 20th century they were used to and then began to tinker as they went along. Not always successfully.

So - the question is - is SF a minnow, trout, pike or swordfish?



*á la NHS style of 'social engineering' - to explain, opponents at the time worried that free healthcare would result in the rise in the numbers of working class tipping the vote balance away from the traditional ruling political elite. It did - Labour replaced the Whigs

The cynic in me thinks you are in for one hell of a let down when SF do get into Government.

Banjo String

Birdie Num Num wrote: »

And why not also bring the state pension rate to a similar lower level as they currently oversee in the north .

They don't.

Iwasfrozen

Banjo String wrote: »

They don't.

They do oversee the North.

Banjo String

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

They do oversee the North.

They do not oversee pension or welfare rates. Nor control tax rates.

You know that.

Stop trying to be difficult.

Dan_Solo

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

They do oversee the North.

Explain how being a junior partner in a powersharing arrangement means they are in charge in the North please.

mickydoomsux

Banjo String wrote: »

I agree.

USC is crippling.

And SF would do **** all about it if they got into power. Also, because it's a tax on income the "wealthy" are already paying more than the rest of us peasants.

Birdie Num Num

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Explain how being a junior partner in a powersharing arrangement means they are in charge in the North please.

You are changing the text. Not in charge but yes power sharing and therefore part of. I assume you have the very same sympathies for Labour so?

Iwasfrozen

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Explain how being a junior partner in a powersharing arrangement means they are in charge in the North please.

They aren't the junior partner. Martin McGuinness has equal power to Peter Robinson.

Iwasfrozen

Banjo String wrote: »

They do not oversee pension or welfare rates. Nor control tax rates.

You know that.

Stop trying to be difficult.

They oversee it. The poster was careful of their language. Oversee does not imply they have control.

Banjo String

Birdie Num Num wrote: »

You are changing the text. Not in charge but yes power sharing and therefore part of. I assume you have the very same sympathies for Labour so?

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

They aren't the junior partner. Martin McGuinness has equal power to Peter Robinson.

Neither of you are willing to admit they have zero control over taxation/welfare or state pensions?

Banjo String

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

They oversee it. The poster was careful of their language. Oversee does not imply they have control.

Not careful enough.

Birdie Num Num wrote: »

And why not also bring the state pension rate to a similar lower level as they currently oversee in the north.

Maybe they would bring the north's pension rates in line with the south's (if they had control of it)

mickydoomsux

Banjo String wrote: »

Maybe they would bring the north's pension rates in line with the south's (if they had control of it)

Do magic money trees grow up in Northern Ireland as well?

Banjo String

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Do magic money trees grow up in Northern Ireland as well?

I love they way, when myths have been busted, and arguments ran out of, some folk resort to answers of this calibre.

Iwasfrozen

Banjo String wrote: »

Maybe they would bring the north's pension rates in line with the south's (if they had control of it)

No doubt graciously paid for by the despised Brits.