Social Democrats

farmingquestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308208#Comment_120308208

You're probably in a minority though.

The vast majority of people who will "never vote for SF" are most likely FFG voters.

If the soc dems are trying to pick up votes from the "never giving a vote to FFG or SF" people, then that's a tiny market imo.

Housing is the big thing. That's why SF got so many votes last time. If housing was sorted, then people would likely flock back to FG in large numbers as SF etc. just want to give handouts to everyone and tax the working person making medium wages.

tayto lover

Never heard of Holly Cairns before so she must have been a very quiet nonentity before. Googled her to see if I recognised her but I didn't. She seems young and not too bad a looker but she'll need more than that to succeed and make a difference.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120307219#Comment_120307219

That quote sounded more like an Americanism to me. Yes, it may be true that American millennials are worse off than their parents but we didn't have a 'baby boomer' generation here.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308563#Comment_120308563

If you have never heard of her before then you haven't been paying attention.

blackwhite

It'll be interesting to see their candidate strategies in the 2024 Locals, and in the next GE (whenever it happens).

For the 2019 Locals they suffered from the same candidate selection problem that most smaller parties do when trying to grow.

They clearly didn't have the time and/or resources to do much or any vetting of their potential candidates and ended up with fielding some really poor candidates which runs the risk of damaging the party's reputation (Linda Hayden, Owen Hanley, Ellie Kisyombe being prime examples from 2019 LEs)

Whether they focus on quantity of candidates over quality of candidates come the 2024 LEs will be a challenge for them

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308705#Comment_120308705

Well they're hardly lighting up politics. They aren't even up to the PBP or Labour standards as yet. Very obscure and making very little in the way of headlines.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308540#Comment_120308540

I'd say that anyone slightly on the left who is not voting SF is probably older. If it wasn't for the troubles they're have even more popularity. Everyone my age remembers seeing it on the news everyday.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308458#Comment_120308458

I'm older :D In my 40's.

Augme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309180#Comment_120309180

They have more TDs and more councillors than PBP.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309231#Comment_120309231

I think Green Party voters are the exception to this. SF aren't great on green issues.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308208#Comment_120308208

I remember back in the 2020 election people I was talking to people and they said they'd ideally vote for the Social Democrats. However, they didn't run a single candidate in the south-east. That's half a million people wiped out immediately.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308563#Comment_120308563

You never heard of Holly Cairns?

Go back to After Hours.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309239#Comment_120309239

So a "None of the above" voter then? :) The SocDems seem to have a chance to get that vote from people who don't want to vote FFG/Lab/SF/ The Greens managed to get a lot of the vote in 2020 and had been an acceptable choice for people who didn't want to get into the politics of supporting a party. After the mess they've created in government, a lot of voters will not be voting for them in the next GE and the transfers that enabled Green TDs to be elected (mainly SF transfers going all over the place) won't be there next time. That's why the SocDems are interesting as a party.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120309258#Comment_120309258

Labour's support at local government level as been declining. The people who get out and canvass for the parties are important. PBP have some very dedicated people who really believe in what they are doing and will turn out in any weather. Their vote is often geograpically concentrated so the national opinion polls always tend to miss that kind of support.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308538#Comment_120308538

The Greens managed to get a lot of water melon voters in 2016 and 2020. These are Green on the outside and Labour on the inside. There was even an attempted coup to get rid of Eamon Ryan which failed. Some of these water melon voters went off and set up Green Left and haven't been heard from since. The problem for the Greens is that this water melon vote will be in play again and of all parties, the SocDems have stronger green credentials than the Greens. (Cairns is a horticulturalist and Whitmore also has some relevant qualification. The Greens had to get Pippa Hackett in via the Seanad to make her a minister.) The Greta Thunberg hysteria drove some of the Green votes from more gullible voters. That will also not be present in the next GE. Don't think that a lot of the water melon vote will stick with the Greens and it is unlikely to go back to Labour. The SocDems could win some of this vote.

Regards...jmcc

Mad_maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308208#Comment_120308208

The Soc Dems aren’t a bread and butter issues party so “ work on the ground “ doesn’t apply like it does to the likes of SF

the Soc Dems are more into cultural issues which are played out on social media, they are a progressive causes party rather than a fix the pothole party

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120310572#Comment_120310572

Not sure about your analogy there. I would say that those people who left the party to set up....whatever the new one was called... were more Green on the outside and PBP on the inside judging by their list of priorities (well Lorna Bogue's anyway).

Is your entire hypothesis that the Soc Dems party have stronger green credentials than the Green party that their leader (for 4 days) is a horticulturalist? That's pretty weak.

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308744#Comment_120308744

Linda Hayden was 2020 general election candidate.

They ran Chris Pender here in 2019 local elections and he got in.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120308563#Comment_120308563

Probably says more about your interest in irish politics than Holly tbf.

blackwhite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120310909#Comment_120310909

Memory clearly playing tricks on me!

It doesn’t speak much to their candidate vetting process for the last GE then either. Hopefully they’ll have improved this time around

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120310741#Comment_120310741

Whereas Eamon Ryan is what? The water melon voters quickly found they had voted for the wrong party. The Irish Greens are quite different to the continental Greens who are quite Leftist. The Irish Greens have been described as Fine Gael on bikes. Jennifer Whitmore also has qualfications in the area. The Greens have a major problem at the moment in that their unexpected success at the 2020 GE is turing into a complete disaster in government. Apart from Hackett, who wasn't even elected but was given a Seanad seat and a ministerial portfolio, there seems to be a distinct lack of green related qualifications in the Greens.

Regards...jmcc

landofthetree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120312354#Comment_120312354

In Europe left wing means pro-carbon tax,pro the polluter pays principal, pro water charges,pro property tax etc.

In Ireland the Greens are the only left wing party who are anywhere close to the European left.

Also in Germany they reopened coal plants. The Irish Greens vetoed the idiotic idea of reopening peat burning power stations to solve the made up power power cuts we were supposed to have. A story made up by far right lunatic shinnerbots.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120312444#Comment_120312444

You have a rather muddled understanding of politics. The Irish Greens are essentially Fine Gael on bikes. They were a kind of socially acceptable "None of the above" vote for years for Middle Class people who didn't want to vote FF/FG and who though that Labour was a just a bit too Working Class (that's changed now as Labour abandoned all those Working Class supporters and voters). There was an influx of water melon supporters and voters after Labour imploded in 2016 but little has changed. The continental Greens are quite Leftist and some have a lot in common with the Communists and their support comes from all over the social demographics but has a strong Left of centre component. The support for the Irish Greens is not so diverse.

The energy problems in Germany were due to the decision to shut down its nuclear power stations without there being a viable alternative other than Russian gas. Then again, there are people who think that Merkel, a former Communist party member, was a great leader and that Greta Thunberg is some kind of expert on Climate Change. Can't say that I've ever run across the phrase "far right lunatic shinnerbots" before. Did you come up with that yourself?

The SocDems are well placed to attract some of the water melon vote from the Greens.

Regards...jmcc

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120312354#Comment_120312354

So that really was the basis of your entire theory...yikes. I thought you might be able to, I don't know, point to some policies where the Soc Dems are stronger than the Greens on environmental issues or something more substantial like that.

 The Greens have a major problem at the moment in that their unexpected success at the 2020 GE is turing into a complete disaster in government.

Is it really? No, their first time in government was "a complete disaster". They got nothing meaningful implemented and got blamed when the house of cards that FF had been building for a decade collapsed on their heads. They learned from that period though. This time they're going to get more of their goals implements and have some tangible things to show for their time in government come the next election.

A certain type of person likes to scoff at cycle lanes but they really are life enhancing for many people all over the country. They're something that can be rolled out within a 5 year term and something that can be pointed at come the next election. In less immediate benefits, they drove a hard bargain when it came to the emissions reduction commitments in the Climate Action Plan. Again, if you're the sort of person to scoff at something like that then you're not the target audience in the first place.

Anyway this is a thread about the Soc Dems so I won't derail things any further.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120312969#Comment_120312969

To put it in simple terms for you, the water melon vote is mobile. It may shift to the SocDems because they are likely to become a "fashionable" vote. The Greens in 2020 benefited from the water melon vote and from SF transfers. The Greens, and the SocDems didn't have the toxicity of FF, FG and Labour and weren't SF. This is why the Greens and the SocDems had a good GE.

There was a previous attempt to cash in on the Greta Thunberg hysteria with the packaging, by the Dublin media, of Saoirse McHugh for the Euros as a kind of Irish Greta Thunberg though she seems cleverer and more accompliished than Greta Thunberg. It didn't work. However, the Greens did win a seat in Ireland South but there was an inevitability to that.

The problem with emission standards is that they don't mean a thing unless the biggest polluters are also limiting their emissions. Happy-clappies are easily pleased with such trivialities but the the problem remains and is likely to get worse as the populations of the biggest polluters increase. The SocDems don't seem to have the fanaticism of the Greens but do seem to have, from some accounts, green policies that are not too far off those of the Greens. That would make it somewhat easier for the water melon vote to switch the SocDems.

From your comments about cycle lanes and five year plans, you do seem to have the zeal of a recent convert to the Greens though the five year plan thing sounds a bit Stalinist. The danger for the Greens is that the SocDems might attract votes from those who vote based on virtue signalling now that Labour has become completely toxic and the incompetence on immigration has become an election issue. You may have missed other government ministers trying to blame it on O'Gorman.

Regards...jmcc

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120311010#Comment_120311010

What has she done that I should have noted?

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120313204#Comment_120313204

Ah tayto stop.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120313087#Comment_120313087

So...you've got nothing. Good man.

Beechwoodspark

I listened to her interview with Claire Byrne.

all very “nice” coffee morning type conversation the like you would hear in a dundrum coffee shop

Cairns accent seems very “grand, don’t you know” type of one

I was amused by her saying she only ever voted once in her life before entering politics

she seemed to drift around aimlessly for years doing different things before getting into politics and never paid a bit of heed to politics

the greens are nosediving in popularity so the soc Dems could hoover up some of that vote

Holly C a pretty face but anything more to it?

some saying she is on VERY shaky ground regarding re election prospects ??

Time will tell.

bokale

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120313204#Comment_120313204

Oh wasn't saying you should be interested. Just meant someone saying I don't know this TD who speaks regularly in the Dail, probably says more about their interest in Irish politics than it says about the TD.