Fine Gael TDs running away from Varadkar whilst blaming the voters

RoTelly

So FG are handing their voters over to FF? 12 out 36 TD won't contest and their leader going into the next election is Simon Harris.

emo72

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121920575#Comment_121920575

Fantastic post in fairness

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926794#Comment_121926794

Durkan is insisting he will run. I think its madness - he's 79 next week, potentially 80 by the election if it's the last possible date; so up to 85 by the end of the term.

He's the oldest TD (by some margin), and has the earliest start date of service for any TD, but because he was briefly out he isn't officially Father of the Dáil.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926794#Comment_121926794

If the above comes to pass and these are intending to head off as well, I just can't see any credibility remaining with the current government. They're already badly holed. FG are in flitters and it'd be a complete cod for it to stumble on with the other two supporting it.

JP Liz V1

I wonder how many will try for MEPs

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926995#Comment_121926995

The FG candidates have already been selected. Madigan tried and was not selected.

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121927068#Comment_121927068

Who was chosen?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121927116#Comment_121927116

Regina Doherty

Good loser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926960#Comment_121926960

Aren't FF and Fg level pegging in the polls, with SF trending downwards? So where's the credibility issue. As far as I remember in the last polls the current Govt coalition was the most favoured of the options.

I liked Varadkar but Harris should do okay. Would have preferred Coveney or Paschal, with Harris for the next time. Harris should be the best of the Party leaders, or level with Martin. Miles ahead of Mary Lou in any case.

Good loser

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121920575#Comment_121920575

All well and good but basically a rant against the current Govt. The Opposition are at this all the time, load on the critiques, when asked for ideas give a perfunctory nod to the question asked and head as quickly as possible into the hills and valleys of destructive criticisms. Going nowhere basically. Because the health and housing problems are INSOLUBLE in the short term (2 to 5 years). The health because probably of vested interests and the housing for capacity issues. The Opposition will not upfront on any of these so they bitch and moan without much progress; they are also incredibly short term in their 'solutions'. Far too may of SF's fixes have been taken up and adopted by the Govt.

dulpit

I wonder is one of the issues that FG reckon they'll still be in government next time. The polls point to some sort of FF and FG plus somebody else government. A lot of the FG tds have been in government for quite some time now, and maybe they are confident that somebody will get elected in their place and they're just done with being personally in government?

BlueSkyDreams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121920575#Comment_121920575

Why do you say we are teetering on the edge of a 2008 style crash?

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926911#Comment_121926911

huh?

FG voters would rather cut their own balls off (METAPHOR) rather than vote FF.

It's a major mystery how FF still exists, given what they've done.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926953#Comment_121926953

He's a young 'un compared to some in the US Capitol! Not that I necessarily approve of that sort of thing, mind.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932047#Comment_121932047

There are literally thousands of new houses and apartments being constructed in my local area, but the government will get no credit for this.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932410#Comment_121932410

IMHO it's largely personal circumstances, not running scared like FF did in 2011.

The vile abuse politicians get, even down to county councillors, from sackless cowards is a factor too. This all suits Putin down to a tee - his ideal is a future where democracy cannot exist, nobody can be trusted and nobody who could be trusted wants to be a politician anyway. His agents are busy working on this, and he has many useful idiots on Boards helping him.

lumphammer2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932723#Comment_121932723

I have to agree ... politicians have been getting all sorts of vile abuse and have been intimidated by many mobs running amuck ... I blame all these meetings plus all the constant in your face propaganda shared on social media .... I agree it is organised but it runs much deeper than Putin ... the transformation of Putin from normal Russian president to lifelong autocrat is part of it though but Putin too is a servant of something more sinister and more global ...

I feel there are power bases in the world that want to sow chaos and want to install warmongers into the government of almost every country .... the same entity pays for campaigns and fundraises ... supporting different causes and selling it to the people via scaremongering and hatred ... for years the people ignored it but one by one the dominoes started to fall ....

It probably started in 1979 when the Shah of Iran was toppled by a far right gang of peasants .... the same peasants were fed far right propaganda from outside influences who wanted to stir up trouble in Iran for their benefit .... at the same time a similar movement was taking hold in America .... the so-called Moral Majority ... they needed the Iran far right to get their man into power and did in 1980 when Jimmy Carter lost the presidency after far right students in Iran took hostages ... suspiciously releasing them the same day Ronald Reagan become US president .... talk of an Iranian style far right America was rife and The Handmaid's Tale got written and the name Gilead coined .... but thankfully Ronald Reagan himself was not too interested in peasant white trash voodoo conservatism ...

... but the US far right did not go away you know ... and 9/11 revived them BIGTIME ... born were a new breed of warmongering radicals who wanted to topple their main far right opponents ... yes the far right always hate each other!! .... the Taliban and Saddam Hussein .... leading to messy wars and the rise of the even worse far right entity we know and 'love' called ISIS ...

All these wars brought division, mistrust and hatred .... and refugees LOTS of refugees ... suddenly Europe was getting more Middle Easterns into their countries than ever before and far right European leaders began to gain popularity .... Putin at some stage transformed from neo-communist bureaucrat to far right autocratic life long leader ... and prob preempted the change in mood in a Russia where nationalist fervour against ISIS/Al Qaeda attacks and Chechen warlordism was rife ...

Meanwhile Donald Trump went from liberal pro Obama businessman to a far right panderer literally overnight ... and then won the presidency ... first thing had to go was the then moderate govt of Iran so he piled on sanctions upon sanctions and left the deal his one time ideal president Obama had done ... paving the way for another far right govt in Iran that came about from 2020-2022 ... and Brexit gave us a neo-colonial outlook bought and paid for by the same people who bought and bailed out Trump ... who let's face it has views that can be changed by coming to his failed business' rescue ...

Suddenly you get a once moderate PM Orban in Hungary switching sides to the far right and pandering to an audience drunk on social media lies and posters about the 'evils' of Syrian migrants on Hungary's borders .... and you have Le Pen in France, Alt fur Deutschland in Germany and other entities doing well all over Europe ... and then Russia invades Ukraine and the West funds Ukraine in yet another proxy war between superpowers ... creating more refugees .... but after another event of course ....

.... COVID 19 .... the scaremongering and hysteria over Covid in early 2020 was stifling .... the atmosphere created was like being in the early chapters of a dystopian novel .... the early episodes of The Handmaid's Tale felt very real .... suddenly all we had were lockdowns and suddenly the far right emerged as our 'heroes' standing up to increasingly OTT restrictions that went on for weeks, then months on end ...

From here on we will focus on IRELAND ... Ireland was exempt from the excesses of the far right for decades and they never took off here ... sure there were brutal acts by the IRA worthy of far right but the IRA were identifying as some sort of communist nationalists thus far left ... during the banking crisis and its bailouts the opposition was from the left mostly .... the far right were mainly comprised of so called pro-lifers advocating no to any form of abortion plus their baber allies preaching that all people must have children ... plus the odd street preacher or wacky bible study group spouting their propaganda ... everyone laughed at them ... the likes of Gemmaroid and Sean Uisci went for election got nowhere ... no one was interested ... the Burke family esp Enoch staged lonely protests against anything not conforming to their anti-LBGTQ agendas ... but no one was interested apart from them ...

But Covid changed all that .... Gemmaroid and Uisci went to the courts to challenge long lockdowns ... Yellow Vest Ireland got massive followings on social media ... people had enough of lockdowns and rightly so .... and aligned with anyone against them often .... lockdowns ended but the far right kept up the propaganda as they morphed into the anti mask brigade and anti vaxxers ... enter the Mad Professor Dolly ... and then Ukraine and migrants ... politicians were heckled, Enoch Burke goes to jail for months on end and is praised as a 'hero' on social media ... buildings are burned ... and politicians start resigning .... the movement has won in some cases sadly ...

The 27th March 2020 ... when strict lockdown was introduced in Ireland ... was a watershed moment where admittedly trust between people and govt broke down ... the need for such severe restrictions lasting for months, the subsequent revelations that Covid was not as severe as thought and the effectiveness of less extreme restrictions elsewhere to deal with the pandemic have of course raised serious questions about why such policy was not questioned .... on top of this homelessness and the housing crisis remain dominant ...

But we are not told the positives .... the Irish economy has remained strong and resilient ... we overcame the Covid era better than predicted ... many people do have a good quality of life and we have peace and security ... something the enemies of mainstream politics would not provide as we know from elsewhere ....

Thankfully a far right Ireland remains relatively distant for now .... people will vote Sinn Fein instead and they are left wing ... but we cannot ever be complacent ... the far right are well funded and well able to market their campaign ... and remember someone is paying Enoch Burke to spend time behind bars, Professor Dolly didn't risk losing and then lost her UCD job for nothing, and people do not spend most of their free time handing out The Irish Light to the general public for nothing either .... the far right in Ireland like elsewhere is funded by both internal and external forces .... plus the economy may not always remain resilient ... the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency and the certainly of a war against Iran should Trump get in could set off a recession so severe that it would make a combination of the Covid, 2008 and 1929 recessions look like a minor hiccup ... such a change in circumstances could turn a population towards extremist politicians posing as 'saviours' ....

LetticebCivil

I am not a supporter of any political party but some of the stuff posted under politicians tweets is filth. A lot of racial stuff too towards non white candidates. Must be very upsetting for them to read.

Tony EH

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932047#Comment_121932047

basically a rant against the current Govt.

Actually, it's an observation against all failed politicians and their polices that end up putting people in dire situations and the reasons why the electorate would be angry about that.

You can white knight all you want for FG, but the issues I pointed out are a reality for many people and they won't look upon the people that caused them terribly well.

Headshot

I just tuned into the RTE News and see Fine Gael Simon Coveney talking about what FG stands for. I regret it immensely when I hear Coveney speaking about a core value of FG being

"Bringing communities together"

What planet is he living on? This party has been so destructive to Communities across Ireland with running shotgun on communities over immigration.

I've always been a FG voter since the recession 2008 but I cannot ever imagine voting for this party again, they are like the Tories in the sense they've been in power far to long and should never voted in again

dulpit

The amount of people on this site banging on about immigration is so bloody boring.

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121934416#Comment_121934416

It's a big talking point whether you are for or against and the government have made a giant fcuk up in regard to it

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932410#Comment_121932410

That's very naive. The number of FG TDs stepping down is very significant. They will really struggle to fill those seats with all the splintered voting and transfers. FG are the least transfer friendly party in the Dail right now. The public are sick of their duplicity, waste and corruption. Zero reform in 13 years despite all the promises. Public services in an absolute state. They are reaping what they sowed. And I was a strong FG voter until 2016. Never ever again.

0ph0rce0

With all the stories in the media you'd swear there is going to be a big shake up and things will get done under Harris.

🙄

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121934470#Comment_121934470

The more I see of it the more it looks like the bold boy being forced to carry a can. None of them want to lead into a possible/probable hit in EU, local and GE, so let the guy that dobbed in Coveney and Zappone's secret arrangement be leader. I can't quite believe he got it coronated unopposed on talent.

Downlinz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121932410#Comment_121932410

Both FG and FF are generally polling lower now than they received in the last election (20.1% and 17.3% based on the last aggregate) so I wouldn't say even the most optimistic of FG TDs are presuming anything about the next government. The polls show a very fractured landscape at present.

Seth Brundle

Mod: @Cluedo Monopoly do not post in this thread again

Seth Brundle

Mod: off topic posts deleted. Stay on topic or the thread gets locked

pureza

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121935617#Comment_121935617

The latest Ireland thinks poll showed a large bounce for Aontú especially and independents

That has to be some of the lapsed Sinn Féin vote which is extremely unlikely to transfer back to them under PR

I'm hearing anecdotally a lot of admiration amongst more religious and older Conservative normally FF or FG voters for Aontú also down my way

mariaalice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121936280#Comment_121936280

It must be an age thing I'm in my 60s and I don't know even one, older reglious conservatives are a tiny presentage of voters.

If Aontu get a bounce it's a protest vote.

It often fascinates me that people can't see Ireland the way it really is in 2024.