Sinn Fein support unchanged

shltter

this may surprise those who have been greeting with absolute glee the apparent down fall of Sinn Fein
it is a bit surprising that they seem to be largely unaffected even by robert mccartneys murder of course the real poll up the north in the next few months will reveal a lot more



http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0225/poll.html




"A new opinion poll shows support for Sinn Féin is almost unchanged, despite a widespread belief that the IRA were responsible for the Northern Bank raid, and that Sinn Féin and the IRA are 'one and the same'.

Support for Sinn Féin, at 9%, is down just one point on the last comparable poll in November.

However, the Millward Brown IMS poll in this morning's Irish Independent finds a big drop in satisfaction with the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams.



Satisfaction with Mr Adams is at just 31%, down a massive 20% since November.

Three out of every five voters believe the IRA was responsible for the Northern Bank raid, while 62% say Sinn Féin and the IRA are one and the same.

And 46% believe the claim of the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, that senior Sinn Féin leaders were in the IRA.

30% did not believe him, while 24% said they did not know.

More than 1,000 voters, spread across every constituency in the country, were questioned for the poll."

magpie

A new opinion poll shows support for Sinn Féin is almost unchanged, despite a widespread belief that the IRA were responsible for the Northern Bank raid, and that Sinn Féin and the IRA are 'one and the same'

Its surprising that all the liberal, democracy-loving Sinn Fein supporters haven't abandoned the party in droves.

Nuttzz

Support for Sinn Féin, at 9%, is down just one point on the last comparable poll in November.

how is that unchanged

magpie

It says 'almost unchanged' to be fair.

Of course you could also write the story as 'Sinn Fein support plummets by 10%', but that's journalists for you.

billy the squid

what worries me is that the original poster put up an article in the board without offering their own point of view, thus violating the rules of the forum.

Three out of every five voters believe the IRA was responsible for the Northern Bank raid, while 62% say Sinn Féin and the IRA are one and the same.

do you see that, if sinn fein wants to have a remote hope in hell of regaining its credibility, it needs to clarify the difference between the IRA and sinn fein, if there is one. the term used by one of the McCartney sisters yesterday "rafia" seems more befitting of this group of people.

Hobbes

magpie wrote:

Its surprising that all the liberal, democracy-loving Sinn Fein supporters haven't abandoned the party in droves.

SF are liberal? news to me.

magpie

as is sarcasm, evidently.

joseph brand

People have always associated the IRA and Sinn Fein as being in 'cahoots'.
No breaking news there!

Is it not a small little, tiny coincidence, that just as Sinn Fein start pulling votes, the gangsters in power find a way, and a good one it seems. . . well masterminded, to put them in their old place.

I would trust Gerry before I would trust eh eh emm B' b' be 'Bertie where's my private jet Ahern.

Nice article in the Indo yesterday with list of all the TD's and their expenses, with MR DEASY (Fine Gael) topping the charts at No 1 with his hit "Can I have 110,000 Euro please".

Who cares about hospitals eh?? We look after the rich. :mad:

Meh

Nuttzz wrote:

how is that unchanged

It's within the confidence interval (usually 3%).

bonkey

shltter - please read the charter, noting what is said concerning the posting of articles "sans comment".

jc

Sleepy

Is a drop from 10% to 9% not 10% of their support base? Or am I interpretting the survey results incorrectly?

Personally I'd consider a 10% drop a good start.

shltter

bonkey wrote:

shltter - please read the charter, noting what is said concerning the posting of articles "sans comment".

jc

sorry I tought the article spoke for itself

wrist slapped

wont happen again

shltter

Sleepy wrote:

Is a drop from 10% to 9% not 10% of their support base? Or am I interpretting the survey results incorrectly?

Personally I'd consider a 10% drop a good start.

yes but because it is with in the margin of error a drop of 1% is really unchanged

Meh

Sleepy wrote:

Is a drop from 10% to 9% not 10% of their support base? Or am I interpretting the survey results incorrectly?

Afraid so. The pollsters are 95% certain that Sinn Féin support is somewhere between 6% and 12% (assuming the usual 3% confidence interval). The previous poll they were somewhere between 7% and 13%. So at one extreme, Sinn Féin support could have more than halved from 13% to 6%. At the other extreme, their support could actually have risen from 7% to 12%. More likely the values are somewhere in the middle of the confidence interval, but it's still not really possible to draw any conclusions from this poll.

If I were Sinn Féin, I'd be more worried about the 20 percentage points drop in support for Gerry Adams. This is definitely significant at the 3% level, and it could really hurt them on transfers.

ionapaul

SF's core support KNOW that they and the IRA are the flip sides of the same coin, they KNOW the IRA are heavily involved in criminality beyond the usual 'freedom fighting' activities and KNOW that something is extremely rotten with regard to SF's funding. They don't care about the Northern robbery, they don't care about Robert McCartney or are content to believe whatever line P. O'Neill parrots and would still support 'the cause' if the Sunday Indo printed a photo of Gerry and Martin wrestling buck-nakid in a 6' deep pile of Northern banknotes! If SF's support has really dropped, it has been those fair-weather middle-class supporters gained over the past 10 years.

Sleepy

So essentially, the first figures are as good as worthless (given the 3% margin of error and only a 1% difference), though the figures regarding support for Adams give an indication that he has lost between 14 and 26% of his support? Logically, if support for Adams is falling, support for the party would also be on the slide somewhat too, right?

MG

Not too surprised by this. What will be interesting in the Meath & Kildare by-elections is to see how their transfers hold up. They are already quite low but I'd imagine that's where they will be hardest hit.

Meh

Sleepy wrote:

So essentially, the first figures are as good as worthless (given the 3% margin of error and only a 1% difference), though the figures regarding support for Adams give an indication that he has lost between 14 and 26% of his support?

Almost. We are 95% certain that Adams has lost somewhere between 14 and 26 percentage points of his support (percentage points and percent are not the same thing!)

Logically, if support for Adams is falling, support for the party would also be on the slide somewhat too, right?

They could be keeping their core first-preference support while losing transfers from supporters of other parties. And in our electoral system, transfers are absolutely critical to getting elected.

pdh

Before all the recent news & events during the past few months, I was becoming a bit disillusioned with the way they were giving up on core principles. However with everyone in the Establishment beating up on them, I will just have to force myself to go out on March11th and vote for Joe Reilly in Meath.
Hopefully by then they will have sorted out the scum in the Short Strand that committed that murder. By all accounts they were thugs who only joined up after ’94, the Trucelliers, who would disappear like snow in summer if armed struggle resumed

hill16

So what if the IRA robbed a bank,the banks rob people every day.

Keano_sli

I guess this means that somewhere between 88% and 94% of the voters in the Republic do not support the Sinn Fein line. Lets hope someone mentions this the next time a Sinn Fein mouthpiece is crying "respect our mandate" all over the airwaves, as if they are the only ones with a mandate.
What about a little bit of respect for the 88-94% of the Electorate who want an end to IRA criminality and the IRA as an organisation. That is al FF, FG Labour, PD, Green and the the independents.
Come on Gerry what about a little bit of respect?

Paddyo

hill16 wrote:

So what if the IRA robbed a bank,the banks rob people every day.

Do the banks hold people hostage and take a woman into the middle of a forest and let her nearly freeze to death?

Stupid comment!!

Squaletto

Paddyo wrote:

Do the banks hold people hostage and take a woman into the middle of a forest and let her nearly freeze to death?

Stupid comment!!

Do Banks call for eviction of tenants from houses on non payment of loan? People forced to live on streets due to falling on hard times? Bah Humbug!!!! :eek:

shltter

pdh wrote:

Before all the recent news & events during the past few months, I was becoming a bit disillusioned with the way they were giving up on core principles. However with everyone in the Establishment beating up on them, I will just have to force myself to go out on March11th and vote for Joe Reilly in Meath.
Hopefully by then they will have sorted out the scum in the Short Strand that committed that murder. By all accounts they were thugs who only joined up after ’94, the Trucelliers, who would disappear like snow in summer if armed struggle resumed

the ceasefire soldiers

I dont know if they all fit into that category I believe that at least one of them was a senior member of the iRA not a trucellier

Paddyo

Squaletto wrote:

Do Banks call for eviction of tenants from houses on non payment of loan? People forced to live on streets due to falling on hard times? Bah Humbug!!!! :eek:

I presume you are talking about people who have signed a mortgage agreement stating that the non payment of the loan may result in the bank selling the house to recover amounts owed?

I have no great love of banks and have a major problem with with all of the dishonesty with regards to overcharging and all of the recent issues which have arisen.

But to compare what the IRA do and what the banks do, and reach the conclusion that they are as bad as each other is just ludicrous.

Wisteria

This is disgracful. Sinn Fein should be banned for good and done a way with. We ALL know they were responsable for the Bank Raid and the death of that man.

Roisin Dubh

This is disgracful. Sinn Fein should be banned for good and done a way with. We ALL know they were responsable for the Bank Raid and the death of that man.

No the poll shows that 63% of us "know" this. They did though!

Considering the margin of error of +-3%, it could be argued that in fact support for SF hasn't declined at all as a result of this crisis. The poll shows only 33% of SF voters even accept that the IRA carried out the Northern Bank raid, while only 49% blame them for the collapse in the Peace Process, compared to 39% who do not and the rest are "Dont Knows". And only 46% of voters say they believe Michael McDowell that Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams, and Martin Ferris are on the Army Council.

This may be partly accounted for by suspicions in some quarters - especially SF voters - that these accusations are just part of an establishment conspiracy to destroy SF.

ionapaul

Indeed, there will always be supporters that will not believe anything negative about SF - any accusations or evidence presented can be ignored as it is clearing part of the Securocrat / Brit / Free State Bastards / etc campaign against SF!
Obviously this is true with an element of every party's supporters - I'm sure some of Liam Lawlor's nearest-and-dearest don't believe he did a thing wrong...

ishmael whale

Roisin Dubh wrote:

No the poll shows that 63% of us "know" this.

Makes you wonder about the 37%

Its like that old joke about the guy on Mastermind taking Irish history as his specialised topic. He’s asked when was the Easter Rising, who were the leaders and where did it take place. He answers “pass” to each question. As Magnus Magnussen scratches his head a voice shouts out from the back of the audience “Good on you, tell the bastards nothing”.

billy the squid

Squaletto wrote:

Do Banks call for eviction of tenants from houses on non payment of loan? People forced to live on streets due to falling on hard times? Bah Humbug!!!! :eek:

actualy not necessarily the case nowadays, there are insurance policies availible that prevent this kind of thing from happening, its the customers fault for not taking up a policy at the start of the mortgage.

besides there is always the option to declare one self bancrupt.

mike65

Its the fall in approval for Adams thats the important stat here as it reveals that the curent levels of support are as high as SF can expect. There will be no breakthrough into the mainstream, there will be no steady middle-class/middle-Ireland vote, the revolution will not be televised.

Mike.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

shltter

Wisteria wrote:

This is disgracful. Sinn Fein should be banned for good and done a way with. We ALL know they were responsable for the Bank Raid and the death of that man.

yes banning political parties that is the way to go and after them we could accuse fine gael or labour of something and ban them as well in fact why not get some general to run the country i heard pinochet is looking for a job

"done away with" does that mean executed


how do you all know

shltter

mike65 wrote:

Its the fall in approval for Adams thats the important stat here as it reveals that the curent levels of support are as high as SF can expect. There will be no breakthrough into the mainstream, there will be no steady middle-class/middle-Ireland vote, the revolution will not be televised.

Mike.

a week is a long time in politics

shltter

billy the squid wrote:

actualy not necessarily the case nowadays, there are insurance policies availible that prevent this kind of thing from happening, its the customers fault for not taking up a policy at the start of the mortgage.

besides there is always the option to declare one self bancrupt.

not serious illness cover i saw something on the bbc about that it is not worth a ****

Villain

Wisteria wrote:

This is disgracful. Sinn Fein should be banned for good and done a way with. We ALL know they were responsable for the Bank Raid and the death of that man.

Do we ALL know that, I certianly don't, care to back that claim up???

If Sinn Fein's vote has only dropped 1% after all that has been in the media, I think they have a good chance of making gains in the next election down South in 2 years.

You see elected SF politicians actually do get out and work for the people who elected them. This poll shows why McDowell has been bashing SF so much he knows their support is strong and will only get stronger and after Dermot Aherns comments about FF possibly going into Government with SF in the future he's worried.

IMO FG and Labour are going to do pretty well in the next election so FF will probably need more than the few seats the PD's can muster up to stay in power.

As I said you keep bashing and weI'll keep growing.

P.S. Someone said earlier they would be interested in seeing how SF do in the By-Elections, they are only standing in the Meath By-Election, Joe O'Reilly is the candidate, he got 6,000 votes the last time he was out so I'd expect to do around the same this time.

Sand

To be honest, whilst the popularity poll regarding Adams is something the results of this poll indicate the dire need to allow the vote to right only on the basis that a voter answers the following basic questions correctly:

1) Do you believe the church and state should be seperate? If Yes, please continue. If no, never breed.

2) Do you believe it is unacceptable for a political party to maintain a terrorist force? If Yes, vote freely and wisely. If no, never breed.

Irish voters are just getting their heads around the first basic principle of a successful democracy, but after a false dawn regarding 2) the results of this poll indicate theres still a lot of work to do before we cut down on the amount of morons corrupting the democratic proccess. Id had hoped natural selection would have weeded out the tools that voted Lowry back into power as an independant.

Cork

irish1 wrote:

You see elected SF politicians actually do get out and work for the people who elected them.

Hopefully SF will choose a democratic path and rid itself of all associations with the criminal IRA.

BCB

magpie wrote:

Its surprising that all the liberal, democracy-loving Sinn Fein supporters haven't abandoned the party in droves.

Ive supported Sinn Fein for over 25 years through the dark days when they were censorsed by the state,demonised by the Goverments so why would i start now :rolleyes: