General Election and Government Formation Megathread (see post #1)

meeeeh · 05-02-2020 4:12pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

It seems to me that anything is populist then if social housing is populist.

The term populism is new to Ireland in the last few years.

I suppose the point is that the term populism is a load of nonsense. Just say you don't agree with someone or their policies. Why try to demean it as 'populist'.

That just nonsense. Populist is to describe investment into something as 'massive' without knowing what that actually is. Or telling people that demographics will sort themselves out when talking about pensions. MLM is obviously not stupid enough to believe that but keeps telling her voters what they want to hear to get votes.

It's kind to describe that as populist because the other option is SF think people are thick enough to believe that.

facehugger99 · 05-02-2020 4:15pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

People have made their mind up I feel by this point.

Not according to the last opinion poll.

C14N · 05-02-2020 4:15pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

It seems to me that anything is populist then if social housing is populist.

The term populism is new to Ireland in the last few years.

I suppose the point is that the term populism is a load of nonsense. Just say you don't agree with someone or their policies. Why try to demean it as 'populist'.

Because calling something populist doesn't mean you don't agree with it. Many parties and activists openly champion populism. "Populist" can have negative connotations in some contexts (can be associated with ideas that appeal more to passions than logic, or that reject expert knowledge and opinion), but it has positive ones too (being good for the common person, wisdom of the ordinary man) . The proposed FG cut to USC is something I'd call populist, but I still support it. There are other proposals that I'd consider populist that I don't support, like a rent freeze, but I don't oppose them simply because they are populist.

Hotblack Desiato · 05-02-2020 4:18pm

If politicians had to be in office for 40 years to qualify for a pension, and had to retire before receiving it, then he might have a point... :mad:

C14N · 05-02-2020 4:27pm

amadangomor wrote: »

"Marxism, first developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century, has been the foremost ideology of the communist movement. "

From Wiki, no time to chase up other sources. The USSR was a communist state who's system was Marxist- Leninism. They called them selves socialist but were far to the left of where socialism is. Family trees are for students to remember things and have little relationship to reality.

Communism is just a specific form of socialism. It's neither to the left nor the right of it, it's inside it.

C14N · 05-02-2020 4:28pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

People have made their mind up I feel by this point.

The big question is will FF outperform FG and that seems likely at the moment.

I haven't made up mine yet. I know who will be at the bottom, but not who will be at the top.

Harry Palmr · 05-02-2020 4:30pm

Probably the Greens as least populist as they are always threatening to raise taxes!

FF used to be just appalling for "free money" regardless of the economic circumstances. I think Martin is bit more sober than previous leaders in this respect.

Markcheese · 05-02-2020 4:45pm

hurler32 wrote: »

People seem to miss the point many of the 25% of people that are planning to vote SF hardly watch terrestrial TV anymore and certainly dont watch RTE or listen to RTE radio. People are fed up with their lot now and blame Fine Gael in particular for it.

And they are the group least likely to vote ... ( Even if they say they will )

C14N · 05-02-2020 4:47pm

I would say that as far as Irish parties go, the far-left mini parties such as PBP, Solidarity, The Socialist Party, RISE, etc. are the most populist. Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, and Labour all are to a lesser extent too imo.

I think the Greens are not very populist and are quite technocratic. Fine Gael are also less populist than most too imo.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 4:48pm

C14N wrote: »

Because calling something populist doesn't mean you don't agree with it. Many parties and activists openly champion populism. "Populist" can have negative connotations in some contexts (can be associated with ideas that appeal more to passions than logic, or that reject expert knowledge and opinion), but it has positive ones too (being good for the common person, wisdom of the ordinary man) . The proposed FG cut to USC is something I'd call populist, but I still support it. There are other proposals that I'd consider populist that I don't support, like a rent freeze, but I don't oppose them simply because they are populist.

So every promise of change, whether it's on tax or housing is populist in some way?

Is there an opposite of populist?

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 4:51pm

meeeeh wrote: »

That just nonsense. Populist is to describe investment into something as 'massive' without knowing what that actually is. Or telling people that demographics will sort themselves out when talking about pensions. MLM is obviously not stupid enough to believe that but keeps telling her voters what they want to hear to get votes.

It's kind to describe that as populist because the other option is SF think people are thick enough to believe that.

But every party spouts out nonsense and rubbish at every election. What makes SF's rubbish populist and not the others?

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 4:55pm

sid waddell wrote: »

Which promises by different parties are genuinely "populist" and which aren't?

By populist, I mean simplistic, easy answers, unrealistic (at least if not accompanied by other policies), telling people what they want to hear without warning of any potential downsides, cheap and cynical vote winners, promises which aren't properly thought through, which are likely to produce negative unintended consequences?

All that sort of stuff.

And which party is the most and least populist?

A few populist promises off the top of my head.

SF promising to abolish the USC and reduce the pension age to 65.

Fianna Fail's SSIA for first time buyers.

Fine Gael's 30 tax credit for first time buyers.

What about Labour, the Greens and the Soc Dems?

Reducing the pension age back to 65 will still keep us with one of the oldest pensions in Europe.

I'm not sure how this is an extreme policy.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 4:57pm

C14N wrote: »

I would say that as far as Irish parties go, the far-left mini parties such as PBP, Solidarity, The Socialist Party, RISE, etc. are the most populist. Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, and Labour all are to a lesser extent too imo.

I think the Greens are not very populist and are quite technocratic. Fine Gael are also less populist than most too imo.

Greens have shown themselves to be conservative and far from radical when it comes to climate change.

is_that_so · 05-02-2020 4:58pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

Reducing the pension age back to 65 will still keep us with one of the oldest pensions in Europe.

I'm not sure how this is an extreme policy.

It's an extreme reaction when a minor tweak will do. It's not the age so much as a forced gap year on some form of Jobseekers.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 5:00pm

is_that_so wrote: »

It's an extreme reaction when a minor tweak will do. It's not the age so much as a forced gap year on some form of Jobseekers.

So the policy isn't populist?

sid waddell · 05-02-2020 5:02pm

C14N wrote: »

I would say that as far as Irish parties go, the far-left mini parties such as PBP, Solidarity, The Socialist Party, RISE, etc. are the most populist. Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, and Labour all are to a lesser extent too imo.

I think the Greens are not very populist and are quite technocratic. Fine Gael are also less populist than most too imo.

What are the particular "populist" policies of the Social Democrats and Labour?

Also, can we make a distinction between positive populism and negative populism?

Positive populism of the type we see from People Before Profit etc. and perhaps Sinn Fein can at least mount pressure on a ruling party into modifying their positions to being more worker-friendly or redistributive in terms of tax or resources or more public service-orientated.

This is a general question not just aimed at the poster quoted here.

The negative populism of Trump etc. can poison and destroy whole societies.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 5:04pm

C14N wrote: »

I haven't made up mine yet. I know who will be at the bottom, but not who will be at the top.

Oh you'll go down the list and give everyone a preference!

I bet you have a fair idea who'll you'll vote for at this stage...

sid waddell · 05-02-2020 5:04pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

Reducing the pension age back to 65 will still keep us with one of the oldest pensions in Europe.

I'm not sure how this is an extreme policy.

I didn't say it was extreme but I do think it's populist, as in who wouldn't in principle prefer to have the pension age at 65 rather than say, 68?

But do the sums make sense? Not sure they do.

Doodah7 · 05-02-2020 5:04pm

Question regarding the difficult situation in Tipperary with the death of one of the candidates. The election is to still go ahead in that constituency and apparently the deceased name will appear on the ballot paper (they are printed).

What happens to her votes as it is inevitable that some people will cast a preference beside her name? Say she topped the poll? Are these spoiled votes? Do they count as if she was alive and then discount her at the end?

is_that_so · 05-02-2020 5:05pm

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Probably the Greens as least populist as they are always threatening to raise taxes!

FF used to be just appalling for "free money" regardless of the economic circumstances. I think Martin is bit more sober than previous leaders in this respect.

Labour have learnt something and are keeping a low profile. You can ignore the minor left wing parties as you knows what they'll present is rarely fall short of crazy. The Greens are predictable and they lay their unwavering policies out very clearly. FG are largely adding bigger promises to what they've been doing to attempt to compete with the out and out populists. As I've said FF are trotting out a 2007-like manifesto and SF have resurrected the old 1977 FF one, the worst in the history of the State.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 5:07pm

sid waddell wrote: »

What are the particular "populist" policies of the Social Democrats and Labour?

Also, can we make a distinction between positive populism and negative populism?

Positive populism of the type we see from People Before Profit etc. and perhaps Sinn Fein can at least mount pressure on a ruling party into modifying their positions to being more worker-friendly or redistributive in terms of tax or resources or more public service-orientated.

This is a general question not just aimed at the poster quoted here.

The negative populism of Trump etc. can poison and destroy whole societies.

Positive and negative populism.

This is more of a discussion on political ideology.

This is the issue with the term populism. One person's idea is seen as positive to some and hated by others.

is_that_so · 05-02-2020 5:07pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

So the policy isn't populist?

The SF one clearly is but the FF/FG responses are an acknowledgement of a problem and they've offered to fix it.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 5:08pm

Doodah7 wrote: »

Question regarding the difficult situation in Tipperary with the death of one of the candidates. The election is to still go ahead in that constituency and apparently the deceased name will appear on the ballot paper (they are printed).

What happens to her votes as it is inevitable that some people will cast a preference beside her name? Say she topped the poll? Are these spoiled votes? Do they count as if she was alive and then discount her at the end?

It looks like it will end up in the courts one way or another after the election .

C14N · 05-02-2020 5:08pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

So every promise of change, whether it's on tax or housing is populist in some way?

I didn't say that. I specifically said that I don't consider the FG PAYE tax cut to be populist, because its benefits are concentrated with those who are already relatively well-off. I'd say in our current political climate that a plan to deregulate the housing market and reduce spending on social housing would also very much not be populist, but no party in Ireland that I'm aware of is promoting an idea like that. What is currently populist is quite dependent on the political climate of the time though.

hotmail.com wrote: »

Is there an opposite of populist?

Yes. Elitism would be a pretty good opposite of populism. Populism tends to be things that appeal to the lower class and elitism is something that generally appeals specifically to the upper class. Populists also almost always frame problems as a battle between elites and the lower classes.

Since populism is also sometimes considered to be a philsophy of preferring the opinions of the common person over experts on a subject, the opposite of a populist might also be called a technocrat, since a technocrat is someone who values the opinions of expert authorities on a subject over the opinions of the average person.

hotmail.com · 05-02-2020 5:09pm

is_that_so wrote: »

The SF one clearly is but the FF/FG responses are an acknowledgement of a problem and they've offered to fix it.

Does this make sense?

is_that_so · 05-02-2020 5:09pm

tayto lover wrote: »

I haven’t due to a very poor choice in Louth.
Might not vote at all for the first time ever it’s so bad. That annoys me.

Go and have fun putting them in order from the bottom up!

Amirani · 05-02-2020 5:11pm

namloc1980 wrote: »

Except the 20k figure he quoted is a load of rubbish.

No it's not. They may include people in their homeless figures up North that aren't counted here, but there are 20k homeless in Northern Ireland; that's a fact.

is_that_so · 05-02-2020 5:13pm

Doodah7 wrote: »

Question regarding the difficult situation in Tipperary with the death of one of the candidates. The election is to still go ahead in that constituency and apparently the deceased name will appear on the ballot paper (they are printed).

What happens to her votes as it is inevitable that some people will cast a preference beside her name? Say she topped the poll? Are these spoiled votes? Do they count as if she was alive and then discount her at the end?

It's an AG opinion on it that's allowing it to go ahead. There are three TD Indos in there already so the chance of her topping the poll are extremely low. I expect they'll have to go through the process as usual and she'll be eliminated early enough in the count.

Sierra Oscar · 05-02-2020 5:14pm

Doodah7 wrote: »

Question regarding the difficult situation in Tipperary with the death of one of the candidates. The election is to still go ahead in that constituency and apparently the deceased name will appear on the ballot paper (they are printed).

What happens to her votes as it is inevitable that some people will cast a preference beside her name? Say she topped the poll? Are these spoiled votes? Do they count as if she was alive and then discount her at the end?

Interesting question. I was thinking they would take her second preferences into account immediately and distribute accordingly. However I guess it makes sense to just let the count play out as normal and distribute her votes in the normal manner as candidates are eliminated.

I don't think there is anything stopping a deceased person being deemed elected. The candidate is nominated after-all. Obviously they cannot take their seat so a by-election would have to be held immediately.

is_that_so · 05-02-2020 5:17pm

hotmail.com wrote: »

Does this make sense?

To me it does. We need to change the retirement age because of demographics and life expectancy. It's more bizarre that nobody spotted the potential problems with the age going up to 67.

General Election and Government Formation Megathread (see post #1)

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