Following on from
this thread
Please remain civil or posting privileges will be removed
Of course they won't. They will campaign to form a government on their own. Just like they have always done and like SF are doing, and as before they will fail then go into coalition discussions.
I can only assume these are rhetorical questions trying to make some kind of point. You know full well how this will go.
Hard data? That's up there with the comments from the FG database/GDPR "experts" on the Abu thread. :) The next GE has not taken place yet so there is no hard data. If you looked carefully at the results from that constituency, there is a very obvious example of fratriciding where the SocDem and Labour candidates fratricide and are eliminated in the same count. The SocDems and Labour are essentially targeting the same demographics (the Nice But Dim vote). FF and FG are now effectively targeting the same votes (Right of centre). As they are both larger parties than Labour and the SocDems, the fratricide effect can be expected to be more pronounced in the next GE.
Regards...jmcc
First point yeah I know that's why I put mandate in inverted commas. But there are expected to be special circumstances next time. SF are an insurgent force promising radical change. FF can see a strong resemblance to what they were themselves a century ago. Will FF really want to be bulwark against that insurgency and put a jaded FG back in government?
Second point that resistance to a deal with SF within FF is likely to be a great deal weaker if they had a new leader...
No point, just teasing out what we might expect as the FF/FG merger is unique to an election.
Not sure how the electorate will react to being offered the same thing again
Over 50% means they can form a government, the same one that is there at present, so that not at all misleading. Government is the game, not bragging rights about who has most seats. It suits the Green because they are getting their policies into a programme of government, the other two parties too are benefitting from the arrangement. Current seat arithmetic also suits FF & FG no matter how they moan about identity and all except the most strident party identity zealots can see how pragmatic it is.
In some ways we have begun to migrate towards a more European model, but that pragmatic northern European one of deal making. The trouble is that it now leaves SF as the almost permanent main opposition party, a party who either want to be the majority partner of any government or will not give up any proposed policies to be in government. I can understand the latter because if they do they will lose voters and risk a kicking at a subsequent election. That happened in 2019 in the locals, where they got pasted.
1987 was the last of the FF-only governments, a minority one supported by the Tallaght strategy.
Yes, both points are true, but FF won't want the blame for wrecking the country again.
Where did you get the idea that FF and FG are targeting the same votes? Wishful thinking?
The problem with the Big Three model (though you will probably not see this from the organ-grinder's monkey analysis in the media) is that no two of the parties have enough seats to form a government on their own. The danger for FF/FG is that it may evolve back into a 2.5 party model with two major parties and a half-party (Labour-nua). What is more likely to happen is an evolution to a Big Two model along a Right of centre and centrist axis with the smaller parties of the Left (SocDems/PBP etc) and Independents being necessary to make up the numbers for a government. Labour is more Right-wing than FG and may find it difficult to return 2 seats on the current opinion poll %s.
Reading and understanding opinion polls and their methodologies and watching SF move to the centre and take what traditionally used to be the soft FF vote that used to oscillate between FF and Labour. It is, I admit, a novel approach. :)
Sinn Fein haven't moved to the centre, that is nonsensical rubbish. They remain prisoners of a toxic ideology of exclusionary nationalism.
FF and FG occupy that centrist position.
FF/FG, the friends of the vulture funds? That "prisoners of a toxic ideology of exclusionary nationalism" is a lift from RTE, isn't it? :) It is almost as if Eoghan Harris is back in there again with his gang of Stickies. SF has been moving to the centre for the last few years and it was obvious to anyone with an IQ over room temperature. Even the media is beginning to cop on to the fact.
Sinn Fein are like Fianna Fail of old, they don't occupy any place on the political spectrum. They follow rather than lead.
Does that mean that they are "populist"? I notice a lot of unpopular government politicans using that term. SF have moved to take the centre ground that FF deserted. It did the same thing with the Left of center ground that Labour deserted when it got infested with YATSEs (Yet Another Teacher Seeking Election).
I thought YATSE stood for Yet Another Terrorist Seeking Election. Must have been wrong, ah well.
Yes, Sinn Fein are populist, but so were the Communist Party in Russia, Maoists in China and fascists in other countries. Being populist doesn't make you centrist.
Isn't it well known in Dublin political circles that SF have been doing the circuit and meeting with business leaders and telling them all, not to pay any attention to their utterances in the Dail, that there will be a warm house for them if/when SF are in power?
SF living in heads again. They have their own thread >>>>>
I have to agree with the second part of your post. As we are discussing possible alternatives to the current government, there should be no discussion of Sinn Fein.
We were discussing what the subjects of the thread might do come the next GE.
A few wish to shoehorn their fav topic into that discussion.
If you believe that Sinn Fein don't feature in any discussion about the government after the next election, then I am happy to drop them from the discussion.
Happy to discuss any other possible government members on the relevant thread. This one is a discussion on FG FF and the Greens.
There is no FF/FG merger.
Considering MM said the people wanted a change and then returned us to essentially what we already had.
We'll see what the public think.
Try reading the title. There are plenty of SF threads.
Why don't you create a new thread about the next government and all your fears?
If they say they are going to form the next government effectively they have merged as one.
Which is why I was asking how you thought they would play the campaign.
Because they will be asked.
Well Paschal Donohoe was quickly slapped down by both FG and FF after he suggested the government parties running on a joint platform in the next GE so that kind of answers your question.
They will play it cleverer than that. They will talk about how the government has worked well, that it all depends on the numbers and that they will look at options. FG will say that they will go into opposition rather than into government with SF, FF will fudge on that issue.
Oops, you will be censoring me again for mentioning their options.
I never mentioned a 'joint platform'.
Can they campaign against each other with any credibility if they will effectively merge to stay in power.
I'll ask again, do you think we will hear a FG leader say 'putting FF in power would be akin to putting Delaney back in the FAI or the FF leader promise never to go into coalition with FG?
Just wondering how people think this unique GE will pan out.
I didn't envy McEntee having to balance years and years of ignoring the lack of resources for battered women and trying to sound proactive on the news today.
Its the way of FF/FG that they let a situation get bad. Neglect it. Ignore complaints. Wait until there's public uproar or it becomes a hot button issue and then they do a review and pledge to tackle it.
Not fit for purpose.
So you think the John Delaney remark carried credibility. Does that show the level of political discourse you aspire to?
