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If the government called a general election tonight

24567

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,011 ✭✭✭griffin100


    SF's only real objective is a 32 United Ireland. Leaving side the hows and whys, this will take precedence over everything else.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,132 ✭✭✭Gregor Samsa


    You don’t have just one vote.

    On a point of information, you do just have one vote.

    The version of proportional representation we have is by means of a “single transferable vote” (PR-STV). You may cast that vote with a preference ranking, but it’s only ever counted against one candidate. If or how it’s transferred down your preferences depends on the surplus or elimination of your preferences from 1 down.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,754 ✭✭✭Glebee


    Swore id never vote for Sinn Fein but next election ill be

    SF- Nr1

    SF-Nr2

    SF-Nr3



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,315 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    As much as I hate FF, I'm not naïve enough to think they don't have any intelligent members. They've been masters of vote management and electioneering for decades. They're simply not stupid enough to join SF in government. It would be suicide for the party and, as we all know about FF, party comes before country.



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,751 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    As a traditional conservative, and looking at the parties only, I'd say none of the above.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    beware of those that believe everything the papers tell them - quite a lot of those kind voted for Brexit.


    The idea of re-voting in the plebs we have had for the past 100 years is the definition of insanity is it not? (Doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,092 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    The Greens are addressing the infrastructure deficit through the prioritising of capital investment in Metrolink, Dart Plus and BusConnects.

    There is a real danger that if SF get into government, all those projects will be cancelled on Day 1 and the money used to raise social welfare and pay out on compensation schemes.

    Getting back to the thread question, the answer is who cares? Why? Because there isn't going to be a general election anytime soon.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,091 ✭✭✭✭Loafing Oaf


    It would be suicide for the party

    That may well be but if SF + FF is the only possible government it will have to happen. Martin is no longer ruling it out.

    It's comparable to the run-up to the 2007 GE, when FF + Lab looked like it would be the only option for a government. Pat Rabbite absolutely lamasted FF in that campaign, saying they should be put out of office for a generation etc., but he never quite ruled out coalescing with them because he knew circumstances could very well dictate it.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,092 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    I tend to agree with you. However, it requires FG + FF + Greens to fall short of a majority. The parties in government have generally worked well together, and I think that Labour or Social Democrats would ask for too many changes to join that coalition. That then opens the door to FF/SF.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,315 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    Labour certainly - they've completely lost their minds making Bacik party leader and with her track record, no-one could trust her as a coalition partner. Even on their worst day I genuinely can't see FF/FG falling far enough short of a majority that they couldn't get over the line with a few of the usual independents (Healy Raes, Lowry etc) and/or the Greens / Social Democrats.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,504 ✭✭✭✭bucketybuck


    Every time some clown plays the "Sein Fein are the boogyman" card it just makes me want to vote for them more.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,600 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Then I think you’re a little adrift of the public sentiment (I mean that with the greatest due respect)- my family are dye in the wool FG- from a farm in the south east of the country. Couldn’t be more FG if we tried. Absolutely none of us are voting FG in the next election- things were bad in the party but Varadkar has absolutely destroyed it. It competes with Labour now for empty wokeness. I want low taxes and minimum government interference in my life- FG give me the reverse. The likes of Mcentee, Harris, are really terrible ministers- damaging in fact. Couple them with the likes of R O’gorman and Ryan in the Greens you can see why the country is in such trouble now. Also all horrible unlikeable zero personality thought police zealots.

    I genuinely believe FG could dip below 20 seats if they went to the country tomorrow.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,011 ✭✭✭griffin100


    As SF used to say when I lived in North Belfast in the mid 1990's,'vote early and vote often.'



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,600 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Even after a supposedly “generous” budget FG are still floundering in the polls- people feel and see the complete opposite to their propaganda in their pockets reflected in their pay packets- all I see is an eye watering list deductions that I get absolutely nothing back in return for- “abolish the USC” anyone?

    FG reward the work shy and people that never contributed a cent to the country.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,039 ✭✭✭MegamanBoo


    I'll be a reluctant SF voter.

    Ffg will never fix health or housing.

    While I'm doing ok financially for the moment, I want to know my kids can own a home.

    It's a long way off yet but I don't want to be in my seventies afraid to go to hospital for fear of being left to die on a trolley.

    It's beyond FFG to improve either of these areas because all they can do is spout management speak and throw money at the private sector.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,315 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    road_high, I get that people are frustrated with the government but where will those votes transfer to? While some FF voters may be that way inclined, those who've historically voted for FG are never going to transfer to SF.

    Those that want "low taxes and minimum government interference in my life" are never voting for Sinn Fein (or most other left wing parties) so will either stay at home (rendering their opinion of the next government or the running of the country worthless) or, more likely imo, transfer to a local independent candidate who, being an independent, can usually be easily bought off in government formation negotiations with some pork barrel local issue...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,120 ✭✭✭eggy81


    I honestly haven’t got a notion who I’d vote for at the moment. I don’t think it’d be sinn fein. But I’d struggle to vote for ff or fg either. No idea.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,600 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    A lot in that boat. SF aren’t the answer that’s for sure. The public are ripe for more right leaning candidates- the media establishment will resist this at all costs



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,091 ✭✭✭✭Loafing Oaf


    If we go by this guy's projection

    the numbers are just about there for such a government (assuming 5 or 6 of those independents are biddable) but it's very tight. A swing of a point or two more to SF and it'll be realistically impossible to form a government without them.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,511 ✭✭✭jmcc


    It may develop into a rat run with FFG politicians who were elected on later counts deciding against running.There is a few good journalists who seem to have realised that a kind of once in a generation shift is happening. The institutionalised press release recyclers still have their heads embedded in the FFG collective anus swallowing anything it emits. There's also the government advertising and zero VAT support that has helped dampen some of the criticism of FFG mismanagement in the wider media.

    The people who think that FF/FG is a certainty at the next GE do not seem to have considered that there has been a generational change in the electorate and many of those who are now becoming eligible to vote were children during the Property Bubble. They saw the damage it caused to their families and parents. Unsurprisingly, they are reluctant to vote for the politicians in FFG who are guilty of inflicting stupid economic policies on the Irish people. SF and the SocDems are beneficiaries of their votes.

    That generational shift has been behind some of the increase in SF support. Now, the real problem for FFG/Lab is the Nursing Home refunds scandal. That's damaging FFG/Lab support in the older demographics on which FFG/Lab depends. It is a betrayal of FFG/Lab's most consistent voters.

    That can work out in two ways. The first is that these voters will be angry and will vote for SF candidates. That may not happen in sufficient numbers because of the natural conservatism of older voters. They had to endure decades of propaganda with the Stickies/Eoghan Harris anti-Irish brainwashing from RTE and from the incessant FG propaganda from IN&M when Dinny O'Brien was the largest shareholder.

    The second is that these former FFG/Lab voters may vote Independent rather than SF or not vote. A genepool Independent would be the ideal way for these older voters to express their anger with FFG/Lab while not significantly changing their support. The effect of those angry older voters deciding not to vote would be absolutely devastating for FF, FG. Both parties would be looking at a seat collapse into the low 20s.

    At the moment, there is a very real prospect of an SF majority government because of the collapse of the FFG/Lab vote. Opinion polls for the last six months or so have been largely static with few movements outside the Margin of Error. The problem is that these only ask about first preference votes. Lower preferences matter and determine who, other than the poll-toppers get elected. The effect of the angry older voters not voting will be amplified in the later counts and may cause a lot of FFG backbenchers to lose their seats.

    It is funny to read the waffle from some FFG supporters about opinion polls and "science" while in reality they haven't a clue about opinion polls. I tend to be a bit cynical about this but I did call the spread on the Big Three Parties in 2016 and point out the inherent instability of the big three model with no two of the Big Three having enough seats to form a government. It was apparent by 2015 that the Big Three model was replacing the 2.5 party model.

    It is the floating vote and not the party supporter vote that decides GEs. That floating vote nearly destroyed FF in 2011 and Labour in 2016. A rise in undecided voters in the opinion polls is always an indication of an electoral shock on the way. The other problem is more complex because Irish pollsters don't publish it. That's the non-response rate. These are people who refuse to be surveyed in an opinion poll. If an opinion poll has a sample of 1,000 voters and a pollster is told to feck off by 200 voters it is not a sample of 1,000 but rather one of 1,200. Without that non-response rate, it is difficult to determine the reliability of these opinion polls.

    Some of the FFG politicians seem to be realising that their political careers may be about to be suspended for a GE cycle or two and are deciding not to run again. They are the smart ones. An SF majority government is a possible outcome but so too is a new, more conservative party that takes seats from FF, FG and SF. If there is a Motion of No Confidence in the next few weeks and the government falls, the latter is not going to have time to get established. If SF is close to 40% in the next opinion poll then there may be more FFG politicians deciding to retire to spend more time with their families.

    Regards...jmcc

    Post edited by jmcc on


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 29,092 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    It is possible though, given the current state of the parties. However, I don't put much faith in opinion polls until an election is called, and we will see then.



  • Administrators Posts: 54,285 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


    Being elected on later counts is of no consequence whatsoever, this trope is trotted out at an alarming rate by people who don't understand the transferrable vote system. It is not a sign of political weakness.

    Honestly, I don't really get what your post was about. The polls have been indicating a SF majority government for a year or two now. There's nothing surprising about that, nor does it take some genius political insight to see it. For SF to do anything other than top the polls in the next GE would take a collapse of monumental proportions at this stage. You're not saying anything that every single person on this thread doesn't aleady know.

    The interesting thing is not who will the largest party after the next GE, since the world and it's dog knows that's likely to be SF. The interesting thing is how the other parties do, because it's highly likely SF are going to be dependent on FF to get a majority that'll work. If they can't get FF on board, then a SF + loony left alphabet soup + independent government is going to be a very unstable mess, that will likely be very short lived.

    The other possibility, though more unlikely, is that FG + FF + GP can still make a majority. I believe the most recent opinion poll indicated this. I'm not sure what the appetite would be from any of the 3.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,511 ✭✭✭jmcc



    A majority government typically means that a party has enough seats to form a government on its own. Otherwise a coalition of parties or minority government is necessary.

    A party needs to be consistently polling around 40% to have a chance at a majority government. The opinion polls for the last few years have not indicated that any political party has enough support to form a majority government.

    As for the transfers issues, what happened to Labour in 2016 is a classic example of a transfers dependent party being demolished when the transfers on which it depended stayed within the parties like FF and FG. The Greens and the SocDems in 2020 were examples of what happens when transfers don't stay within a party's candidates (SF).

    In the next GE, FF and FG will be competing for the same preferences and while FF and FG as a single party might have enough votes to get a candidate elected, those candidates will be competing against each other and will take those votes out of play and could very well allow a candidate with more votes than them individually to win the seat despite the two candidates having enough votes to ge a single candidate elected easily. This happened in 2020 and Varadkar was proposing an electoral pact for FF and FG a few weeks ago. It would, of course, need some joined-up thinking on candidate strategy and this is why there was some reluctance. It is not only the numbers of transfers that matter. When they come into play in the counts also matters.

    Regards...jmcc



  • Administrators Posts: 54,285 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


    There is no real chance of a single party SF government. It is extremely unlikely.

    SF have very likely reached their peak appeal. They have eaten the dinner of the other parties on the left, and taken what they can from FF.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,995 ✭✭✭skimpydoo


    As always jmcc you explain it so well.

    I can see a motion of no confidence called within the next few weeks and any TD's that don't back it could possibly lose their seats.

    What current government ministers do you think will lose their seats?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,183 ✭✭✭screamer


    No idea tbh as bad as each other really. However I think SF in danger of losing the next election as their main support base is rising up and SF seem to have the same approach as other parties (as I said all the same). A more right of centre option would probably gain traction these days, I won’t be surprised to see one setup.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,600 ✭✭✭✭road_high



    SF are ananother woke left wing party- I think they’ve peaked also. The mood of the nation has shifted and voting in an even more incompetent version of what’s there already is pretty pointless. SF are all for open borders, high tax, anti business/anti self progression. They make me want to vomit tbh. They are beyond useless and if the current government wasn’t so bad would rightly be seen as the bad joke they are.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,600 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    I don’t think SF want that themselves- there’s no real hunger from their side to govern. If there is I certainly don’t see it. Last election Mary Lou was tripping over her ample frame to land her arse back in opposition. They’ll do their usual droning on about “change”- which is actually the last thing SF want or could handle



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,511 ✭✭✭jmcc


    Electoral politics is a sequence of events that people, at one time or another, thought were unlikely.

    The Irish political model seems to be realigning around a Left/Right axis like some other European countries. FF/FG are effectively coalescing on the Right of the axis and SF is to the Left. SF has also been moving more towards the centre to occupy the space that FF surrendered on its move towards the Right. Labour had deserted its Working Class Left supporters and voters and shifted towards the Right hence its repeated alliances with FG. With this realignment, FF and FG are going to take Labour seats just as SF may take some Left seats. The use of PR-STV reduces the extreme effects of First Past The Post voting that causes massive swings in elections but the change has been happening. There was a time when FF and FG had over 80% of the votes and seats. Even 20 years ago SF had only 4 seats or so. Now, it has more support than either FF or FG and more seats than FG. That is the effect of a generational change in the electorate.

    Regards...jmcc



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    the 'peak appeal' part is something that is stated nearly every election. someone on here just to say it all the time



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    sounds like they frighten you to be honest. Im going to give them the vote, and if they get in, judge them on their actions - not pretend I have an iota of an idea of how they will perform because we just dont know. Dont even mention the north. Anyone with a brain understands the NI Executive is a bit of a strange setup. Neither FG, FF or the greens could handle the DUP



  • Registered Users Posts: 116 ✭✭Kyokushin Grappler


    Irish Freedom Party

    Aountu

    And maybe even the National Party



  • Administrators Posts: 54,285 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec


    By peak appeal, I don't mean they're on a downward trajectory. I think they'll hold fairly steady at where they are at barring some gaffe or scandal, but it will be difficult for them to grow beyond their current appeal.

    If they want to grow more, they need more centrist appeal. How can they increase their centrist appeal without alienating the socialist types they already have on board? If they go more to the left, they lose the centre.

    IMO they've eaten the dinner of the small socialist-type parties, and have taken the left-er parts of the soft-FF vote. Winning over more will be a hard sell.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    they dont need a centerist appeal - they need to get into power with like minded parties and make a change for the better for the country. that will convince people to support them



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,511 ✭✭✭jmcc


    It would be almost impossible to say exactly which would lose their seats but those who may be safe would be the ones who won on the first counts in 2020. They may have enough support to not have to rely too heavily on transfers in the next GE.

    Depending on the wording of the MNoC, some government TDs might vote against the government without the government falling (some Independents might be needed). Some Greens already did vote against the government and lost the whip for a while. STV elections can be so strange that it would not be surprising to see the Greens pick up a second seat in Dublin Bay South while losing almost every one of their seats in other constituencies.

    Regards...jmcc

    Post edited by jmcc on


  • Administrators Posts: 54,285 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭awec




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    if that happened I would never vote SF again - not unless it was the only way and FF were very much the junior party. Even then though, I'd still be pissed off. there has to be more scope than FF or FG - which come next election you'd never know, there might be. Itd be nice to see FF get decimated again and FG following them


    Also, if SF got in power and were worse than the present, they'd never get my vote again. I feel though they deserve a chance



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,511 ✭✭✭jmcc



    In recent terms, (excluding the Blueshirts in the 1930s), Ireland has not really had a genuine Right of centre party. The PDs were really just Provisional Fianna Fail. There is a gap in the political market for a Right of centre party but the clientalism model of Irish politics (politicians getting passports and other things for voters) works against it. It would require SF to be in government and a fracturing of FF and FG. The result would be a kind of centrist FFG and a more Right of centre party. If the illegal immigration problem is not sorted out quickly with genuine refugees being given asylum then that will accelerate the emergence of such a party and could take seats from FF/FG and SF.

    Regards...jmcc



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    anyone who thinks people giving out about migrants is the SF main support base, needs to educate themselves about SF itself. The issue is bad management.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,000 ✭✭✭✭Cluedo Monopoly


    Independent #1

    What are they doing in the Hyacinth House?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,186 ✭✭✭✭jmayo



    Says someone that is cossetted against the real Ireland.


    Healthcare is an even bigger mess with problems even accessing a GP nevernmind A&E and some elective surgeries.

    Education - lack of school places and now kids outside the metropolises have to commutte to college as no cheap accommodation anymore.

    Lack of housing - even rental accommodation for people with reasonably well paying jobs.

    Tourism is going to take a kicking this year as tourist accommodation now used by Ukrainians and assorted chancers.

    Asylum seekers now being foisted on communities up and down the country.


    And it is spend spend spend.

    Sure we need to take over hotels, office blocks, now sports centres for refugees and asylum seekers, there's ten of millions for that.

    We need to make sure we are the bestest in Eruope at looking after the Ukrainians - here are millions to pay for social welfare on top of the accommodation.

    Fuel prices and electric prices have gone up, here's a few million to dish out to placate the people, all the people even the very rich ones.


    All it will take is for the recession to hit, corporate tax take to drop and hey presto we are back to 2008 where suddenly government spending far exceeds revenues.

    Or are you one of these geniuses that still believes Ireland is immune from natural economics.

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,186 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    Listening to people the main parties all have a huge chunk of disaffected former supporters.

    There is an increasing disconnect between politicians, the Irish media and ordinary people.


    A lot of the current protests would be in areas that SF would have had as their original support base.

    And they are doing nothing, saying nothing.

    Then on the other side a lot of the old FG and FF support bases are getting mightly p**sed off with them.

    Working class and middle classe voters of theirs suddenly see that their kids can't now afford to go away to college, can't now afford to move out even to rent nevermind buy a place of their own.

    Recently having chat with few people and someone asked what is the Irish dream and a 30 odd year old piped up "to own your own home".

    And this was from someone educated with reasonable job.

    These people are looking at emigration not because the country hasn't employment, but because they can no longer afford to live here.

    I am not allowed discuss …



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,208 ✭✭✭airy fairy


    On the off chance SF got an overall majority, could they really do much damage in a term? Could they rise the welfare packages and squeeze the government spends to such a degree that it could cause havoc in our finances? Personally I think they'd squirm, blame the last shower in government for ruining it all, and we'd be left with the same as what we have now.

    There's no party or leader showing any form of decisive action should they get into government.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored



    where have the shinners been in power to give you this fear?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,067 ✭✭✭Murph85


    Any reasonable party that forms, that isn't left wing, like every option we currently have, ill consider voting for...



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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,516 ✭✭✭Luxembourgo




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored


    go read up on the NI Exec, how its run etc etc. You obviously need the education on that. never mind the DUP. Imagine them down here!! FG and FF cant handle them.


    But otherwise - compare apples to apples, not apples to cement lorries



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,208 ✭✭✭airy fairy




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,736 ✭✭✭✭maccored




  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators Posts: 10,518 Mod ✭✭✭✭Jim2007


    Don't confuse the people around you and your internet surfing with the rest of the population, you'll be sadly disappointed. Your shopping list of woes does not impact anything close to a majority of voters, they are just the loudest and resonate with you. Most party voters will use the PR system to register their disappointment, but their votes will go back to their party...



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