Sinn Fein and how do they form a government dilemma

No. Please understand what a 'trend' in polling is.

Since July, when they were at 20% they have been trending down in the poll of polls.

A 1% revival in one poll does not change the trend.

Polls will vary from one to the next.

The 'poll of polls' will give you the trends.

FF are still trending down in the poll of polls despite rising one point in one poll.

Even at 18%, if I was a member of FF I would see little benefit medium/longterm for the party in coalition with FG. There has been zero bounce for them.

Now if you believe they are happy to be journeymen/women and are happy with no identity of their own, then ok, they will happily go back into coalition.

I don't think that is the case. There will be blood about party direction.

You won't see that expressed until this government ends.

That's for FF to decide.

What I am saying is that there will be blood over coalition with FG and kick back against having to temper their campaign imo.

This is a first, so none of us know how an election campaign will pan out after the historic coalition between the civil war parties.

Yeh it is a first.

The first time these two have campaigned for a term in government after being in coalition together.

Can they successfully offer themselves as something different without spilling some metaphorical blood?

That is what will be interesting.

I agree that they will either offer the electorate the same again or they pretend they are offering something different (Alá Michéal and Leo last time out) and hope the electorate get the nod and the wink sleeveen campaigning.

A merger of the two civil war parties in everything but name.

It will be truly historic to see this happen in a campaign. And fascinating to see if media hold feet to the flames on it.

Lots of things can throw a spanner in the works though, further growth of SF as an election approaches and a campaign proper gets under way.

How high in the polls do SF have to get before survival jumping begins on the good ship FF, for instance?

Pearse Doherty can say SF are aiming for what he like - does not say he or they will get it.

He himself was aiming for a certificate in some course, and doing the course, in Letterkenny Regional Tech ( or whatever they call it ) and he dropped out, so he never got what he was aiming for then either.

You can say what you want about the other political parties on both sides of the border, but you cannot get away from the reality that when other parties look at your track record, they do not want to go in to government with you.

Must have been a hard week for S.F., down 4% in the opinion polls. Wonder if SF will have any authors at their Ard F., or are they against them too? (Edit : Ronan McGreevy & Tom Conlon’s The Kidnapping, David Blake Knox’s Face Down, Mairia Cahill’s Rough Beast and Jennifer O’Leary’s The Padre....)

I don't know.

And I also don't know if the transition will be as smooth as you say.

I expect a lot of blood letting between FF and FG though.

Unless they have tacitly merged in everything but name which is quite possible at the upper echelon of both party's. The blood will be spilled at grassroots though.

I doubt the vast majority of the electorate think there is.

And there be the source of the blood letting - there will be party faithful who will want a distinction made.

For FF that will only mean the trend will continue downward. They could quite easily see Labour poll numbers during the next cycle.

Question is, do enough of them recognise what is happening. I.E. there isn't room for two parties there isn't a credit card width of distance between and one of them will disappear or is disappearing.

Sinn Fein will have the same problems after the next election that they had after the last one - no other political party trusts them.

Even PBP called them out in public on their lack of transparency and lack of engagement when it came to forming a coalition.

The biggest obstacle to Sinn Fein going into government is Sinn Fein, because nobody can deal with them. If the next leader of FF is clever, they will do a confidence and supply arrangement with Sinn Fein, give them 18 months to create enough rope, and then hang them by their own mistakes.

Absolutely agreed with you on that. If you want to have a TD in government then you vote FF.

I expect that after the next election, Sinn Fein will increase their seats. Varadkar, even if FG are up, will state that as Sinn Fein have won the largest amount they should have the first attempt at forming a government but that FG will have no part in that as they can't, and will look to go into opposition. The ball will be in FF's court. They can either attempt to form a coalition or C&S with SF, or they can turn to FG. Alternatively, they can go some way with SF, but back off after unreasonable demands and "reluctantly" turn to FG.

Chatted to a FF councillor and probable TD candidate eventually here a few months back and he made the point that prior to the GE they were ahead of FG and recovering from 2008.

Now they were behind FG and heading for the 15% mark.

Those who think that won’t come into play soon are deluding themselves. Coalition with FG might be great for the ministerial post holders but it’s toxic for the party.

Rubbish.

Michael opened the door in 2020.

The only reason SF were toxic was Micheal knew that because SF polled better than FF they would have first go at Taoiseach.

Micheal, in his sleeveen way was opening doors when he thought FF were going to finish ahead. As we know that changed and so did Micheal.

Not a done deal. But a likley deal.

What do you think the outcome will be?