Poll: Irish general election edition

[DCI Harry Batt]

Whatever happens, FF or FG or both must always be in government. It's an iron law.

[elguapo4]

I think Labour could be toast after the next election. Apart from Kelly, none of their seats are in a strong position, particularly if Brendan Howlin decides to retire after this Dail. Basically the Social Democrats have taken their position as the centre left party.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The SDs do seem to be slightly less shit, overall. Low bar, and all that.

[Discordant Resonance]

https://twitter.com/NextIrishGE/status/1404773276925243394

[DCI Harry Batt]

So where is the clever money going?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

If Sinn Fein gained four points from fine Gael over the duration of that time period, it would probably have something to do with the news that we were revaluing houses for the property tax. See Back in the crash we went from only taxing wealth stored in houses when they were bought and sold, (Which is madness) and started to tax them extremely mildly on an ongoing basis on the value of the house, to help fund local government. The People who own their house in ireland, which is most people were fucking outraged, and view this perfectly normal, and mild by european standards level of taxation as a violation of their human rights. Now 90% of household wealth in ireland is tied up in housing, and a property tax is an effective, easily calculated, easily collected wealth tax, which is unusual by european standards,

So Obviously the "Real Irish left" in Ireland are against it. We have the only anti wealth tax neo-trotskyites in the fucking world. But it's not just the narcissistic rugby school revolutionaries of the AAA-PBP that are opposed to it. If people are against something, then Sinn Fein are against it too. leading to this absolutely fucking gaslighting delusional tweet by the Youth wing of Sinn Fein.

https://twitter.com/Ogra_SF/status/1399792056323686405

There's just so much to unpack in this piece of orwellian nonsense. But lets just put this idea that Sinn fein is in some way a left wing political party. Their last election manifesto was essentially made up of three essential components. They promised to cut a huge swathe of taxes, benefiting everyone who earned up to €100K, They promised to increase spending on whatever you personally wanted, and they would do what could only be described as fucking magic with houses. This is peak Celtic tiger bollocks, and we fucking love it. This is what we, as an electorate just fucking love. It's why we've twice gone bankrupt, but we don't want to let that get in the way of what we want, so we tie ourselves up in knots and make all the moral compromises we need to carry on framing our intense self interest in the language of progressive justice. hence the violently anti tax 'hard left'.

Ireland is a small govt country. (The state's share of the economy is only 40% which is far too fucking low. The netherlands is 45%, denmark is 50%). where the economy grows between 5 and 8% a year, generating more money, which we split between tax cuts and sprinkling around spending to keep as many people as possible happy. The problem with doing this is that every time you do it, the amount of govt spending grows slower than the economy and that ratio goes down. You can't possibly be considered left wing if you look at one of the lowest govt shares of the economy in the fucking developed world and think "We need to cut taxes".

Sinn Fein are a bunch of malevolent sociopathic power hungry cunts. Dead eyed, value free monsters, who put themselves and power above all else. They're a straight out populist party masquerading as a left wing party, and the longer I stare at them, the more I see our illiberal democracy future.

Now someone is going to have to quote this post for tonton to see, but he really needs to see this as this is the clearest example of why these people are bad. Let us consider the case of convicted incestuous paedophile Liam Adams. If the name sounds familiar, it's because he was the IRA commander brother of Gerry Adams. In 1987 Liam's wife went to Gerry and told him that Liam had been repeatedly abusing her daughter as well as beating her. How he dealt with it is outlined in this article here, written after the courtcase. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...-37854900.html

the TLDR version is that Gerry took Liam's side, abandoned his niece, and allowed his brother carry on running youth clubs. The only contact he had with his niece over the next 15 years was to send her a copy of his autobiography which contained 11 references to how great his brother was. Then in 2000 his brother apparently confessed that he had been abusing his daughter, at which point Gerry took him into his house, and got him a job running local youth clubs. which is the obvious thing to do with a paedophile. He told his niece that he was trying to pay back to the community for what he did, by working in a youth club. HIs niece eventually went to the police to get her father prosecuted in 2009, and Gerry made a statement to the police about what he knew, in 2013, days before the BBC was about to show a TV programme about the allegations.

Now Sinn Fein were extremely loud in their condemnations of the Irish Catholic church when they decided to put their own political position and power above the protection of children when they hid Paedophiles and moved them around to other places, where they were allowed access to more children. They were extremely strong on how this was a betrayal of trust, and about how it was morally reprehensible to hide and shield paedophiles from the law and putting further children at risk rather than turning the law on them, and how any bishops who knew about this should resign as they were not fit to hold office

However, when Gerry Adams did it, it was fine. One rule for the Catholic Church, another rule for them. Right and wrong are nothing to these people, other than as rhetorical tools to use against their enemies. It is never applied to anything they think they must do to achieve power. And while you might wonder how something like this that happened so long ago effects today you have to consider the following. All of this came out in the last decade. Every person at the top of Sinn Fein, was a member by this point. If any of them had any qualms at any level about being lead by a man who hid a man he knew to be a paedophile from the law, and allowed him run a fucking youth club, not one of them objected or complained to it in public. Not one of them called for him to step down, and not fucking one of them left the party. Not one of them felt that it should have been a resigning issue for Adams strongly enough to do anything about it. Every one of them had to make a moral choice, and without exception they all chose the good of the movement over right and wrong.

The prospect of people like this being in Government is terrifying, regardless of whatever nonsensical bullshit policies they claim to have, or whatever ideology they claim to espouse. They're just shitty sociopathic conmen, run by hardened gangsters and murderers. It's why when I see clueless cunts like Owen Jones saying stupid things Sinn Fein are the real left wing party in Ireland and that labour betrayed the working class, I find myself viewing these people as Economically illiterate, historically illiterate, politically illiterate sloganeering cunts, shallow vacuous fools who know nothing about anything, but have a hot take, which amounts to little more than preaching to the converted and sounding secular holy at all times, rather than actually knowing or understanding anything about anything.

As to why are sinn fein doing so well in ireland? Well if the political history of ireland over at least the last forty years, and the premierships of Charlie Haughey and Bertie Ahern tell us anything, it's that a lot of irish people don't care if you are an obvious crook running a party of petty gangsters, as long as you promise to cut our taxes, increase spending on us, and do magic with houses. We know what we like, and we don't care who gives it to us as long as we get it. It's just the way we are and we don't seem interested in changing.

[Discordant Resonance]

Also, the Trump-eries and nationalist tropes encapsulated in this tweet by their youth wing would make UKIP blush:

https://twitter.com/Ogra_SF/status/1398738164697681921

Apparently, only SF are "pure" representatives of the national interest, and to support greater European co-operation is to be some form of globalist lackey. As for the Union Flag, presumably that is due to FF's reluctance to field candidates for Stormont, while Labour's "crime" here is to back a motion criticising Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory, but not backing the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador.

[elguapo4]

So where is the clever money going?

Fine Gael would be warm favourites, The constituency is mostly upper middle class and socially liberal which is right up their alley. Candidate James Geoghegan was a member of right wing religious party Renua at the time of the Repeal the 8th amendment vote, but claims he voted for repeal.

The main threat is likely to be from Sinn Fein. Candidate Lynn Boylan is an ex MEP and senator so she's going for the hat trick.

Labour used to be popular in this constituency at the time of Ruairi Quinn, and veteran senator Ivana Bacik will be hoping to bring the good times back. If people decide that they don't want a second Fine Gaeler or Shinner in the constituency, then she has a chance. She'd have to get ahead of either Geoghegan or Boylan in the first count,and hope that transfers brings her home.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Thanks. Just had a quick look around. Sinn Fein don't even vote against renewing the Special Criminal Court? Pathetic.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Someone needs to quote that post I made up above, so Ton ton stops expecting things from sinn fein.

[elguapo4]

I'm sure that he can read it himself.

[Discordant Resonance]

Meanwhile, Varadkar has vowed at the Fine Gael Árd Fheis to set up a branch in the North and set out a long-term plan for unity:

https://twitter.com/aoifegracemoore/status/1404879126104788996

[Sporting]

I'm sure that he can read it himself.

Maybe there's an ignore poster issue

[elguapo4]

Never thought of that.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

yes, so....

[DCI Harry Batt]

Sporting has it.

[Discordant Resonance]

If Sinn Fein gained four points from fine Gael over the duration of that time period, it would probably have something to do with the news that we were revaluing houses for the property tax. See Back in the crash we went from only taxing wealth stored in houses when they were bought and sold, (Which is madness) and started to tax them extremely mildly on an ongoing basis on the value of the house, to help fund local government. The People who own their house in ireland, which is most people were fucking outraged, and view this perfectly normal, and mild by european standards level of taxation as a violation of their human rights. Now 90% of household wealth in ireland is tied up in housing, and a property tax is an effective, easily calculated, easily collected wealth tax, which is unusual by european standards,

So Obviously the "Real Irish left" in Ireland are against it. We have the only anti wealth tax neo-trotskyites in the fucking world. But it's not just the narcissistic rugby school revolutionaries of the AAA-PBP that are opposed to it. If people are against something, then Sinn Fein are against it too. leading to this absolutely fucking gaslighting delusional tweet by the Youth wing of Sinn Fein.

https://twitter.com/Ogra_SF/status/1399792056323686405

There's just so much to unpack in this piece of orwellian nonsense. But lets just put this idea that Sinn fein is in some way a left wing political party. Their last election manifesto was essentially made up of three essential components. They promised to cut a huge swathe of taxes, benefiting everyone who earned up to €100K, They promised to increase spending on whatever you personally wanted, and they would do what could only be described as fucking magic with houses. This is peak Celtic tiger bollocks, and we fucking love it. This is what we, as an electorate just fucking love. It's why we've twice gone bankrupt, but we don't want to let that get in the way of what we want, so we tie ourselves up in knots and make all the moral compromises we need to carry on framing our intense self interest in the language of progressive justice. hence the violently anti tax 'hard left'.

Ireland is a small govt country. (The state's share of the economy is only 40% which is far too fucking low. The netherlands is 45%, denmark is 50%). where the economy grows between 5 and 8% a year, generating more money, which we split between tax cuts and sprinkling around spending to keep as many people as possible happy. The problem with doing this is that every time you do it, the amount of govt spending grows slower than the economy and that ratio goes down. You can't possibly be considered left wing if you look at one of the lowest govt shares of the economy in the fucking developed world and think "We need to cut taxes".

Sinn Fein are a bunch of malevolent sociopathic power hungry cunts. Dead eyed, value free monsters, who put themselves and power above all else. They're a straight out populist party masquerading as a left wing party, and the longer I stare at them, the more I see our illiberal democracy future.

Now someone is going to have to quote this post for tonton to see, but he really needs to see this as this is the clearest example of why these people are bad. Let us consider the case of convicted incestuous paedophile Liam Adams. If the name sounds familiar, it's because he was the IRA commander brother of Gerry Adams. In 1987 Liam's wife went to Gerry and told him that Liam had been repeatedly abusing her daughter as well as beating her. How he dealt with it is outlined in this article here, written after the courtcase. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/n...-37854900.html

the TLDR version is that Gerry took Liam's side, abandoned his niece, and allowed his brother carry on running youth clubs. The only contact he had with his niece over the next 15 years was to send her a copy of his autobiography which contained 11 references to how great his brother was. Then in 2000 his brother apparently confessed that he had been abusing his daughter, at which point Gerry took him into his house, and got him a job running local youth clubs. which is the obvious thing to do with a paedophile. He told his niece that he was trying to pay back to the community for what he did, by working in a youth club. HIs niece eventually went to the police to get her father prosecuted in 2009, and Gerry made a statement to the police about what he knew, in 2013, days before the BBC was about to show a TV programme about the allegations.

Now Sinn Fein were extremely loud in their condemnations of the Irish Catholic church when they decided to put their own political position and power above the protection of children when they hid Paedophiles and moved them around to other places, where they were allowed access to more children. They were extremely strong on how this was a betrayal of trust, and about how it was morally reprehensible to hide and shield paedophiles from the law and putting further children at risk rather than turning the law on them, and how any bishops who knew about this should resign as they were not fit to hold office

However, when Gerry Adams did it, it was fine. One rule for the Catholic Church, another rule for them. Right and wrong are nothing to these people, other than as rhetorical tools to use against their enemies. It is never applied to anything they think they must do to achieve power. And while you might wonder how something like this that happened so long ago effects today you have to consider the following. All of this came out in the last decade. Every person at the top of Sinn Fein, was a member by this point. If any of them had any qualms at any level about being lead by a man who hid a man he knew to be a paedophile from the law, and allowed him run a fucking youth club, not one of them objected or complained to it in public. Not one of them called for him to step down, and not fucking one of them left the party. Not one of them felt that it should have been a resigning issue for Adams strongly enough to do anything about it. Every one of them had to make a moral choice, and without exception they all chose the good of the movement over right and wrong.

The prospect of people like this being in Government is terrifying, regardless of whatever nonsensical bullshit policies they claim to have, or whatever ideology they claim to espouse. They're just shitty sociopathic conmen, run by hardened gangsters and murderers. It's why when I see clueless cunts like Owen Jones saying stupid things Sinn Fein are the real left wing party in Ireland and that labour betrayed the working class, I find myself viewing these people as Economically illiterate, historically illiterate, politically illiterate sloganeering cunts, shallow vacuous fools who know nothing about anything, but have a hot take, which amounts to little more than preaching to the converted and sounding secular holy at all times, rather than actually knowing or understanding anything about anything.

As to why are sinn fein doing so well in ireland? Well if the political history of ireland over at least the last forty years, and the premierships of Charlie Haughey and Bertie Ahern tell us anything, it's that a lot of irish people don't care if you are an obvious crook running a party of petty gangsters, as long as you promise to cut our taxes, increase spending on us, and do magic with houses. We know what we like, and we don't care who gives it to us as long as we get it. It's just the way we are and we don't seem interested in changing.

And there you go.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I guess that's for me, DR. In which case thanks for the thought and the time. And I guess it does at least remind me why I choose not to see that stuff.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

It takes real strength of character to admit that you're hopelessly and utterly wrong like that. Fair dues.

[john the revelator]

Reality:

Sinn Fein will continue to rise in popularity as the property crisis continues

The only way of keeping them out will be another FF/FG + others coalition

Unfortunately a FF/FG coalition is unlikely to reform the property sector so the situation will continue to degenerate for young people

[anton pulisov]

Yeah, I would say that the existence of SF is the greatest barrier to a progressive government in Ireland. Many people on the left obviously don't want to vote for yet another parish pump racket run by former militants.

[anton pulisov]

I guess that's for me, DR. In which case thanks for the thought and the time. And I guess it does at least remind me why I choose not to see that stuff.

You are viewing the Irish political spectrum through a right-left prism, but that's not how Irish politics works.

If Sinn Fein were a competent left-wing party, they wouldn't be proposing to abolish property tax. They are in Fianna Fail 1977 territory.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I don't think I am. I think I'm just noting and prodding at SF's sort-of claim to be of or on the left while clearly not really being. So I think I'm agreeing with you, to some extent.

I also don't think that the Irish property tax is left-wing, mind, so I guess we have some different ideas about politics. I'd not have Irish Labour as of or on the left either.

(I guess I'm assuming by "right-left prism" you mean the idea that parties can easily be slotted into boxes like the ones people slot the the major parties in Britain into. If I've misunderstood, let me know.)

[john the revelator]

SF were v close to power at the last election
The GP had some contact with them about an alternative to FF/FG
In the end Ryan declared that the numbers weren't there to form a govt.
Next time round there might be but would depend on PBP/WP, Soc Dem, Labour, GP and SF aligning on some form of policy

[Lang Spoon]

FF/SF coalition next time would be my bet, maximum pork barrel.