The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Sunday Business Poll on Party Support September 19, 2009

Okay, better late than never… this was written earlier in the week, but events got in the way. I’ve got to admit I find the Sunday Business Poll of party support, released last weekend a tad more convincing than the Irish Times one of a week or two ago. For a start Labour isn’t in second place. And although that small fact pains me, for better Labour with all its flaws and contradictions was ahead of Fianna Fáil than otherwise, it does seem to me to ring true.

It also raises some intriguing questions as to the nature of the IT poll methods and just why they continue to overstate the LP and understate FF (and yes, I accept I’m taking it as read that the RedC poll is more accurate). I guess to me it seems unlikely that FF has dipped quite as low as the IT proposes and looking at the RedC poll there’s some interesting data in the figures.

The Red C poll also shows support for Fianna Fáil has increased by three points to 24% since the last Red C poll at the end of May. Fine Gael is down one to 33%; Labour gains one at 19%, while the Greens are up one to 5%.
Sinn Féin drop two points to 8% and Independents and others are also down two to 11%.

Firstly that FF increase. It seems to me very possible that simply by introducing the legislation for NAMA and the attendant publicity that FF would receive a fillip. But consider closely at both the SF and Independents vote share. SF drops 2% and the Independents do likewise. Again, it seems reasonable to posit that there is an element of the FF vote hiding out in the Independents figures. How much remains to be seen, but I’d think that over it would be sufficient to boost them up to the high twenties or even low thirties were an election called. And if the trend now already is upwards…

But let’s look on the bright side. Labour has clearly benefited enormously from the collapse of the FF vote, and even if FF recovers five or six percent it remains, when contrasted with their 2007 election results, a profound collapse. Some of us have argued that this might represent a decisive breach between some of those in the public sector who have traditionally voted FF and that party. It’s hard to work out where else the vote is coming from given that both FG and SF are bearing up in terms of retaining support. But wherever that’s a considerable increase on the figures for the LP in previous years and on an election day would see them return a significantly larger cohort of TDs.

One wonders is there any means for FF to entice them back into the fold. List the upcoming attractions of the next political season, implementation of NAMA, a Budget, implementation of McCarthy and it doesn’t seem likely.

And here is where there may be significant issues further down the line for FF. Because all of that is bad news. Bad bad news. And it could be that we see that 3% gain whittled away again. Two steps forward, two steps back, as it were.

I’ve no doubt the Green Party will be pleased, perhaps even relieved that they’ve registered a slight increase. But given that their vote seems to have sunk in Dublin but increased nationally that may provide no real comfort to their increasingly beleaguered parliamentary team. I’d bet that for once they’ll be inspecting the outcome of a referendum on the EU with much greater interest than usual in the hope they may glean some sense of voting patterns for the next GE. Not that that will offer much in the way of substance for them to consider.

For SF they appear to be still locked solidly into the 8 to 10% range. It seems to me unlikely that that will change between now and any future election. What will be crucial is how much of that vote pools into the vital constituencies that are necessary to deliver at least one or two new faces for them to the Oireachtas.

And Fine Gael? Still on track for victory. No real change there either. But, for all the super-heated talk of outright majorities, and yes those are the noises that are being made, hard to take away from this poll even a sniff of such an outcome. Indeed if anything the prospect of an LP/FF lash up, should the numbers fall right, and despite Eamon Gilmore’s declaration that he’d do no such thing (and is it not interesting how his words in the wake of Lisbon I have had seemingly little impact in the current contest?), seems slightly more possible. Particularly if FF did the decent thing and either got rid of, or better still, saw the present leadership incumbent not returned to the Dáil. But that’s not going to happen, not while the name Cowen retains its somewhat more than residual power in its original locality (remember, even in the depths of the local election somehow, somehow FF councillors were elected in numbers in that neck of the woods).

If Lisbon is defeated that would represent a body blow to the government, and as importantly Fianna Fáil. NAMA is, I’d bet, a sure run thing at this stage. We’ll see changes, but it’s going through. The Green Party conference on the revised Programme for Government… hmmm…. that could be where the trouble lies. And if that’s okay, and the GP sees fit to wave that through then the curious noises from Lenihan about not raising taxes at the next Budget (he will, of course, just he’ll eschew tackling the only ones that ever seems to really matter to the meeja – income tax and property tax) mean that they’re locked in solid for another year or so.