The Cedar Lounge Revolution

75TH ANNIVERSARY Spanish Anti-Fascist War 1936 / 1939 – JIM STRANNEY COMMEMORATION February 24, 2011

75TH ANNIVERSARY
Spanish Anti-Fascist War 1936 / 1939
JIM STRANNEY COMMEMORATION
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Friday 25 February 2011
International Brigade Commemoration Committee
Social / Table Quiz – Paddy Mackel
7.30pm ~ Copperfields Pub
11 – 13 Fountain Street, Belfast
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Saturday 26 February 2011
Teach na Failte
Unveiling of Plaque to Brigadista Jim Stranney
1.00pm ~ John Street, Belfast
Guest Speaker – John Quinn
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Saturday 26 February 2011
The Jim Stranney Memorial Lecture
2.00pm – The National Club, 17 – 19 Queen Street, Belfast
Guest Speaker – John Grey
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For more details contact
Ciaran Crossey
irelandscw@yahoo.co.uk or 07759393607

Enough already, the final poll of the campaign – one hopes… February 23, 2011

It’s too close to election day to really do more than note the fact the Red C poll today was released. God knows, I’m not going to trawl through the entrails of the following…

…the last Red C poll of the campaign, for Paddy Power, shows support for Fianna Fáil down 1% to 16%, Fine Gael up 1% to 40%, Labour up 1% to 18%, the Greens up 1% to 3%, Sinn Féin down 2% to 10%, and Independents and others unchanged at 14%.

Is this the most over polled election ever? And if it is what has that added to our knowledge of the election and its dynamics? It doesn’t seem likely.

Actually reading this I went checking:

Reacting to the final poll of the General Election, Mr Kenny said trends in polls are important but the real poll is on Friday.

Mr Kenny said it was the first time he could recall that Fine Gael had been at that level.

I don’t know about newspaper polls, but the closest FG has got to 40% was 1982 where with 39.2 % of the vote it had 70 seats. Top that Kenny!

The view from the ground? February 23, 2011

It would be interesting to get a sense of what people are hearing on the ground as regards local contests from across the state, particularly from a left perspective. Who is in contention? Whose star is fading? How are the bigger formations doing and how are the smaller formations? Any thoughts?

No respite… another bloody poll… February 23, 2011

This is getting just a little ridiculous. I can’t even be pushed to check the latest figures from the Irish Independent MillwardBrown Lansdowne poll against others this week. It’s all turning into a blur… Fine Gael doing monstrously well all things considered. Fianna Fáil knocking along in the same old band somewhere in the mid-teens. The Labour Party maybe just below, maybe just above, 20 per cent. Sinn Féin 10 per cent or so, a bit higher, perhaps, a bit lower, perhaps. The Green Party kept on tenterhooks. Will they return with none, one or two seats. It won’t be higher than that.

Last nights debate, the Irish Times almost damns with faint praise – Kenny under pressure, Kenny ‘doing enough’. But the debate isn’t a gamechanger, and none of them have been so far. That’s sort of the outcome when you have three men who have some policy differences, but less than one would imagine.

And that MB/Lansdowne poll?

Irish Independent MillwardBrownLansdowne poll: FF 14 -2 FG 38 +1 Lab 20= GP 1= SF 11 -1 Ind 16 +2

Ah yes. More or less aligning precisely with that pattern just mentioned. Though look how well the Indo’s are doing. This would suggest somewhere above 12 per cent even accounting for a fall off. Think back to 2002. 9.5% of the FPv gave them 13 seats. More this time, or so it would appear.

Although I had to smile a little at Michael Marsh’s analysis of the IT poll this week:

Fianna Fáil remains in the doldrums, Sinn Féin has little hope of a major breakthrough this time and Independents are remarkably popular.

And he then continued:

Fianna Fáil’s 16 per cent would be its lowest figure to date, Labour at 19 per cent could equal its Spring tide of 1992, 11 per cent for Sinn Féin would be that party’s best performance in its current incarnation, while 14 per cent for Independents would arguably constitute the biggest non-party vote yet. At 37 per cent, Fine Gael is only matching its second-best figure, achieved in 1981, but, with the wind apparently behind it, the 39 per cent of the vote won by Garret FitzGerald in 1982 is well within reach.

And then by his own projections SF would return over double their current cohort:

On this basis, and taking yesterday’s poll as the basis for estimating votes next Friday, our analysis is that Fine Gael will win 72 seats, Labour 35, Fianna Fáil 26, Sinn Féin 11, Greens two and others 19.

I’d be fascinated if he could point to another party which managed the feat of doubling their numbers to above 10 TDs in recent Irish political history. Which is not to say that 11 seats is remarkable, stunning and beyond belief, but rather that there’s a remarkable unreality to discussions about politics in this state even at the best of times. I noted here some time ago that in reality massive seat gains are very much the exception than the rule in Irish politics in the South.

So if SF does reach 11 seats that will be no small achievement, and might put paid to the talk of their inevitable decline that seemed to be all the rage a year or two back (and by the by there must be more than one overly jumpy former SF pol who jumped ship then who might be wondering precisely why they did so given the current context).

But it’s been long said around here that if SF gets 7 seats, sufficient to form their own group with all the not inconsiderable benefits that brings in terms of Dáil exposure then they will be content, if not exactly ecstatic. And anything over that is a bonus.

And something of the same can be said of Labour. Did anyone seriously think when there was a poll last year showing the LP getting a near-mid 30s per cent that that would last, that that would solidify? Sure, disappointing for them that it has fallen perhaps twelve or thirteen per cent, but that was the most floating of floating votes, and never likely to remain extant once Fine Gael weighed in more heavily.

And if the Labour Party gets a figure higher than their 1992 Spring Tide, then it is only circumstance that makes that seem less impressive than it might otherwise, a circumstance which has Fine Gael polling so very strongly. Indeed there’s an argument that for Labour to still be in the high teens and tipping twenty per cent is in and of itself an historic achievement and now, now, the trick will be to retain that support. Though given that they’re heading for coalition with Fine Gael that might be…erm… difficult.

The thought strikes that Labour might well have acted as a conveyer belt normalising former FF voters to the idea of not voting for their old party, and then feeding them on to Fine Gael. Not a huge amount, but sufficient. And added to that would be those who liked the cut of Kenny’s jib in the wake of the heave against him. And my God, if it weren’t for the fact that some of the coup members are still in outer darkness, sort of kind of, one would almost think the whole thing was a ploy to make him look good. The Kenny coup seems to me, more than talk of policy, or Gilmore for Taoiseach or whatever, to be the point that the luck began to break for Fine Gael. That was the point where he gained much needed credibility. Truly he is having the penultimate laugh.

But anyway, all the current hyperbole as regards all the parties will seem quite – well, hyperbolic, in a week or two’s time. As will the polls.

Speaking of which, here’s the average of Michael Marsh, Dotski’s and Adrian Kavanagh’s last seat predictions [Marsh was working off the IT poll]. Make of it what you will…

Oh yeah, and for those of you who’re already missing your fix between the start of this post and the next poll, there’s meant to be a final Red C poll on RTÉ radio this morning…