The Problem with Gambling March 10, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in media.trackback
Just before the southern election, Chris Donnelly at Sluggerotoole reminded us of a foolhardy bet that Eoghan Harris had made at the West Belfast Festival in 2007. He offered Jude Collins odds of 10/1 that Gerry Adams and co would take no seats in the next southern election. And in fairness to him, he has now paid up. If only there were some way of punishing all the stupid statements that come from the Sindo columnists in such a fashion. Maybe a swear box, except more of a right-wing inanity box.
In fairness to Harris (not words you will often see me say) the bet wasn’t quite as insane as it now appears. In 2007, SF were on a downward slide in the South. They had fared badly in the General Election, were about to lose their Southern MEP, were losing a constant flow of councillors to resignation and defection, and were looking fairly demoralised.
At the same time they were losing activists to the left and, in a separate stream, to the dissidents, while some of the more the career minded elements were dropping away too.
The meltdown in Fianna Fail’s support rather than anything they did themselves changed the situation. It lifted all boats amongst the opposition parties, from Fine Gael to the socialist left. If the economic collapse had been staved off for another two years, there’s every reason to think that SF could have been in real trouble in the South.
O’Snodaigh was widely perceived to be in real danger of losing his seat before the FF collapse. Morgan was heading towards retirement. Ferris was under some real pressure from Labour. The only SF seat which looked completely safe in another bad election was that of O’Caolain.
That’s the bit that stumps me. Well that and offering 10/1 odds. I don’t know how anyone could have thought it likely, even extrapolating the very real downward trend for SF which was apparent at the time into the future, that SF would fail to take a seat in Cavan-Monaghan.
The economy collapsing, and Fianna Fail rightly taking the blame, changed everything however.
That’s a very pessimistic reading Mark P.
I always felt, and I said it on here numerous times across the last four years, that that the SF slide was overstated. They retained four seats. It was clear that they were strong in both constituencies in Donegal. In 2009 they retained their number of Cllrs, though that dropped subsequently, but when compared to their Cllr. figures a mere ten years previously there was no comparison.
And having some communication with various members over that period while it was clear they took an awful knock in 07 by 08 and the arrival of Pearse Doherty there was a bit of a fillip.
Even without an FF melt-down, and an economic collapse that was delayed two years – though how that would have come about I cannot see given the actual circumstances behind it, I think they’d have held most of their TDs and gained two. So, not an astounding figure, but probably 6-8.
It’s absolutely a pessimistic reading, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable one. Your reading isn’t unreasonable either, mind you.
Remember that in 2007, the conventional mainstream wisdom was certainly not that there was an enormous economic crisis around the corner – that point of view was only really being pushed by the radical left and by a small minority of economists. In hindsight it seems obvious that there was serious trouble ahead but the conventional wisdom was complacent in the extreme.
SF were certainly going to be in the hunt in three of their four existing seats, plus the two Donegal seats, but the only one of them that was nailed down, even on another bad day, was Cavan-Monaghan. (I say three of the four, because without Adams or Morgan and with the Ceann Comhairle taking one of the seats, Louth could have been very problematic).
I’m not particularly picking on SF here, by the way. You could have equally reasonably extrapolated a one seat return for the socialist left in 2007, and that one seat only being very likely because of the additional seat in Dublin West. The economic crisis and subsequent collapse in the FF (and Green vote) changed everything for all of the opposition parties.
That said I agree with you entirely there was a band and SF could, like the nascent ULA, have pitched lower or higher.
One interesting thing is that in the 2009 to 10 period SF was averaging a consistent 8-9 per cent in the polls, both RedC and MRBI. If it had stayed on that rather than dipping slightly up we’d be seeing 7- 10 TDs returned rather than 14. But that was still better than 2007′s 6.5.
It’s incredibly frustrating that the ULA isn’t polled seperately so that we have a better read of its national support, but… Indos/Others did very well across the last two years, and for me the biggest straw in the wind was the exceptional showing of SP and PBP Cllrs in 2009. That seemed to show a definite up tick for the election.
Which thankfully came to pass.
It’s also worth saying that Sinn Fein were probably fortunate in the longer term to have done badly at the last General Election. A slightly better return for them and a worse one for the Greens was a very real possibility – a number of SF candidates were quite close to a seat and lost out, while a number of Greens took the last or second last seat.
The SF leadership were gagging to go into coalition before that election and if they had the fortunes of SF and the Greens could have been very different indeed.
Now, in fairness to them, post-economic collapse they played their cards very well. They initially supported the bank guarantee, which was in keeping with their long tack right during the preceding years, but after that they tacked left quite sharply. They were the only opponents of massive austerity in the Dail and they used that (and the Donegal court case and byelection) to position themselves as the main opposition to the consensus.
However, all of that is post collapse, taking advantage of an opportunity that fell into their laps. Their trajectory until that point was downwards.
Mark P: you say:
‘that there was an enormous economic crisis around the corner … was only really being pushed by the radical left and by a small minority of economists.’
Now it’s certainly true that there were economists, and not only (see The Property Pin for the evidence) who anticipated what was on the menu, but I don’t recall anything closely argued from the radical left. Can you point me towards something in particular?
FWIW my memory is that ‘the left’ were caught like rabbits in the headlights, and revealed a singular lack of grasp of what was unfolding (as has been discussed in other posts here recently).
Prettyinpink, your memory is failing you.
If anything, the problem with the socialist left was not that it failed to predict a major economic crisis but that it was predicting one for too damn long.
I can admit with no small degree of embarrassment that in 2007 I stood up at the Socialist Party conference and accused the majority of the organisation of catastrophism for ruling out the possibility of a “soft landing”. This does not speak well of my powers of prognostication!
Here’s what the Socialist Party was arguing in early to mid 2007:
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/2802
I would agree with a lot of that Mark. I did use foolhardy rather than insane for that reason – both falls and gains in seats were then possible, but a total wipeout was highly unlikely.
@ WBS, I think not polling ULA was justifiable pre election given the lack of oireachtas representation, but I will be interested to see the first post election opinion poll, hard to imagine them not having either ULA or SP and PBP
Yeah, that’s reasonable.
But I still argue it’s tricky. Breaking down that Indo/Others vote is impossible…
Well, for once the Curse of Eoghan Harris actually cost him some money, instead of just dragging his victims, er new found friends down only…
I do like the sound of an “right-wing inanity box”. I will try to introduce it to my office.