No fair! A RedC poll taken before the Mahon Report… March 24, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
As noted by Tomboktu this evening (I was sure the SBP said next week, but okay, if this week it is this week it is), and I’ve been away from the computer all day, so this came as a bit of a surprise.
Does this one count given the impact of Mahon? And yet, and yet, some interesting stats squirreled away there.
Elsewhere, the poll shows an increase in support for Fine Gael by four points up to 34%. Labour at 15% is down one, as is Fianna Fáil at 16%. Sinn Féin are unchanged at 18% and retain their place as the second-largest party in the country currently. Independents and others have dropped two points to 17%.
Bar FG it’s all margin of error stuff, more or less, though Indo’s down 2%? What does that tell us – particularly in the context of a strong aversion to the Household Tax on the part of householders? But FG up? Any suggestions as to why that would be?
And any thoughts about how Mahon will have changed the figures on display there?
Tomboktu links to Dotski’s outline of possible seat numbers off the back of this. And quite a read it is too.
FG: 67
Lab: 29
SF: 27
FF: 19
ULA: 4
Oth: 20
GP: 0
Of course the likelihood of an election any time soon is minimal, but on foot of these poll figures, and those projections it looks like FG is by far best placed for government formation. More on all this during the week.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
I am surprised that the Fine Gael vote is not up by more. The centre right vote is concentrating around one party, Fine Gael.
I would expect Fine Gael to be over 40% in the next poll. We are moving towards a continental structure with a dominant centre right party holding 35-40% of the vote, a public sector dominated centre-left party holding 15-20% with a variety of other parties holding from 5-15%. There is the genesis of a right wing around Eton old boy Shane Ross, Stephen Donnelly. We have the possibilities of a loose far left organisation around the dispiriting strands of Trotskyism. The Greens will return in some form. We will of course unfortunately be left with some “characters” such as Ming Flanagan.
As in Germany where the Frau Dr. will choose her next partner between the SPD or the Greens, there is a clear move to the centre right throughout Europe with as salaried workers see their interests best protected by the centre right.
The only dominant centre-left party left in Western Europe is the Norwegian Labour Party and I presume it will remain so until the people get tired of living in boring luxury.
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Given that FF will linger on, zombie-like for a few more years (or maybe even a few more decades), a certain fraction of the centre-right vote will continue to go to them – preventing FG from making it past the 40% barrier.
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@ DR X – I am not so sure. The problem for parties such as Fianna Fáil is that without the chance of power they are nothing. A few more consistently low poll results, particularly as we get closer to the 2014 elections, will have a lot of FF Public reps ready to jump ship, just as happened in Dublin at the last local elections (FF “independents” such as Niall Ring arose from the slime.) There are still very large numbers of FF councillors on all of the main county councils. Watch them.
Remember on this type of result a lot of sitting FF Councillors will lose their seats in 2014. Their results outside of Dublin were not as bad as the complete collapse in the 4 metropolitan councils.
Lord Ross and friends may put together a property owners’ Party and clearly Mc Guinness from Carlow Kilkenny would fit in perfectly.
If I was in FG now, I would be looking to lure Dara Callery away, even if I had to give a decent job. The departure of even one of the younger deputies surely would be another nail in the coffin.
Any serious rise in support for Sinn Féin or the many different brands of Trotskyism can only encourage the centre right to cling to the one true option left, Fine Gael.
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Well, maybe, but let’s look at the example of New Zealand. The main party of government and of the right is the National Party, and it’s a nasty piece of work. To it’s right is the so-called ACT Party (Association of Citizens and Taxpayers) on whom it depends for backup in parliament. ACT are seriously bad guys – like the PDs, but worse. The NP also relies on the Maori Party, which was intended to represent the whole Maori party, but which has suffered a left-wing split in the form of the Mana party. Those who favour social conservatism but not neoliberal economics have the choice of New Zealand First, led by the somewhat strange Winston Peters. So it looks to me like a polity (and NZ and RoI have roughly similar populations) can support several different kinds of right-wing party.
Sure for some younger FF crossing the line to the blueshirts might be attractive (though somehow I can’t see them overcoming the old enmities enough for that) but there’ll still be a niche for the particular strain of rightist politics they now represent, especially if it comes with a remnant of the old populism. Without the old hegemony it won’t be anything like what it used to be, but a zombie FF could still, if it can provide even the most meagre political niche might linger on for a long time, like I said above. One model might be Labour between the 30s and 60s – essentially a flag of convenience for independent candidates (like Dick Spring’s da, if memory serves).
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The models you both propose are very plausible to my mind, and it would take only minor shifts to arrive at either and very depressing by the way.
That’s interesting re ACT Dr. X. Aren’t they kind of libertarian in the worst sense of the term as well?
Re Niall Ring, Niall, interesting too you should mention him. He just put out a leaflet that’s gone down very badly round where I live with instructions on how to sign up for the Household Tax. After some mildly oppositional noises in his first couple of years on the Council he’s clearly reverted to type.
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Libertarian in the worst sense, yes. Interestingly enough, I came across a NZ libertarian magazine called Free Radical when I was down there – a lot of it seemed to be recycled Cold War anti-communism.
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Wasn’t it Ring who draped a banner from his office on Ballybough Road with the legend “Ballybough Loves Bertie”?
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There have always been tensions in ACT between “principled” libertarians on one hand, and “law and order” nutters and McCarthyist conspiracy theorists on the other. The current sole ACT MP, John Banks, is a former National Party Mayor of Auckland of deeply conservative/homophobic views and signifies the triumph of the latter tendencies.
The “Free Radical” is the publication of Lindsay Perigo, former TV journalist and dogmatic Ayn Rand supporter. For a long time, one of its regular contributors was Trevor Loudon, former ACT vice-president and hard-core McCarthyist, who got his start harrassing owners of Ladas in the 1980s and more recently ran a blog “outing” communists and communist sympathisers and fantasising that because a Labour Party cabinet minister was in the CP in 1981 the “long march through the institutions” had succeeded. More recently, Uncle Trev (as those on the Left call him) has parlayed this approach into a career in the United States among the Fox News/Birther crowd, pushing the “Obama = Chinese Communist sleeper agent” message. You can find his latest efforts by googling “KeyWiki”.
(Statement of interest: Trevor did a blog post on me once but couldn’t find any dirt apart from the stuff I proudly published myself.)
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That’s very interesting.
The hollowing out of the power and democratic legitimacy of the nation state during the current crisis seems to have emboldened explicit libertarian currents.
Interestingly, I only detect standard-issue libertarianism in Anglophone countries, and Ireland does seem to be an exception.
Counter-examples?
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Nial Ring did’nt jump ship because of the difficulties FF faced but rather because Cowen & Coughlan who held the “interviews” refused to give him a nomination. His position on the Household Tax and his direct attack on the campaign last Friday and his attempt to influence people has backfired hugely. Quite a few people who I would view as his voters are incensed by his actions.
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RE: Dotski’s figures. He expects
FG to get 40% of seats from 34% first prefs. (as opposed to 46% from 36% in ge)
Labour to get 17.5% of seats from 15% first prefs. (as opposed to 22% from 20% in ge)
FF to get 11% of seats from 16% first prefs (as opposed to 12% from 17.5% in ge)
SF to get 16% of seats from 18% first prefs. (as opposed to 8.4% from 9.9% in ge)
Independents to get 12% of seats from 13% of first prefs. (as opposed to 8.4% from 12% in ge)
Is Dotski expecting FG transfers to dip a bit, Labour transfers to hold steady, FF to remain in a similar rate of disorganization and SF to remain transfer-toxic(moreso than ge2011), and for Independents to fix up to nearly achieve vote-seat parity? Of course, his is an excellent database built up over a long period that takes into account local factors better than I ever could.
For a laugh tho.. in an election in 2012 based on this poll I would be expecting
FG – consolidate amount of candidates, be losing a lot of seats and to lose transfers(so down 2% relative to their first prefs) – 53 seats
LP – Again the effect of losing a lot of seats will be a similar jolt of 2% down from their first pref figure – 22 seats
FF – Similar transfer toxicity but stabilizing vote-seat ratio from last year’s earthquake. Stable at best, but any regroupment to still be enough to bring in a few more seats – 23
SF – Serious momentum and most existing candidates topping their constituencies. Losing their famed transfer-toxicity and experiencing a relative bump maybe similar to Labour’s 2% last year. The longer the gov lasts, the longer SF have to expand their organizational base, the better they will do. – 33 seats
ULA – Can benefit big-time from SF transfers(who will be spread too thin to run second candidates in many areas). Organizational capacity and still esoteric policies(and maybe a ‘squeeze’) will limit to at best 1 percent bump relative to first prefs. – 7 seats
GP – Got 1.8 percent last time out and 0 percent of seats from that. Organizational capacity and toxicity will be biggest issues as well as liberal middle class consolidating around Labour. Expecting 2 to 3 seats.
Others/Independents – Usually terrible correlation between first prefs and eventual seat count due to sheer amount of go-nowhere independent candidates. Perhaps 2nd election of ‘independents’ will go some way to addressing that. 20 percent in the polls and 26 seats? I think about 10 of those seats would be urban, rightwing voters who would have voted FG before that will be looking for somewhere new and that might explain the tightening up there. 5 or so out of that 10 could just stick with FG. The lack of a new right group/competitor is only thing keeping FG above 30% in polls for the minute. However, that hard-right demographic will slowly shrink as recession goes on.
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Julian, who are the 2 to 3 Green candidates you expect to take seats? There’s one Green I think has any chance, and it’s not much of a chance, and that’s Mark Dearey in Louth. An even more remote possibility is Malcolm Noonan in Kilkenny. Although his latest statement lashing out at the Campaign Against the Household Tax seems to be ill-judged. All of the Green ‘names’ are forever tarnished by the record of the Green’s involvement in the last government. Eamo himself hasn’t a chance of even a sniff at a Dáil seat, end of story. His political career is over, but he doesn’t seem to realise it yet, and I think media organisations are being cruel by continually inviting him on to panels, thereby giving him false hope. His performance, for instance, on Vincent Brown last week betrayed a man lost and desolate trying to flog minor legislative ‘victories’ as mitigation for epoch defining policy disasters. There’s a very, very long and painful road back, and ‘back’ might mean a handful of council seats in 2019, for the Green Party and I doubt they have the stomach for it.
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Interestingly, Realo Greens are doing badly accross Europe, including in Germany. (See Saarland result below).
An obsessive and anti-nuclear position will only get you so far in a prolonged crisis of capitalism. Especially if you have no realistic plan for replacing the power generating capacity lost, apart from burning brown coal and quietly importing nuclear energy from the neighbours.
The wages of ditching their left wings, if you ask me.
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Exactly, the Greens need to go Left to recover any traction. But they’ve been overtaken by events and there’s no left territory to move into. I think here the current Green Party will bear the mark of cain for generations.
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The vote in Saarland (CDU 35%, SDP 30% Linke 16% Piraten 7% Greens nearly knocked out at 5%) and the alacrity with which those who continue to call themselves social democrats want to join with the CDU is a signal for what is to come on the national level in Germany and in Europe as a whole.
Namely debt deflation, further social stratification, poverty , prolongation of the Great Recession and political break-up.
All in the name of ‘stability’, don’t you know.
And according to the soi-disant SDP, it’s all Oscar Lafontaine’s fault for refusing to play the game of ‘serious people’. Not cutting and continuing to cut has been made unconstitutional in the Bundesrepublik. Constitutions can’t be altered, don’t you know.
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SDP <- SPD I always forget that the S stands for 'Sozialdemokratische'.
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You seem to be very well informed about German politics. Do you think an SDP led government would ease up on the austerity or would there be no discernible difference between Merkel and a putative SPD successor. I ask because I think some Labour people are quietly hoping that Holland in France and the SPD in Germany will cut some slack on austerity and offer a lifeline to Labour here….
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My impression is that the SPD already thinks of itself as the junior partner in a ‘grand coalition’ with the CDU/CSU. It already is in Berlin and Saarland.
Which attitude is of course self-limiting, because as someone said “you don’t go to a football match when it doesn’t matter who wins” – in other words their voters will stay away.
One of the major thrusts of German politics by ‘serious people’ currently is to ensure that no more coalitions with the genuine social democrats of die Linke occur, and I have to say that they are doing pretty well at that.
I think the Labour supporters hopes will be dashed as far as the SPD in Germany leading a significant change in policy, because they are blinkered by the same Ordoliberalism that is shared, incidentaly by the by now ‘professional’ politicians in die Grünen. But the counter-productive results of further Austerianism may be more apparent to them, especially if Hollande wins in France.
Whether this will lead to a appreciable change in policy is doubtful, IMO. ‘There is no alternative’ that isn’t a radical alternative.
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In my experience the capacity of the Irish and British Labour parties to fool themselves is pretty much bottomless.
The reason why they are very likely to be disillusioned (or more likely move on to another illusion) is contained in this paper on Ordoliberalism, a faith-based approach to economics which is pretty much universaly held in CDU/SPD/Green circles.
I recommend it if you want to understand where the German ruling class is coming from.
The long shadow of Ordoliberalism – Germany’s approach to the euro crisis.
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Thank you Cadre again. That looks like a good piece. “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”
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@ Julian With lots of candidates standing, Fine Gael will get a very serious premium of seats. For example 1.4 quotas (30% of the vote) in a four seater constituency should give them two seats, with good vote management, unless there are at least three very strong candidates running against them. If they reach 40%, they will in all probability have an overall majority. if Labour candidates fall at some early hurdles, so much better. There will be a reasonable trickle of transfers to Fine Gael.
In relation to Sinn Féin, they will continue to have transfer problems. They are also in a honeymoon time with large sections of the media. They will shortly have their “Bertie” moment when the Boston College papers are released. Bertie never sent an armed gang of thugs out to torture and murder a young widow with a large family. I wonder what the atitude of a mother of a young family like say Mary Lou McDonald will be? She was quick enough to show an tUas ÓSnodaigh what’swhat over ink cartridges. It will be interesting to see what she does to Gerry about lead ones into an innocent widow.
The key for the Labour Party is public sector workers. To date Croke Park has held up.
Regarding the Trots, I cannot see them picking up any seats from SF transfers. Look at Dublin West. Trots do well, Sinn Féin weak. Is there anywhere they are both strong??
@ Epopped You are completely correct. The CDU Panzer Divisions of Field Marshal Merkel won another stunning tactical victory yesterday. The Frau Dr. has shown how to rule and to hold on to power with less than 40% of the vote. She is now so strong that she can usurp some of the SPD policies such as a minimum wage. Germany with Sweden & Denmark has the highest employment rate in the EU. She can slowly dump the FDP and move slightly towards the centre for domination.
@ Dr X. New Zealand is a bit far away for me. I will stick to Europe! However there is another Merkel lookalike worth looking at, Jens Stoltenberg, the leader of the Norwegian Labour Party. He is busily weakening those parties on one wing while dividing the centre right. Again he has less than 40%, but ruthlessly holds on to power.
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“They will shortly have their “Bertie” moment when the Boston College papers are released”
Are they going to be released? My understanding was that the attempt to break the embargo had been beaten back.
And I’m not sure it would make any difference to the rise of SF. Mrs. McConville has been a household name for years, as the evil perpetrated against her has been repeatedly aired in the southern media. Yet that has made no difference, so far, to the slow emergence of SF as a major party.
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@ Mr X They will be released, the current delays are only stalling the final release to NI authorities. In the Boston College papers you have (allegedly) two former IRA comrades of Gerry (I was never IRA CofS) Adams actually confirming his involvement in the murder of this poor woman. The media never had such information, to date it has been innuendo and surmise, not actual statements of IRA contemporaries.
You have to be over fifty to remember all of the planning corruption. It is ironic that there is a public park in Tallaght named after one of the worst, Mr. Walsh. Can you name Raphael Burke’s bagman from Malahide, the councillor who enforced the planning amendments when Mr. Burke wasn’t even on the county council? Yet it is coming back to haunt Fianna Fáil many decades later..
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“In the Boston College papers you have (allegedly) two former IRA comrades of Gerry (I was never IRA CofS) Adams actually confirming his involvement in the murder of this poor woman. The media never had such information, to date it has been innuendo and surmise, not actual statements of IRA contemporaries.”
I’m not sure how big a difference the BC transcripts will make for Sinn Fein – the first time, as far as I can recall, that Adams was held directly responsible for the killing of Jean McConville was in Ed Moloney’s book on the Provos, which was based on what Brendan Hughes had told him; Moloney then repeated the same allegation in ‘Voices from the Grave’, this time with Hughes speaking on the record (albeit posthumously). So far as we can gather from what has been said about the BC archive, if the material is handed over, we will then have the full transcript of the interviews with Brendan Hughes, along with Dolores Price making the same charge against Adams.
So what difference will this make for SF, and Adams in particular? Well, for one thing it would be staggering if the transcripts held up in court as evidence (any defence lawyer would have an obvious line of attack: these are not sworn witness statements, they were given in the understanding that they would not be released until after the interview subjects had died, Hughes is already dead and can’t be cross-examined, Price has mental health issues, etc.) I can’t see any prosecution against Adams going very far, unless there is supplementary evidence to give it more legs.
What about the court of public opinion? I think it’s safe to say that nobody believes Adams when he claims never to have been a member of the IRA – I can’t imagine that any of the people supporting SF in the polls are any more trusting in this respect than the rest of the population. The details of the McConville murder have been discussed at length by journalists and politicians in the South for at least a decade now, and as I’ve said already the allegation that Adams was personally responsible has also been well-ventilated. Presumably if / when the BC transcripts are handed over, he and SF will take a similar line to what they would say in court – that it’s all hearsay, baseless allegations coming from people who have a grudge against Adams and want to throw mud at him. Will that work for them? Well it’s worked so far, so you wouldn’t bet against it working again.
This is all, I should say, independent of whether or not you believe Adams SHOULD be damaged by the BC transcripts, or whether or not you believe he was directly responsible for McConville’s murder.
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I suggest circumspection in relation to naming anyone not named in the Mahon report on this blog.
The libel laws are just as repressive and stacked in favour of the rich as they always were; the legal vultures are no doubt circling; and WBS can’t afford it.
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With this report we now should know the guilty. With what we know of the banksters, as well, a list should be drawn up of those whose actions have destroyed our country.These interconnected elites have brought us down. We dealt with the landlord class with a boycott and we should do the same with these people.
Treat them with contempt.
Refuse to serve them or at least if in fear of losing a job, leave them to the end or refuse to see them.The Dunnes stores heroes set an example over apartheid, let us copy them.
The law will not do anything except a token thing at most.
You could add up everything stolen or what was attempted to steal of all those in jail and t would amount to little compared to that squandered by these people.
While legally we cannot withdraw citizenship, we should do it in our own way.
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Jim, how long would that list be? Any examples of people you’d include?
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We could start with the people named in the Mahon report. Cowan, the Petain of our country. Alas, Lenihan has escaped a people’s court.
Fitzpatrick and Fingleton could take the lead for the bankers.
I would add the speculators in the NAMA list as well.
All in all, I would guess that the major people are less than 200. I do not care if they broke laws. the laws were created by them anyway. They are responsible for the mess and should not be allowed to walk away.The rest were just minnows.
We never really had an industrial bourgeoisie. We have the parasites of our imperialist rulers. The term is comprador bourgeoisie.
I am nauseated at the reaction in Mayo by some to Flynn. ” Sure look what he did for Castlebar” and other such nonsense. There is still a Bertie fan club.When the peoples money is used for public works, pensions etc. , It should be seen as the peoples money not the patronage of a politician.
We should show our disaproval with this. And when the current mob show up to open something, we should make it clear that we thank the people and not the minister for what has been done.Let us end clientilism and its corrupting influence.
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Okay here’s a relatively brief list of people I’d consider to have a significant portion of responsibility for our current situation. Who would you add?
Brian Lenihan
Bertie Ahern
Charlie McCreevy
Michael McDowell
Mary Harney
John Bruton
Ruairi Quinn
Lar Bradshaw
Seanie Fitzpatrick
Sean Quinn
Brian Cowen
Patrick Neary
John Gormley
Michael Fingelton
PJ Mara
Michael Lowry
David Drumm
Peter Fitzpatrick
Willie McAteer
Denis O’Brien
Anthony O’Reilly
Gavin O’Reilly
Tom Parlon
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David Begg
Jack O’Connor
Bill Attlee
Peter McLoone
Eamon Ryan
Geraldine Kennedy
Vincent Doyle
Olivia O’Leary
Stephen Collins
David McWilliams
Moore McDowell
Sean Barrett
Colm McCarthy
Every political correspondent for the main broadsheets and RTE, over the past forty years with the possible exception of Dick Walsh but there could be others who merit an honourable exception
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Mary Holland? Not that I properly appreciated her work on the North while she was still going.
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David Mc Williams?
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Very funny, HAL.
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Yes. A classic example of someone who wants to face both ways. He loves been an insider (calling out to Lenihan’s gaff to advise him about the banking bailouts) but then likes to trade on his ‘outsider’ status to flog his books. He makes his millions working for high finance and then makes another small fortune celebrating the excesses of capitalism and then, when crisis hits, keeps his revenue streams flowing with diagnoses of ‘what’s gone wrong’. The only consistent thing about him is that he keeps making money and maintains his status and position. Something he shares with all of those on the two lists above.
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He’s also a plagiarist.
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Spooky. No sooner had I read that than he popped up on the Who To Follow section in my Twitter account.
(I didn’t.)
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Olivia O’Leary. Please explain.
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She thinks ‘we need Fianna Fail’ even after all of the tribunals, NAMA, the bank bailouts, the destruction of the economy, the re-emergence of mass emigration and the arrival of the trioka; after all that she still believes we need the Fianna Fail party.
Like McWilliams she palpably enjoys being an insider while reserving for herself the right to pose as an outsider. A reliable pillar of the establishment.
She epitomises, for me, the cadre of political correspondents who have been left bereft by the demise of FF and the radial re-altering of Irish party politics in 2011. She exudes dread at the prospect of a rising SF and disgust at the prospect of the real Left making gains.
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Well, Jim, I’m actually from Castlebar, and the next time I’m talking to home I’ll ask about current perceptions of PF. Probably there are some gobshites who think that he did a lot for the town. What really made that place was the construction of the new road, which really did revitalise the town’s economy (at least that’s how I remember it).
Anyway, the gobshites are thinking in the same mode as the people who defended his daughter – “them people in Dublin are attacking our local woman/man”.
The entrenchment of patrimonial behaviour in the political culture is probably too great to be rooted out (barring a really serious crisis). It’s been like this for the best part of a century.
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Agreed, I come from Kells. Gobshites live there too.
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In defence of Kells, we had about 80 people at the public meeting of the CAHWT at the start fo February, which was a great meeting, defiant atmosphere. Even the brother of local gombeen Minister Shane McEntee loudly voiced his intention to boycott the charge. So all is not lost in Kells!!
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2.56% for the ULA -4 seats. Real gguess work on Dots part but that strikes as about right.
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Hard to see RBB’s seat being held with the ceann comhairle there and it being a four seater going down to three seater, so that sounds right to me too.
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@WbS The next election will be fought on very different constituencies. Dún Laoire is unlikely to be in its current format because of population movements. North Dublin also looks like it will need complete restructuring with a likely reduction in the numbers of constituencies. For example Dublin NW could be amalgamated with Dublin Central with a bit of both going to a restructured Dublin NC, using Ballymun Rd, Mobhi Rd Botanic Rd as the border, rather than Drumcondra/Swords Rds.
Detailed figures by constituency should be available very shortly.
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