And a poll, at last… September 15, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics.trackback
Oh we’ll pick over this one during the week, but the Sunday Times has the following figures:
Fine Gael 31% (-2), Sinn Féin 18% (+1), Fianna Fáil 16% (NC), Labour 14% (NC), Independents 19% (NC) (any news clearly being good news given the events of the last month) and the GP at 2% (I’m trying to recall whether RedC counts GP in with Indos, in which case that would be an overall Indo/Other of 21%).
Satisfaction with the government is 24% (-7).
Very interesting stats on abortion. 80% would support a change in in law to allow abortion ‘where the life of a mother was at risk), 14% would not, 6% undecided.
Which is not actually a change in the law, of course.
Arggh… you’re right. My misreading. The dangers of posting late at night. It says it all, doesn’ it?
what would those results translate into were an election called seat wise?
Great question. Irish Political Reform usually has a projection and dotski too.
The figures are not a million miles away from those in June where Adrian Kavanagh applied the following (using the new constituencies). http://politicalreform.ie/2012/06/25/changing-support-trends-and-changing-electoral-boundaries-analysis-of-the-sunday-business-post-red-c-poll-24th-june-2012/
Fine Gael 32% (+2%), Labour 15% (NC), Fianna Fail 16% (NC), Sinn Fein 16% (down 3%), Green Party, Independents and Others 19% (up 1%).
To come up with the following.
Fine Gael 67, Labour 21, Fianna Fail 27, Sinn Fein 21, Green Party, Independents and Others 22
So with the roughest of rough rules of thumb, perhaps a few less FG, a few less LP (gulp – sub 20 would be very bad for them), SF higher, others perhaps a bit higher than 22.
An enormous caveat. That was a RedC poll as against the ST one IIRC.
Considering that Labour won 37 seats off 19% of the vote and FF 20 off 17% in the last election are those predictions not a bit off. He seems to be saying FF will gain seven seats if they go down 1% which seems kind of counter-intuitive.
Probably a few factors there. Firstly that FF will probably be a bit, but perhaps not much, less transfer toxic. Also, in a number of constituencies, they had the vote for a TD, but lost out becuase of running 2. EG Cork East, Cork SW, Sligo Leitrim. without an increase in their vote they would take a seat in those contituencies. But in any case, I dont know if any projection has been made with new constituencies, so its hard to guage, and any increases in seats will naturally be a bit more modest because of a 6 seat reduction
More to the point, Labour and FG will be more transfer-toxic next time round (shades of the Greens).
Disastrous for FF, given they did a lot of the running over the summer, and SF have imo been underperforming a bit since referendum.
I’d agree with you wholeheartedly on that reading.
Very different from the Red C one for us last week. We were between 22 and 26%. Headwrecking stuff this. I find this one rather more plausible even though they seemingly don’t count likelihood to vote.
Are Labour now actually banking on the working class being too demoralized by the cuts to come out and vote for Labour’s competitors?
from the Examiner on Friday – http://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/shaun-connolly/think-ins-left-us-wondering-about-whats-really-going-on-207709.html
As another Labour figure put it to me: “Yeah, on current form we’ll probably lose half our seats, but Fine Gael will come in with around 70 next time, so they will still need us — unless Fianna Fáil are absolutely desperate — so it looks like we’re here for 10 years whatever happens,
that’s good.
That sounds like Labour have happened across Zeno’s dichotomy paradox and gleaned from it that, even if they lose half their seats in every future election, they will never hit a point where they have no Dáil presence. Must be heartening for them.
This time last year Fine Gael were up to 40-odd percent in the polls. The first poll of the season is usually kinder than the last poll of the previous after the summer lull. It’s all downhill from here and the disgustingly manipulative management of the timing of referendums won’t distract from the savagery they’ll be implementing otherwise. If they try to take the bumped up household/water taxes directly from PAYE workers’ wages that could see FG suffering a FF-style wipe out as well as Labour.
13 billion euro in cuts to balance the books and another 6 billion to reach sufficient levels of budgetary surplus at a rate of 3-4billion cuts per annum. It’s hard to imagine Labour getting through this period without being permanently reduced to single-digit support levels and losing the unions(or atleast a split in union-support). Fine Gael will just be doing what they promised to do and will retreat back to the low20s until the next time Irish capitalism needs resuscitation. And then we’ll get a good look at FF2.0 aka MacDonald, Doherty & co..
I have no issue with people having a pop at SF, god knows, I do have my criticisms myself, but I really do think that deciding that SF is ‘FF2.0′ is utterly unenlightening, and frankly lazy.
That’s not to say that that we are above criticism, and that there are not charges that can be levelled against us from the left. But I think it’s clear to anyone who cares to pay attention that SF is a rather different animal politically, culturally, and functionally than FF, whether good, bad or indifferent.
I think in fairness what people have in mind when they talk about ‘FF 2.0′ is not the FF of the last 20 years or so, but the old-school FF of the 20s and 30s – catch-all, populist, trying to be all things to all people, able to put across a radical face when necessary, containing some people who were genuinely pretty radical, but lacking a solid radical core. Which I think is a fairly accurate description of SF today.
BTW I don’t normally like using the word ‘populist’, normally it’s just a term of abuse for anything to the left of Blairism (Chavez, Morales, SYRIZA all damned as ‘populist’). But I think it’s unavoidable with SF, given their tendency to go with the flow and avoid unpopular stands – how else can we explain Gildernew’s comments about the poor, downtrodden Quinn family? There’s nothing wrong with pitching your message differently when you’re addressing different social constituencies. But it’s a different thing entirely when you’re saying things to people that are mutually exclusive and contradictory.
Pragmatic might be a better description and ties in with the FF2.0 concerns/scepticism.
Look to the North and see SF for what it is. It is still trying to look populist and at times makes sense i.e Gerry Kelly and the recent sectarian violence in North Belfast. But there is a worrying aspect. Yes Gildernew, but O’Dowd closing schools and Molloy on National Parks. Meanwhile with the DUP they administer the Tory cuts agenda, at the same time disapproving of it. They supported the Same Sex marriage lobby in Enniskillen last week and walked out of council to join Frankie Dean and the lobbyists. Hmmmm. So what are they really about? I don’t think this is careerism at work but a party that has at its heart Irish unification, independence and yes a new republic and indeed a real sentiment for the disadvantaged but with the rich backers aka Quinn always in mind. FF 1920s a good comparison, the Catholic Church 1820s a possible other. I would also argue that the relationship between their activist base and their leadership reflects other Social Democratic parties such as Labour. The members at the bottom don’t like sometimes what those at the top decide to embrace e.g the bailing out of the banks. So yes FF nua and even Labour nua.
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