for lefties too stubborn to quit
Not sure what days it was taken (before or after the Social Democrats Launch) but bad news for FF, SF and Labour.
Fine Gael 24% (NC),
Fianna Fail 18% (down 3%),
Sinn Fein 17% (down 2%),
Labour Party 8% (down 1%).
Independents and Others 32% (up 4%)
So an FF, FG government?
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The Cedar Lounge Revolution
Conducted between the 4th and 14th of July IEL. The data pack is linked below, page 46 gives us a good clue that B&A’s FF numbers last time were almost certainly random sample error.
Click to access Sunday-Times-Poll-18th-July-2015.pdf
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Thanks Liberius. Interesting point. That Ind/Other cohort is vast, isn’t it?
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So a FG/FF lash-up would only scrape in on these figures? That’ll give them both pause for thought.
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Wow, that’s true. They’d need an others, and an FG minority government supported by FF would look pretty fragile. Granted RENUA, etc are waiting in the wings, but they’d need good numbers apiece to make up ground significantly.
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The AAA website claims 3 “elected TDs” – Ruth Coppinger, Paul Murphy and Joe Higgins – but didn’t only Paul stand under the AAA banner?
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Big swing to IND. Wonder if watching the Greek debacle has soured voters on party politics? A belief that any centrally organised party will betray you and the hope that perhaps an IND would vote their conscience or electoral base view rather than following the party line.
Has the Parnellian monster come to destroy it’s creator?
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As always Kavanagh’s stuff is useless – but he is actually being insulting to activists in the AAA in the way he portrays tha AAA as an appendage of the Socialist Party. I was at an AAA activists meeting last week that had about 40 people in attendance and there were 6-7 members of the Socialist Party at the meeting.
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I’m not following you, what’s he said?
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But AAA leading figures are, irrefutably, also SP members so one could be excused for thinking the AAA just might be influenced a little by the SP, no?
Seriously, your point about the meeting might illustrate that many AAA activists aren’t SP members but the SP must still wield enormous influence as the largest organised body in the AAA.
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I’m mystified myself Jack as to the complaint. On the SP site the overall heading for AAA/SP materials is ‘Anti-Austerity Alliance | Socialist Party (Ireland)’ which is near identical to the formulation that Kavanagh uses (the Anti-Austerity Alliance/Socialist Party). And I’m trying to recall was there a separate AAA delegate conference?
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In all honesty WbS – I have no idea what you are talking about.
The Anti-Austeity Alliance is about a year old. It is hardly surprising that the Socialist Party is playing a leading role within the AAA given that the SP has been an organised political force in Ireland for more than 40 years and the SP have previously had elected representatives in different parts of the country with a record of defending working class interests.
The AAA is fully independent of the Socialist Party – the SP is an affiliate organisation that has certain agreed rights within the AAA (agreed in the local areas prior to the establishment of a national party) – but nothing more than that. The SP does not have a majority on the national steering committee (and consciously insisted that no affiliate organisation could have a majority) – and (to my knowledge) with the exception of Dublin West, there is no other area where the SP has a majority of the members. In my area the local committee has 4 non-aligned members and 3 SP members and the SP members were elected with votes from the non-aligned members because of the respect the activists have for the SP and the record of work by SP members over the past number of years.
It is noticeable that, as time goes on, more and more non-aligned members are stepping forward and taking leadership roles within the AAA and this is something that the SP are actively encouraging. There is tentative planning for an AAA conference in the Autumn (depending on political developments).
The SP is often (and wrongly) criticised over leaving the ULA. Yet when the ULA existed it was little more than a talk shop for the pre-existing Left. There was little activism and little political discussion – it was a case of going through the motions (and that was the experience in my ULA branch). The AAA is a completely different political animal. Most of the members (80% in my branch) are people who weren’t politically active 2 years ago. There is robust debate and a thirst for political ideas. And there are disagreements that are dealt with in an open and democratic fashion (and the new members are no shy about telling long-standing political activists where to get off).
I have been involved politically for more than 30 years and the AAA, in my opinion, offers the most potential to build a left alternative that I have seen. It is attracting new members on a weekly basis, young and old, and people are now joining for reasons other than the water charges. It is not possible to predict what will happen in the future – hopefully the AAA will make a significant impact in the next election (and yes the candidates with the best chance of winning will be SP members) – and yes the AAA will have ups and downs – but I am more optimistic about the potential to build a new left than at any time in the past 25 years and I expect the AAA to play an important role in that.
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Oh I’m sorry I thought you were complaining about Adrian Kavanagh doing on his website precisely what it transpires the SP does on its site in relation to nomenclature – a basic point you didn’t address. As to the rest four or five paragraphs response to a throwaway comment of mine, the answer to which btw was ‘no’, seems excessive.
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If someone in Dublin West says they are giving Ruth Coppinger a first pref. is that a vote for the AAA or the SP, JRG?
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Ruth Coppinger was elected as an AAA candidate to Fingal council and an SP candidate to the Dail because the AAA was not registered to contest national elections at the time. Joe Higgins and Ruth Coppinger are representing the AAA – they are designated as SP in the Dail because of the archaic rules on the Dail. At the next election Ruth Coppinger will be standing for the AAA in Dublin West.
And WbS – you are talking rubbish when you assert that Kavanagh is copying the SP – he is doing the normal and insulting claptrap that is promoted by political opponents of the SP in implying that the AAA has no independent existence of the SP.
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Well that’s odd, he’s in the wrong is he for using the same formulation as the SP itself uses on its own website? Really, such Herculean efforts and contortions to wind up convincing oneself no error however minor has been made.
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So Ruth Coppinger is not, or is no longer, a member of the Socialist Party?
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Yea – yea – Kavanagh is just copying the SP – got it.
And R. – you are not worth the effort.
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You said he was ‘copying’, I didn’t. Most people I suspect would assume he was just using the same nomenclature that the SP itself uses and would see it neither as insult or anything else of any note whatsoever.
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Sorry to see that a perfectly simple question causes you so much difficulty, JRG. Sad.
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WbS – it should be obvious now that the SP do not use it.
And R. – you weren’t asking a simple question – you were making a poor attempt at being a smart a*se.
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I’m entertained.The most basic google search of the SP site offers page headings Anti Austerity Alliance I Socialist Party (Ireland) – which are clearly attached to the SP website and not to Google. Perhaps that’s just a one off and I’m sure it can easily be fixed but it does exist.
Meanwhile the site includes:
“The Anti-Austerity Alliance and the Socialist Party fully support the strike action…”
“where Anti-Austerity Alliance candidate, and member of the Socialist Party…”
“the We Won’t Pay campaign, the Anti Austerity Alliance and the Socialist Party…”
“When Anti Austerity Alliance and Socialist Party TDs …”
But most telling this:
“the Anti Austerity Alliance (AAA), which the Socialist Party is part of…”
Everyone in the SP is a member of the AAA. Not everyone in the AAA is a member of the SP but it seems to me to be entirely fair – given the enormously high profile of SP members inside AAA that Kavanagh, or anyone, would be able to use the formulation AAA/SP in relation to national elections where so far all those elected at national level are SP members.
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I disagree with you WbS – the Google search you are talking about is not the same thing as a direct reference to both organisations on the SP website – and clearly you know this to be the case otherwise you would link directly to it and not be providing a series of quotes.
You are now engaging in semantics and the same type of nonsense as Kavanagh.
The AAA is not an appendage of the Socialist Party – it is not a front organisation of the Socialist Party – it is an independent political party that the Socialist Party is affiliated to. Attempting to portray it as anything else is insulting to the hundreds of new activists who have joined the AAA over the past few months and those activists (including members of the Socialist Party) who have worked very hard to build the AAA and the We Won’t Pay Campaign.
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I couldn’t care less whether AAA is a real party or not, whether it has a vibrant internal life and regular annual delegate conferences or is a shell – makes no difference to me one way or another and is at most a matter of curiosity, though to call it a political party seems as much a stretch as I’m sure you would agree calling the ULA in its day a political party was. What I am saying is that to attack Adrian Kavanagh as you have done for placing the initials SP after AAA/ and suggest he is somehow being nonsensical or insulting is risible given that there is a clear relationship between the two – not least that the SP is the single largest organised political component within it. And btw are you suggesting I made up those quotes? A moments effort in Google reveals them to be entirely accurate… There’s no hesitation in SPers name checking the two as linked in the same breath both explicitly and implicitly. Yet somehow you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge same.
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“Joe Higgins and Ruth Coppinger are representing the AAA.” – JRG
When Ruth Coppinger and Joe Higgins are interviewed, do they correct reporters to say they’re now AAA TDs, not SP TDs?
And are you seriously saying there are no discussions within the SP leadership about the AAA and the role of their most prominent public figures in it (Higgins, Coppinger and Murphy)?
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I have updated the series of core votes in various polls since mid March. I have elimiated the Red C core votes as these are clearly not comparable, the Red C undecideds being consistently at approximately 10 points below the score in all other polls
Core Votes http://wp.me/pKzXa-jh
B&A July 14 FG 18 Others 25 SF 15
FF 15 Lab 5 Undecided 23
B&A June 21 FG 15, Others 20, SF 16,
FF 17, Lab 4, Undecided 28
Ipsos/Mrbi May 18 FG 22 Others 19 SF 17
FF 15 LP 6 Undecided 21
B&A May 17 FG 19 Others23 SF 17
FF 12 LP 5 Undecided 25
Millward Brown April 4 FG 20 Others 16, SF 19
FF 15 Lab 7, Undecided 20
Ipsos/MRBI Mar 25 FG 18, Others 22, SF 18
FF 13, Lab 5, Undecided 24
B&A Mar 16 FG 19 Others 19, SF19
FF 14, Lab 5, Undecided 24
The main feature of the most recent poll is the reduction of 5 points in undecided and the increase of 5% in others.
The stability of the Sinn Féin vote is is noteworthy in core vote and it is clearly not “bandwaggoning” upwards despite having 3 times the vote for the Labour Party
Incidentally, the B&A site shows tht in final outcome SF was reduced from 20% to 17% by the filters employed by B&A (same filters as used by Red C)
Labour is stuck between 4% and 7% with an average of just over 5.
Because the small left parties are not recognised by many people all over Ireland, it is to be expected that their votes would be submerged in the figure for Independents/others.
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“Because the small left parties are not recognised by many people all over Ireland, it is to be expected that their votes would be submerged in the figure for Independents/others.” Very right Paddy. Hence teh need for a REAL LEFT national brand.
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Yes Jim. That is why WUA instigated the ULA though we had no immediate recruiting gain or electoral gain in Tipp to expect. It wa part of our committment to a new mass All-Irealand Labour Party Unfortunately the recruiting competition between SP ad SWP put an end to that.
The rejection of the Connolly position on Irish Unity, Independence and Socialism by SP and SWP is also a serious problem
Unfortunately, It is difficult to see any resolution of these issues before the general election.
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