Irish politics discussion thread

Yeah, Martin is the only hope for FF as ffar as I can tell.

Any feeling about whether Cowen survives the confidence vote? I think he will, though I have nothing to base this on.

the only thing to base it on is his own call to stick around- so if you trust his predictive powers then he should be ok.

i'd be flabbergasted if he winsa now that it's going ahead, myself. but i'm also confused as to why anyone would want to lead FF into this election if they could take over a newly-decimated party afterwards, which is a much stronger starting point in terms of centralising power for a new leader imo.

I reckon the instinct in FF after the election will be to do what the Tories did with Hague and skip to someone untainted by office and young enough to start on the road back. Like Hague, whoever it is could end up never being PM/ Taoiseach. FF's Cameron may still be in school.

well they'll have plenty of new blood running in this next one, but as to how many of them get in....

hanafin and martin prob the best of the likely candidates, but it's looking like cowen stays. which is mindboggling but there you are. the interests of the country that matter win again

lol u fucking cunts lol.

lol

rmflo

lol no shit assholes!

sup cowen. sup

it says we're barely out of nappies as a functioning democracy. This might be the first election fought on policy in ireland as opposed to who yer grandad liked, dev or collins.

― all i gotta do is akh nachivly (darraghmac), Friday, January 14, 2011

labour got 20% in '92, even tho they went into power with ff with it that was a decisive break with the civil war - it's been all personalities & local machinery since then

labour should poll close to twice that this time. Disagree that at a local td level it's not party choice, it is for a large % of the voters out there

also lol

i guess i'm putting party choice down to local machinery

yeah, maybe. I dont know what the difference btwn the two could be.

http://www.independent.ie/multimedia/archive/00184/martin_184226t.jpg

i'll....get....youuuu..yettttttttttttt...potttterrrrr

on like donkey kong

ff ministerial resignations since leadership heave-

Martin, foreign affairs - decent skin, failed leadership bid
O'keeffe - education - cunt, retiring
Harney - health - not the worst, retiring
D ahern - justice- one of the brightest imo, also cunt, retiring
Dempsey - transport - clown, retiring
Killeen - defence - meh no idea tbh, retiring?

Prospective FF leaders after election-

Cowen, incumbent- not much good to anyone. Cunt when pushed.

Lenihan- cunt cunt cunt. Damaged by fence-straddling on leadership heave
Hanafin- i like hanafin a lot
Martin- like this dude too, but probably moved too soon for the gig, tough to run again after.

Martin would be the best imo.

Is there a chance Hanafin could lose her seat? Dun Laoghaire is about the worst place to be banking on entrenched traditional FF voters. FG and Labour obviously get one seat each, possibly two each (Labour seem v. confident), Richard Boyd Barrett just missed out last time and will probably soak up a lot of disenchanted Green voters. That could leave three sitting TDs out of the running, or at best squabbling over the last seat.

Though to be fair 20,000 people gave FF their #1 vote in 2007, it's hard to see how they can fail to elect at least one TD. Still, if they don't make quota early on Hanafin and Andrews will be in for a long night.

it sounds like a free-for-all in that partic constituency, you wouldnt really know how it would go.

Mayo-wise, one ff in the shape of calleary is safe enough, looking at three fg one labour after that, depending on the runners

Looking forward to this election from a pure entertainment view.

as always, tbh.

But this time there's the edge of plenty of new entrants and huge shifts in vote share so yeah, cant wait

rte dail tracker on the site is the bomb today

lol this is all p crazy imo

Department of Justice & Law Reform: Brendan Smith

albert won't be happy at this

1718 An extraordinary day in Irish politics has seen both Fine Fael and Labour again accuse Brian Cowen of mishandling recent events and lacking
authority.

About 464 results (0.29 seconds)

honest mistake

this shit is pretty farcical tbh...like, wtf is cowen doing, he is embarrassing himself. just go.

11 march is one day longer than would make him shortest serving taoiseach ever btw

r u sure thats true?

neway boot them out

no but it's a peach rumour dontya think

ive realised that my dad a. is still into FF and b. makes up random facts when you argue w/ him abt politics. ive been googling his bs lately.

FF will always get at least 25%, regardless of dead girls/live boys/shit economies.

they'll never get 25%

Dunno, I really can't see FF going below 20% in any case - too many party loyalists out there.

depends on if cowen stays. Far too divisive a figure now for all FF camp to vote with him in charge.

They'll realise that themselves in time, though.

If he stays they'll fall below 20% mark, under say hanafin or similar they'll struggle to beat 23% i think.

Hanafin took a short term hit this week, but her advice to cowen and handling of the week as a whole has been spot on. Martin not as damaged now as he would have been had biffo not let a narrow vote victory go to his head like that.

Big loser is lenihan imo.

boils down to the ratio of ff diehards (dwindling) * ratio of cowen diehards in that group (evaporating)

sf to be senior opposition party.

Yeah, that would be really interesting...

!!!!

omg!!!

btw how can the taoiseach just *decide* hes not gonna budge, i just dont get it.

from the position of taoiseach? He needs to lose a specific vote of confidence in the dail on the issue i think. Basically what labour and fg are calling for tuesday.

but they may not, it seems. It's getting cloudy on what they'll accept in return for an early election. It's cloudy whether they even want to have any part of the finance bill, it might be handier for them to have it as a ff-only document for political reasons, but that cant happen without someone else's support in the dail. Tricky.

gilmore said he wants the dail dissolved by the end of the week

finance bill for friday, i think. If the various finance spokespeople cant come to broad agreement tomorrow with a view to that happening.

Lenihan just called a spoofer to his face on rte1 YOMP

http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/paimages/2011/01/N0314651295801366076A.jpg

this pic is crackin me up right now