The Irish

it just goes to show, never give up hope - keep chasing those dreams!

Absolutely dying at this shite

Varadkar’ s FG, campaigning on anti-British “small Country” ticket down 7 points. https://t.co/b2oQZEcQbF

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) February 1, 2020

amazing analysis, seems to take in all of the wait what

im sure he'll be bothered enough to come back and explain that he believes that the 7 lost by fg were specifically turned off by that, but they are a totally different 7 that went to the lads

truly the worst of all possible gaffes by the indian fella, whose name isnt even oreilly

Leo is such a fan of the Brits that they had a totally unnecessary row with half the country about the RIC commemorations.

Lewis Goodall is in Ireland for the election

When Labour said they were mass canvassing they got it all wrong pic.twitter.com/iW83VXn7h4

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) February 3, 2020

Ireland, Red C poll:

SF-LEFT: 24% (+5)
FF-RE: 24% (-2)
FG-EPP: 21% (-2)
GREEN-G/EFA: 7% (-1)
LAB-S&D: 5% (+1)
SD-S&D: 3%
AONTÚ-*: 2% (+1)
S-PBP-LEFT: 1% (-1)

+/- vs. 16-22 Jan

Fieldwork: 25-30 January 2020
Sample size: 1,000
Polling average: https://t.co/Pjh0Ruzgg3#GE2020 pic.twitter.com/rGMCEcTeZs

— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) February 1, 2020

So what happens if the lads get the nod?

Kneecapping for some, miniature Irish flags for others.

afraid to post tbh

Idk, I am curious about it myself. If people are voting SF, FF/FG only have themselves to blame. This article was telling.

agreed that only a failure of ff/fg brings any other party in as a major player

sf rise is prob attributable to those two both in govt together as well as fg failing to ensure that any benefits of 'recovery' are felt outside of the economic fundamentals on bank balance sheets and propertied class equity ratios

Yep.

Can’t wait for the coverage here if they get in!

Mary-Lou in the leaders debate now

I was over in the stronghold of Peadar Tóibín, who is the stronghold of Aontú, at the weekend - coming back from the UK, it is a little wild to see that their priorities are a lot of solid left-wing policies on immigration, tenants rights, collective bargaining, zero hour, oh yeah and also life begins at conception ("the human rights debate of our generation") and did I mention I used to be in Sinn Fein and yes we have a policy on Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour and that is 'policy to come'

Oh yeah but most importantly bring the train back to Navan!

I mean, this is also what happens when a party is largely a one man band, I get it.

Kneecapping for some, miniature Irish flags for others.

― hyds (gyac), Monday, 3 February 2020 15:34 (forty-six minutes ago)

Genuine lol, followed by a decision as to whether I really wanted to explain to my coworkers.

(and the awareness that I'd have to explain the Simpsons to some of them)

ni cheapaim

So is their platform just staring forebodingly into the camera in sober suits and mirrorshades

more like
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeIqobNWAAAaXgs.jpg
Christ! Having a woman Taoiseach would nearly go by unremarked

Aww now there’s a fun lookin bunch

There were also a lot of FG posters - putting up three candidates to FF's one - but mostly just Leo's face, outnumbering the other FGs put together.

i think that sf are ~mainly~ being considered/otherwise on their policies this time around, which is def a first

fg failing to ensure that any benefits of 'recovery' are felt outside of the economic fundamentals on bank balance sheets and propertied class equity ratios

When FG came into power, joblessness was in excess of 15%. We now have full employment and steadily-rising wages, so it’s not like it’s been a recovery only for the elite. Frustration about property prices is wholly understandable, but there are deep structural issues at play in the market that any government would have struggled to overcome in the aftermath of such a deep recession. The rise of SF is down to their unabashed populism. It’s the traditional Irish electoral cycle: now that the adults have tidied up the playroom, we’re going to lock them out and start flinging custard pies around again.

should make it clear that im dangerously close to being ok with FG as far as ilx goes so this i dont comment from a position of anti-govt nor a natural inclination for either FF/SF support

but baseline drop to the usual "0" unemployment does not necessarily equate to that work or the work of anyone earning below x amount being something that they will gratefully thank the govt of the day for when rent, commute, creche fees are taken into account.

the cost of surviving is a huge factor in this coming election and nine years is a long time for any party in charge to be shrugging its shoulders at that.

there's def room for a quality analysis of what housing in particular is doing to the vote, but the recovery as it has happened has been

and listen, ask anyone about this next line coming from *me*

off the backs of the worker, into the wealth of the propertied classes and investor classes

and its telling that leo, a fella not known for his humility nor his bendy neck, leads hos re-election leaflet with five bullet point apologies.

his stint as taoiseach simply hasnt delivered what he said it would, not that his promises were designed to please an ilx audience, but the recovery has been as much on paper as so much of the crash was, and people have 13 years lived and worked since 2007 and are not nearly as much better off as they would want nor deserve in the majority of cases

None of that means anything when people can’t afford to move out or start families and are legit being priced out of their own country? Like I think about returning all the time and it’s not even a possibility because of the housing issue. Thinking it’s for any other reason is wilful ignorance.

Also speaking as someone in London, the homelessness situation is fucking disgraceful.

like

my wages, and hello ladies no im married im afraid, have close to trebled since 2007

it is not poseur stuff (ive nobody here to impress!) to state that i had more cash in my pocket then.

i moved up to dublin for career purposes in 2012 (also following a girl but lookit) and even though ive doubled my income since then, im definitely worse off than i was between say 2012-2015

the cost of living, the quality of living/working life, has absolutely plummeted ime- and my experience is probably substantially better than the many who have had families since, earn less than i, have more impetus to buy, need to live near school/family

a govt that does not build housing on a massive scale wont see two years imo

lol I think of the way I lived in 2007/8 off basically no money and like I could never do it nowadays. Almost everything costs tons, my mother was shocked when I said £100 was a lot of money for me (lol it is), because my cost of living is a lot lower here in some ways. Even being bled dry commuting we still have a house and we don’t commute as long as the people in the article. But then I can count double figures of people I know who’ve emigrated just to have some quality of life. It’s not in people’s imagination, that the country is harder and harder to live in every year. The old sow that eats her farrow and all that.

Good points, well made. I agree that FG should have moved with a lot more swiftness and purpose on the issues surrounding housing and the cost of living. They could argue that they were preoccupied with negotiating a path through the Brexit clusterfuck, and maybe history will eventually show that they were right to prioritise that?
Mainly, though, if I’m making points in their favour, it’s because I’m appalled by the prospect of SF as kingmakers.

Think there is something also to be said for the sense of crushing reality, like my generation (and maybe deems’s too? cough) were being told in school we were a generation who wouldn’t have to emigrate, who could live near our parents and send our children to local schools, and then...you look at our parents having done these things and it’s hard not to feel cheated. People working harder and harder and never getting what they thought they would. Not surprising at all.

I mean, I’m Irish living in Britain, if I haven’t hammered that point home enough, and I wouldn’t give a fuck if Leo was mishandling Brexit if there was a home I could escape to easily.

Out of sheer curiosity gyac, why did you emigrate to the UK in particular?

Had the bad luck to be made redundant right as the banking crisis hit. Was seeing SV at the time and it just expedited what was inevitable.

Makes sense, thanks.

im mid generation, twas the class after me chronologically and the class above me societally that were told such things

in fact, familial constraints keeping me in the wesht and delaying college prob saved me from having purchased in/around 2006 tbf so yknow not entirely unlucky

VH i hear you. i think SF havent a single coherent policy that i trust them to be able to spin into action, amd i have grave doubts as to the way in which they would react to that or the changes they would seek to eg the civil service when they perceived that they were being checked in their aims etc etc

but the fair facts also state that fg will have let them in by refusing to countenance measures that hurt property prices. afaict, thats the long and the short of their policy on housing- " any type of fix ye like as long as ye buy in at 400k like everyone else did"

and the inability to consider solutions to dublin being the only show in town is the next huge black mark.

so FG served their masters as well as youd have expected, delivering the right kind of recovery to their core vote, i guess.

pls god they havent made an FF voter of me, but yknow id like to own a house at some stage, or at least pay a fair amount of rent for one that doesnt involve the current sacrifice of commute, or 35% income, or etc etc and unforch i dont see anyone emerging from this shitshow willing to buy the vote of the renter/wannabe i mean im happy to show a bit of leg and ff are the only ones even looking at me oh god

stayed west for a girl, moved to dub for a girl, jesus idk why do i bother voting at all my circumstances are purely determined by a succession of herselves tbh

I loled, even if I do feel a bit burned by your last post. But ia, they should stop men voting.

if twere as easy as stopping the right ppl from voting then sf would already be in wha

We’d already have the Mother and Child scheme!

a family in every home in every field in every county

and boys....we do mean....~~~every county~~~~~

Honestly, we didn’t deserve Noel Browne. Always one of the bits of history that made me angriest!

well you need the likes of him to take the hit bytimes, such is the nature of it

todays equivalent is peader toibin y/n?

LEAID

hee

anyway where does a voter go but towards the unknown?

More polls!

#ge2020 EARTHQUAKE poll by Ipsos/MRBI for @IrishTimes.

Full breakdown:

Sinn Féin 25% (+4)
Fianna Fáil 23% (-2)
Fine Gael 20% (-3)

Greens 8% (-)
Labour 4% (-1)

Others (Soc Dems, Sol/PBP, Inds) 20% (+2) https://t.co/VTDMw6GigI

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) February 3, 2020

Fine Gael have been very concerned about Munster (where a number of issues including the RIC commemoration have particularly hit home)

The Ipsos/MRBI data would appear to show those fears were well founded... The party struggling badly.

Ind/Others 27
SF 25
FF 21
FG 16#ge2020 pic.twitter.com/7wn39XwnIt

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) February 3, 2020

really depressing to see the 'adults in the room' 'difficult decisions' narrative still having traction here wrt ff/fg bipartisan structural adjustment approaches. i fail to see how falling in line with troika measures in the way Ireland did and continues to do can be seen as the 'grown up' response, in many ways the opposite. There is something desperately infantilistic about Ireland's perennial appetite for self-flagellation and it gave an easy foil for the axis powers to drive toward a vision of 'recovery' that was about all bond-ratings and very little about standards of living for ordinary people. A real grownup approach would ask real questions about what the economy is supposed to do for whom rather than solidifying the country's reliance on its status as a tax-haven without paying the dividends to its citizens that other countries operating a similar wheeze do.

It is amazing that 2008 has seemingly had such a long-lasting effect, it does seem to have knocked the presumption that one or other of the melt parties will win at each election, at least somewhat.

However I think it should be mentioned that the rise of SF in the polls is so clearly about how tarnished a figure Gerry Adams is. It would have been unthinkable for most Irish people to vote for a party led by him. Also how popular McD is, and has always been a fairly well-liked figure by the public at large. The photo someone posted does really get at her appeal, and there has long been a suspicion that SF might have have actual electoral prospects under her for those reasons combined. But I think this polling suggests something I've always suspected, which goes beyond mere populism: that republicanism has remained much closer to the surface in the irish imaginary than one might have imagined from recent cultural production. That is, despite all the enthusiasm for the queen's visit etc, republican sympathies remain fairly common but little discussed publicly. I suspect brexit and the shall we say less than grown up way that uk politicians and the media have conducted themselves wrt anglo-irish relations has somewhat inflamed this tendency.

i think thats a very good post that i agree with very little of

but if the 'melt' shite makes it way into this thread it will be a sad aul day

Yeah melt doesn’t fit Irish politics. Agree with plaxico’s thoughts on Mary Lou though.

Axis powers more appropriate?

hee its v promising certainly, run with it and we'll see where it leads

im half beginning to think martin goes before FF/SF govt forms tbh