Irish politics discussion thread

hes appalled obv but hes staying informed for the stories

he got a manifesto to spellcheck a while back i shit u not

Christ. What is it, make Ireland 99% white again?

give or take

dont be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the National Party!

I’m sure we’ve discussed this site before but this crowd are doing God’s work imo

Some great archive stuff of Dev, Bertie and others, but ofc I see this cunt up first
https://irishelectionliterature.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/paul-mcweeney-a.jpg

https://irishelectionliterature.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/paul-mcweeney-b.jpg

I mean, this emigrant would like to return, but something about this guy makes me think he wouldn’t be welcoming my husband.

shit theres a big possibility i work with a sister of his and all

sad lol

Know that thing where you're trying to climb down from calling someone autistic, so you start randomly saying the n-word, on record, to The Times? pic.twitter.com/v3KUlB77CV

— Séamas It Ever Was (@shockproofbeats) January 28, 2020

The parents seem to think FG will be out after this election. Who would FF go in with? The Brits are in for a rude shock if they celebrate Leo going.

Lol Eilis O Hanlon, how the fuck is she still alive

By stoking toxic Anglophobia, Leo Varadkar is digging his own political grave | Eilis O'Hanlon https://t.co/4QvJGLSHCs

— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) January 29, 2020

People in the Irish Republic always liked to boast that they were above the tribal hostilities of the North

ah thats a northern/shinner trope for a large part, with various currents of truth running through it at different times or in different contexts maybe

who should or who will ff go in with?

have to say theyre bullish enough towards everyone atm, not sure theyre even making noises about making fg sit second bench in a reversal scenario

i think ff/ind is too much a stretch, but even if lab/greens could make up the numbers without the more Impossible independents (whose numbers id think should fall hard in the event of a voter return to lab/ff) could a programme for govt arise from suchba coalition, and would the last ff/l/g govt not yknow remain in the memory?

*shrug*

right

not to say things is perfect, obv

but

notwithstanding eh tbh bias in reporting and/or bias in what one chooses to read of what's available and reported inherent

irelands good compared to some of the larger ilx brand countries

dont @ me pls i live there, and anyway we need to get over that to get to the next rather simple point

two big fuckin homogeneous-abouts lumps of central parties are a good thing if they continue to rotate about each other without forming one sun and the electorate can flavour the options for forming coherent govt effectively

discuss

just the small questions then

this seems to include -

realistically what's the best you can hope for from government?

is there an optimal size of nation state if we must have such things, and aren't there serious economic advantages to nation states that aren't saddled with delusions of imperial grandeur?

yr two "central" parties well i don't think anybody's come to a broad agreement about where the centre is but given the general point aren't you close to describing the advantages of a one-party state with a shifting cast of aparatchiks?

Are you basically saying a bigger Sinn Fein, for example, is a threat to a strong and stable middle?

good scoping question ty

will be back in a wee while

aren't you close to describing the advantages of a one-party state with a shifting cast of aparatchiks?

NV otm

i'm not saying there *aren't* advantages to that

right

realistically what's the best you can hope for from government?

any govt?

an irish govt in the irish political context generally?

this next govt specifically?

"realistically" vs "hope for" not duelling there?

and then we can get on to whether or not the question is being asked of an adjudicator already provided with an agreed universal logbook of "best" or whether it's being asked of a given interested party, in which case lol

is there an optimal size of nation state if we must have such things, and aren't there serious economic advantages to nation states that aren't saddled with delusions of imperial grandeur?

overall, are you asking ireland to admit its non-imperial privilege? (!)

yr two "central" parties well i don't think anybody's come to a broad agreement about where the centre is but given the general point aren't you close to describing the advantages of a one-party state with a shifting cast of aparatchiks?

woof!

the question interests me specifically (and probably very obviously) because of current uk/us ilx politically noseholding of *any* nominal centre. it doesn't seem to me that it matters what or where that is for the purposes of the question tbh.

specific to context, the centre is not a moral judgement value (horror!) but can be fairly roughly defined and agreed i think, even if you look in from outside. FF are centre left, FG are centre right-right, Lab are centre-left-left, SF are centre-left-left, PBP are hard left, Aontú, National Party are hard right, etc

the social democrats are a young, small sample but I think I'd call em centre enough?

I am specifically *not* describing a one-party state. I am *maybe* asking about, in no particular order, the advantages of:

- large stable centre (stable has crashed the country obv, so again thats descriptive of amorphous mass of electoral power and not a valus judgement of effect)

- that nonetheless crucially incorporates an option of 'throw the bums out!" while keeping the option of a non-extreme protest vote alternative (electoral DC power supply nest pas)

- that nonetheless offers additionally (as recently trialled) an option to have the bums in together (be that a hard or soft coalition) and additionally

- can offer an option of which bums lord it over the other bums in the above scenario and to what degree

- as well as one set of bums, but flavoured with the varying sprinklings of further-spectrum heavy metals as may appeal

separately, apparatchiks: i dont know fully as a descriptor what may be inherent and implicit here but you may find my sympathies for faceless bureaucrats as the hand on the levers of strategic movement in a given political system somewhat softer than most, given that i am one etc

Are you basically saying a bigger Sinn Fein, for example, is a threat to a strong and stable middle?

i. everything is a threat to a strong and stable middle, the universe is entropic

ii.im not sure our system, building in the options for change as laid out briefly above, is the most "stable" as may be meant in the loaded mayesian term offered but i can roll with it if we dont get fussy

iii. yes, in short, and ofc we can not presume that its a bad thing at all at all, depending on whether we are the posited auditor of a known/agreed "good/bad" book nest pas

Aontú are an odd match for the hard right in some ways:

Finally, it is imperative on this centenary of the First Dáil that workers have an unambiguous right to collective bargaining and trade union membership across the whole island. A constitutional referendum should be held to enshrine this right in Bunreacht na hÉireann.

I'm not unsympathetic to the line of "would you all feck off and leave the civil servants to it"

specific to context, the centre is not a moral judgement value (horror!) but can be fairly roughly defined and agreed i think, even if you look in from outside. FF are centre left, FG are centre right-right, Lab are centre-left-left, SF are centre-left-left, PBP are hard left, Aontú, National Party are hard right, etc

the social democrats are a young, small sample but I think I'd call em centre enough?

meant centre-left-left-left for SF

but its also worth thinking about/differentiating between

- the spectral positioning of the party as theory/policy

- the spectral positioning of the polled votes for the party (this is ofc difficult to measure, and in any case given the options noted above, arguably the irish voter has a far greater opportunity to pin their tail v close to the specific donkey's rump they desire vs eg the very obvious tensions between the factions within the broad church of LABOUR in the uk system)

im just musing to meself now but its a rugby/pie saturday and theres a storm outside also obv election day so yknow

xps to AF

yes aontú are, id admit, probably not well placed in my above randomings, thats my hangover from essentially thinking of them as a one-issue churchist party

they are the sf renua, so a centre-left-left hard catholic party

again tho, does it not speak to the quality of choice available? obv im arguing so anyway.

also, maybe yeah what im also arguing for is a very strong, essentially undemocratic civil service of professional expertise that the political sideshow barely touches.

doesnt everyone on ilx end up, at heart, arguing for their own preferred version of "immensely powerful cabal that does what it likes for the greater benefit of the public (nb fuck what the public thinks it wants)?

nest pas

Has that storm got bad enough to affect turnout yet. It hits us tomorrow and they are talking about torrential rain, 70mph winds - a bit of a doozy.

https://www.thejournal.ie/woman-celery-kerry-ejected-polling-4998129-Feb2020/

Real Kerry

its gusting pretty hard in dublin now calz, i could see it making a difference out the country who would have seen it a few hours ago and where it's expected more severe

i try not to be too judgey about who or what people vote for

i mean do i, i dunno, but whatever

but

fuck kerry voters and fuck kerrys oft-repeated behaviour towards the 20th century

great characters tho

You can be sure the auld wans will be out casting their ballots regardless.

Idk if I would characterise FF as centre left? They are clearly to the left of the blue shirts, but they’re still a right wing party. Weren’t they split over abortion? And I would never argue that FG supporting the ref meant they weren’t a right wing party, but there’s a bit more to it than that.

xp only thing you could say about those two is that they are pretty good at getting roads or whatever for the constituents. Isn’t that why they keep voting for them?

if its a little out of character for me to say that

no, i think they vote for them because they are hoodwinked cute hoor idiot cavepeople who like cute hoor millionaires giving them a reacharound and telling them its the closest to love theyll ever get

then possibly my strength of feeling will show through

Lol fair enough, they’re fucking awful

where do you put FF, tho? open question.

populist, developer and cod-business, low-regulation, corrupt

but they win their votes through policies that explicitly offer what the middle-odd thirty percent will vote for, and especially big-infrastructure, union-friendly, everyone-gets-a-house measures

i would keep ending up as centre-left meself every time i looked at em, allowing for yeah farmertown catholicism values and other such local traits

Yeah but in my case much of my family are the small farmers and FF is behind them on social values. They don’t do much for the poor afaict. So, centre right, but not anywhere close to FG in this regard.

id be open to be talked around on FF but i dont think we share a view on how far right FG are

or, again, maybe its in that zone above where "what is the centre" is a three or four headed question, idk

FG not as far right as the Tories - lacking the ethno nationalism - but their economic policies are fucking awful and their open disdain for the poor and homeless is disgraceful. That matters.

A starting point that merits consideration: the range of ideological attitudes and policies that may be credibly labelled 'centrist' varies from country to country.

yep i think i might have built that in above tbfttp

exit poll in ten secs

1st pref

FG 22.4
Sf 22.3
ff 22.2
green 7.9
lab 4.6

lollllllz

Lol what the fuck

Let’s see the second prefs

FIRST PREFS LOL

Fine Gael 22.4%
Sinn Féin 22.3%
Fianna Fáil 22.2%
Green Party 7.9%
Labour Party 4.6%
Soc Democrats 3.4%
Solidarity-PBP 2.8%
Margin of error:
+/-1.3%

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) February 8, 2020

So assuming the boys join again to keep SF out.. SF are the official opposition?

obv transfers will cause havoc

vote mgmt gonna be huge, and we know sf didnt run enough candidates to really see the benefit

and then formation of an actual govt

shared govt between fg/ff a big jump from the silent partner arrangement, but......?

all xp, yeah, but......they were that really anyway?

I mean its basically down to whether fg will play the bottom dog in a conf/supply or whether it will actually be a coalition