Irish politics discussion thread

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

Surely any government formed isn’t going to be stable?

SF must be kicking themselves they didn’t run more candidates.

Leo will resign right?

sf 31.8 youth vote
fg 15.5
green 14.4
ff 13.6

xp again!

really need to see how transfers turn into seats, its quite possible that ff/fg return in on or another setup and could be quite stable...

in that instance, and seeing as those first pref results arent actually as bad as polling, leo would maybe try to brave it out for a while

noonan has already shot across his bows mind

https://i.postimg.cc/xThRtGFN/C0-EF66-E8-33-B7-4678-998-B-A379-C434-C61-F.jpg

its v much a continuation of ff/fg scrambling to hold against an ongoing major change in voting habits, a healthy thing.

xp otm

labour, green, sd will be transfer friendly, out of the big three youd have to think ff most transfer friendly

god its so much better than other systems this, the craic will be fuckin ninety for the week after this

Can’t wait for my constituency to finish counting last as per fucking usual

Surely any government formed isn’t going to be stable?

SF must be kicking themselves they didn’t run more candidates.

― hyds (gyac), Saturday, 8 February 2020 22:06 (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

two notes as first reaction from rte/david himself

i. keep them posters up folks, we'll be back soon

ii. yes, but ff/fg ran too many. theyll be ating each other out there within the parties.

dying at this, country vmic

LOL. RTÉ news just said smallest voter turnout in the country so far is Malin Head. Locals said they’d get to it later as there was a big dinner dance last night and the whole place is bollixed today. Never change Dún na nGall 🤣🤣🤣 #Togh2020

— MCDAID (@MCDAID) February 8, 2020

mad hoors hi

Big dinner dance in fairness tho

Would love to see them lose badly

FG's @martinheydonfg: “According to this poll, we are the biggest party going into count day. We started it according to one poll 12 points behind Fianna Fáil. We are in the hunt in every constituency for seats and are determined to come out of this election as largest party.

— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) February 8, 2020

pic.twitter.com/usCRA9aMDm

— No Context Eamon Dunphy (@NoContextDunphy) February 8, 2020

Shane Ross out on his ear is it? FG not doing well in the west? You love to see it.

jesus the first prefs so far are way out from the exit polls

sf romping

may elect a far higher number of seats than expected

anything else is too early, transfers are gonna be huge

first word is that sf transfers are not going as left as wouldve been expected, gonna get filthy

ff/fg decision on next gov just got loaded, because if we have to go again any time soon (or after a bad term like fg just managed) there seems little doubt that sf would run another 20 seats and lead the dail

FF were branded leftist in a red scare in the 1930s -- but I'm not too sure they have lived up to that since. I would probably call them centre-right with strong historic elements of populism and clientelism. Relations with the church are another historical factor somewhat distinct to Ireland, eg as against UK in the same period.

https://www.lookleftonline.org/2015/04/better-dead-than-red/

The 1932 election campaign had been ruthless, with the outgoing government attempting to label the ascending Fianna Fáil as communistic. On the eve of polling, Cumann na nGaedheal went as far as to take out a front-page advertisement in The Irish Times which warned the public that “The gunmen are voting for Fianna Fáil. The Communists are voting for Fianna Fáil.”

Despite Cumann na nGaedheal claiming he was some sort of communist, the Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera shared the view that communism was a poor fit for the Irish nation, remarking in 1931, before his party’s ascent to power, that “I doubt there is any country in the world that presents such an unfruitful field for Communism as our country. The individualistic tendencies of our people are against it; the system of land tenure – ‘peasant proprietorship’ – is against it, our Catholic faith is against it.”