General Election 2011

About time someone brought up the real issues… “the Irish dancing will have to be cancelled.”

Enda Kenny can’t think on his feet. He’s learnt lines off by heart but he can’t respond to anything Martin raises off the cuff.

Enda is some bullshitter. Can’t respond to any question at all. Just keeps trundling on with the same old shit.

I hope Eamon Gilmore is enjoying his night out.

The country is fucked

‘Let’s get Ireland working’.

‘5 point plan’.

‘It’s all on www.finegael.ie’.

He’s some thick bastard.

Christ this is miserable stuff.

Martin is by far and away the brightest and most articulate of the three of them.

Kenny makes the same points over and over again and gets stuck on anything specific.

Gilmore has barely spoken.

Quality of the debate summed up for me there by a quick exchange:

“Martin: Fine Gael claim they’re decreasing the lower rate of VAT, what they don’t tell you is that they’ll increase the higer rate.”
“Miriam: Ok Eamon…”
“Gilmore: Well…”
“Enda: Can I just address that?”
“Miriam: Ok, go on.”
“Enda: We have already said we will abolish 145 quangos. Quangos which have son quangos and daughter quangos.”

Ridiculous stuff.

Have these small businesses never heard of loan sharks?

Don’t think Gilmore is getting a fair crack of the whip but Martin is unquestionably the best informed. You’d kind of expect it though, he has 14 years cabinet experience after all. I think someone mentioned that tonight.

Miriam O’Callaghan is entirely incapable of moderating a debate. This is fairly pointless, and really just a rehash of the other debates at best.

Agreed. I think Martin showed a grasp of detail on job creation front that the other two simply don’t have, but the very fact that Martin is coming across the best says it all.

Debates are a waste of time braz. They’re PR exercises.

How could Kenny inspire people to vote for him with this shite? He’s just reciting some crap he learned off while sitting on the shitter today.

Kenny got destroyed on the sale of non-strategic assets there. He’s really not very bright at all.

Yeah, it’s really just a way to try to turn news into entertainment, and allow lazy personality analyis to replace any serious attempt to analyse policies.

To be honest Kenny’s grasp of detail is really terrible.

Lads why are ye watching that shite…Do ye not realise Demoliton Man is after starting on UTV

Shocking. Keeps blurting out about the 5-point plan but can’t offer anything specific. He’s a fucking simpleton.

Unfortunately that’s what the vast majority of ‘political analysts’ do. Endless bullshit about who scored points and where. Policy analysis requires research and listening to lots of very boring people who are experts in their field. It doesn’t sell that well sadly.

The only interest it serves is the various media organizations. People voting off the back of a TV debate is not what you particularly want as the Irish electoral system isn’t a presidential type election and we don’t particularly want to get bogged down in personalities over policies thing again. From the bits I’ve seen Martin has done pretty well for FF since becoming leader. I have no doubt if Cowen had stayed on that an annihilation would have taken place.

thats a good post Rocko. you summed up my sentimenst exactly there
id say kenny knows he is only doing himself damage everytime he opens his mouth, just there he seemed to almost just stop talking as he knew he was bate when talking about he economy.
christ, he is a hapless cunt, Kev has more tact and charisma than him and as Bandage stated earlier when Martin hit him about his 5 point plan his retort with a website addres was shameful.
Martin would get my vote here if he just admitted that FF did make mistakes during their last 14 years , instead he tries to gloss over the fk ups of his predecessors with a deluded arrogance that no doubt he grew up with in FF but in fairness to him he does seem to know what to do to right the wrongs of cowen and co…
i cant vote for enda kenny after that, no way,

I’d say you’re right but Cowen would have absolutely destroyed Kenny in the debates. He had far too much baggage though.

Do you actually take Martin’s words for face value?