General Election 2011

[RaymondCrotty]

Wicklow count
http://www.rte.ie/news/election2011/results/wicklow.html

Going to very tight by looks of it.

[Bandage]

My 3-year old nephew asked my sister during the week if there was a man circus on.* In fairness, there’s still a load of clowns being elected around the country despite some high profile gimps getting their comeuppance.

• There was a circus in Wexford a while back and there was a lot of posters advertising it. He got confused then by the next raft of posters of election candidates and equated it to the circus. This made me laugh.

[Fagan_ODowd]

@Rocko

Essentially they don’t really stand for anything anymore.

That’s the core of the problem for FF. Ever since they settled the Northern Question they stand for nothing. Michael Martin was just on there talking about FF reverting to their core principles. But who knows what those principles are?

[Bandage]

@larryduff

If there is a more drab individual in southern politics than Liam Twomey I haven’t seen him

Agreed. Sly bastard too playing the ‘independent’ ticket in 2002 before defecting to Fine Gael almost immediatelely. He has posters up in villages all over Wexford saying ‘[Insert village name] needs a local TD. Vote Liam Twomey.’ a) He seems to think he lives in around 30 different villages; B) He’s not even from Wexford anyway. :guns:

Best celebration of the night had to be Jonathan O’Brien in Cork. Raucous wasn’t the word. :guns:

[Gman]

@Bandage

My 3-year old nephew asked my sister during the week if there was a man circus on.* In fairness, there’s still a load of clowns being elected around the country despite some high profile gimps getting their comeuppance.

• There was a circus in Wexford a while back and there was a lot of posters advertising it. He got confused then by the next raft of posters of election candidates and equated it to the circus. This made me laugh.

somone wrote ‘exit the clown’ on the wall outside Sean Connicks office last week. Picture of it in the paper last week. I laughed at it.

[Bandage]

@Gman

somone wrote ‘exit the clown’ on the wall outside Sean Connicks office last week. Picture of it in the paper last week. I laughed at it.

There’s a big poster of Dick Roche on the N11 near The Bee Hive pub. It says ‘Vote Dick’ on the left and then there’s a shot of his mug to the right. Someone has scrawled ‘head’ under ‘Dick’ in huge black writing. This also made me laugh.

[RaymondCrotty]

@Bandage

There’s a big poster of Dick Roche on the N11 near The Bee Hive pub. It says ‘Vote Dick’ on the left and then there’s a shot of his mug to the right. Someone has scrawled ‘head’ under ‘Dick’ in huge black writing. This also made me laugh.

Dick called that “an attack on democracy”.

He has also had a pop at friend of the forum Simon Donnelly, In doing so he is indirectly taking a swipe at tfk itself.

High-profile Fianna Fail former minister Dick Roche admitted today that he is unlikely to retain his seat and took a swipe at an Independent constituency colleague over alleged corporate support.
On the first count in Wicklow – the last to be announced in the country late on Saturday night – Roche had only 3,897 first preferences. The quota is 11,764.
The Bray politician only marginally polled better than Pat Fitzgerald, his weaker Fianna Fail running mate, who was on 3,574 votes after the first count.
Roche said it was “an astonishing election” for his party and said he was “unlikely” to retain his seat. “I’m not formally conceding but it will be very difficult to win a seat here…This is about as bad as it can get for Fianna Fail,” he said as he entered the count centre in Greystones, which ironically he opened some years ago.
Roche has been in the Dail since 1997, and also served a stint as a Senator. In the last Dail term, he served as junior minister for European Affairs.
However, in a broadside aimed at Stephen Donnelly, the first time Independent candidate who is supported by PR worker Conor Dempsey who says he is operating on a personal level and not working for Slattery Communications, Roche criticised the “corporate support” which the McKinsey management consultant has had at his disposal.
Donnelly is in the hunt for the final seat with 6,517 first preferences
While he did not name him directly, Roche referred to the fact that Donnelly had appeared on national television on several occasions and said PR workers for Donnelly had been in constant contact with national media organisations promoting their candidate.
“A very large corporate PR company provided services on what I understand to be a pro bono basis. But there is a limit there on any donations like this. RTE were very accommodating in particular to the candidate. If there was any breach it should be investigated but it’s a matter for SIPO and not for me,” he said.
He also claimed that PR workers had “opened doors” for Donnelly, and said he would “consider” making a complaint about the campaign.
The Bray former Senator took a further swipe at Fine Gael in the county saying that a well known businessman with blueshirt connections, who he would not name, had been caught “red handed” defacing Fianna Fail posters in south Wicklow.
He also added: “I don’t rate Enda [Kenny] as a really great politician but he does have tenacity.”
Reflecting on the Fianna Fail wipeout, he said: “We need a fundamental rethinking of how this party communicates. In particular here in Wicklow, this has been a very very disappointing result for us and for the team who have worked so hard for me over the years. But when the tide is against you it is against you.”
Roche said the task of rebuilding the party was a “very hard and difficult” one for those left in the parliamentary party and he said he was unsure where he personally went from here.

[Gman]

@Bandage

There’s a big poster of Dick Roche on the N11 near The Bee Hive pub. It says ‘Vote Dick’ on the left and then there’s a shot of his mug to the right. Someone has scrawled ‘head’ under ‘Dick’ in huge black writing. This also made me laugh.

saw that. also made me laugh too. altho the dickhead then put anotheer poster over the ‘head’ part saying ‘this person does not believe in democracy’ and I thought what a dry arse lame cunt. its not that whoever wrote it doesnt believe in democracy, its because he thinks you are a dickhead Roche.

[Watch_The_Break]

@Rocko

Incidentally Labour are getting a fair bit of praise for their performance in this election, and they did well to recover a bit in the last week, but normally you’d expect a left wing alternative viewpoint to gain an awful lot of popularity in an economic crisis caused by banks and developers. They’ve done reasonably well but they’re a long way off being a national party and really struggle to get multiple candidates elected even in Dublin.

The election was almost entirely framed around one issue though, namely the bailout. Almost nothing else was discussed. No serious debate on health, on education, on social welfare, on planning, on science and innovation, just nothing. FG were allowed to take the position then of being ‘sensible’ regarding public expenditure and the bailout, without ever, ever being forced to provide the graphic details of how they were going to implement the cuts.

That’s one thing that really annoyed me about the likes of Vincent Browne, who’s shtick is apparently cutting through political rhetoric. He was rightly very tough on the ULA and Sinn Fein when it came to their alternative to the bailout, but he never adopted the same tone with FG when it came to their cuts to public services. As Micheal Martin exposed on the final leaders debate, they don’t really have the details. And secondly, they should have been forced to admit that they are going to savage public services if only on the basis of fairness and balance.

But they weren’t. Instead they largely got to coast through the campaign, taking the Fianna Fail position on the bailout question, and without ever having to explain how it is they actually expect to rationalise the public sector organisational structures. Neither were they ever put in a position where they had to be honest about what health services they were going to eliminate, what social schemes they were going to remove funding for, what research budgets they were going to cut. This is the stuff that would have actually exposed the cold reality of their agenda.

It’s my opinion that they would probably have emerged as the biggest party anyway, but the new found ‘toughness’ of our political pundits unfortunately didn’t extend to asking them the questions that might have seriously put this to the test. It was a bit of a farce to be honest.

[Fagan_ODowd]

Bobby Aylward looks doomed in Carlow Kilkenny. This will cut Link to the quick

[Thrawneen]

@Bandage

There’s a big poster of Dick Roche on the N11 near The Bee Hive pub. It says ‘Vote Dick’ on the left and then there’s a shot of his mug to the right. Someone has scrawled ‘head’ under ‘Dick’ in huge black writing. This also made me laugh.

I saw that too. You used to be able to buy “Dickhead” t-shirts in Courtown. They depicted a man with a dick for a head. Marvellous, so they were.

[Watch_The_Break]

Found this guy during a realtime search yesterday - http://twitter.com/Gubuwire

Election 2011 - Willie O’Dea Leaves Fianna Fáil, Joins Dundon-McCarthy Gang.

Election 2011 - Eamon Ryan Insists His Transfers Be Thrown In Recycling Bin.

Election 2011 - United Left Alliance Begin Negotiations On Forthcoming Split.

Election 2011 - John Gormley Straps On Solar-Powered Helmet And Cycles Off Into The Sunset.

Election 2011 - “Fianna Fáil Will Regroup And Gain Revenge On The Irish People” Says Cowen.

[The_Puke]

Just after seeing the breakdown of votes in Limerick City, had the felling Power would lose his seat but fucking hell he was absolutely tanked, only got 5% of the vote :blink:

[Watch_The_Break]

[quote=“Fagan O, post: 538288”]

They don’t have any. It’s why there so infamous internationally. I once saw a political scientist making the point that amongst the political parties across all of Europe, FF were the only one that defied all attempts at classification. They exist to rule Ireland and that’s it.

[The_Dunph]

Healy Rae elected in South Kerry. Parish pump politics still burn brightly down there. :rolleyes:

[Watch_The_Break]

I hear it’s a close on in Galway. Catherine Connolly could be on the way out. A pity. Herself, Ming, and Mick Wallace would get on well.

[Watch_The_Break]

Bobby Aylward looks doomed in Carlow Kilkenny. This will cut Link to the quick

Is he not in line for McGuinness’ transfers?

[Watch_The_Break]

Boyd Barrett elected. Hanafin gone

[The_Puke]

@Watch The Break

Boyd Barrett elected. Hanafin gone

T’will give herself and Pat a bit more time to spend with each other

[Fagan_ODowd]

@Watch The Break

Is he not in line for McGuinness’ transfers?

McGuinness has a surplus of less than 400. Aylward would do well to get half those. Taxi for Bobby I’m afraid