I thought he was simple enough type initially and enquired about him a few times as youâd see his videos on Facebook which were nearly always about tractor runs and roaster stuff like that. I heard a fairly prominent ballysteen man label him a bigger cunt than Emmet o brien and that perked my interest last weekend. Apparently he is a sneaky and snide cunt.
Putting a coalition of the left together would be like trying to put manners on a bag of cats. Theyâll always be a row and a split. Sure SOL-PBP alone have 3 separate factions since Paul Murphyâs RISE joined them late last year.
While accepting that they are different, this populist/nationalist playbook didnât prevent a precipitous fall during the local/european elections (and to a lesser extent in the North). Voters are volatile these days with parties having less of a core support
Was it chairman dan/Sidney who said Sinn Fein would win 12 seats?
But again, that was from a consistent base for FF for generations. It was not a new thing.
If anything thatâs a sign of the sticky nature of Sinn Feinâs support. The age old political convention is that smaller parties tend to do well in local and especially European elections but then fall away for the General Election as support comes back to the bigger parties. This time, support came back to Sinn Fein. I imagine Sinn Fein will work very hard to address the lack of representation at local level in preparation for the next time there are local elections. You can get away with neglecting the grass roots for a while but not long term.
It simply wont work â too many people voted to keep the status quo , near 60%. 5 different parties with completely different ideologies trying to work as one wont and cant work⌠the Greens are being lobbed in as left and theyâre a collection of odd balls. Labour are not left and then PBP are headbangers⌠MaryLou needs to think of the country here and thankfully sheâs not power hungry like the civil war lot.
The reaction here is hilarious - lots of lads throwing the pram like spoiled children, feigning plaudits on one side of their jaw and screaming change out the other⌠a lot of tory wannabes on here have been rocked. Itâs fascinating to watch.
I donât see a âcult likeâ devotion in the SF voters. There is the core of true believers like @anon61878697 but probably half their vote, or letâs say the 10% increase in vote from the last GE is disillusioned floating voters or new voters that are looking for a home. Whether SF keep them will depend on what they deliver.
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If all the left parties have completely different ideologies then why are you expecting the West Brit right of centre Fine Gael party to step up to help SF?
Iâm not ---- iâm exposing their hypocrisy is all.
Except itâs not. Again, how many of the Independents elected supported the last government?
9 Independents originally supported then.
Naughton resigned his support
Zappone did not get re-elected
Ross did not get re-elected
Moran did not get re-elected
Halligan retired
McGrath retired
In total the above are a tiny percentage of the vote anyway. We are still talking of well over 50% for non C&S of the last Government.
Stop engaging in fake news.
So does this mean SF doesnât want to govern?
No they donât
No one wants to govern. Itâs a poisoned chalice.
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They probably do but they want one of the âcivil war parties â to do the heavy lifting /grunting .
Michael O Leary should organize a coup dâetat
He is busy taking on the horsey tans, we should be supporting him in that
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Listen, weâre still only hours past the most overwhelming election in the history of our state. Donât give up on SF yet. They need time.
SF donât tend to lose voters once theyâve voted for them. Their vote has increased at every election since 1997. My impression is that even in the so called âfloatingâ vote who switched to them this time, there was a willingness to shut out anything negative in the media about them and that it only made them stronger.
It was widely claimed that most Trump voters were not cult-like yet that has proved to be wrong. Similar with Brexit and the Tories. Any negative coverage of Trump, Brexit and the Tories seems to only make supporters more cult-like in their devotion.
This is not to compare the policies of Sinn Fein and Trump and Brexit, because they are very different, but the thinking behind most of their voters is quite similar.
Anybody who thinks SF could not make being a junior partner in a coalition work for them should look at how yer man Salvini in Italy made it work for him while it was the senior partners who suffered a big drop in popularity. A very different type of nationalism, but the same ability to play the victim and spin pretty much anything to your advantage. And thatâs what SF would do if it went tits up for them - play the victim - and people would buy it in the way theyâd never buy it with any other party, except Haughey era Fianna Fail.
Sure look at how theyâve played the victim in the North. They did suffer a slight drop this time, but that was down to people wanting actual representation in Westminster and the SDLP for a change fielding a couple of very strong candidates. And Sinn Fein took North Belfast, so they ddnât even lose any seats. That popularity wonât be long in bouncing back.
Grealish is not left leaning.
ROD is of FF stock and already in talks with Mick Martin
Verona Murphy - FG
Michael Lowry is far from left or a change
Mattie McGrath is not left or a change
Michael Healy Rae is not left or a change
Danny Healy Rae is not left or a change
Peter Fitzpatrick - FG
Theyâre just off the top of my head ⌠you cant tell me these people all represent CHANGE ⌠#TransferLeft
So iâm not spoofing when I say the electorate voted well north of 50% not to changeâŚ
It leaves it very hard to form a functional government.