Sinn Fein are in big trouble in the North and South. The hammer blow of losing McGuinness and Adams in quick succession may prove to be fatal for them ultimately.
I do like Mary Lou though, I think she is a decent person but not enough of a strong personality to take over from Adams.
They will have much of the rural vote. It doesnāt matter what they do.
Iām a bit like you, Iām amazed at their supposed popularity but feel they have terrible candidates all over the country. I also think their candidates donāt know for a large part what it takes to get elected off your own bat, the actual knocking on doors bit. Also, their share of the electorate is literally dying off so they need an election asap.
That maybe so but they are going to struggle in urban areas.
Mary Lou is not half the woman she used to be.* She was superb about five years ago in the DƔil and generally holding people to account. She lost a lot of standing with the public generally due to her stance on the IRA rapist/paedo issue and when she engaged in the blatant deflection tactics of naming people who may have dodgy accounts one day in the DƔil. She used to be acerbic and witty, now she seems like a bitter sour oul wan.
Another party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party.
Ireland is not as rural as it used to be. And FFās famed āmachineā is literally dying out. I watched them at a count about 5 years ago. They were generally overweight, over sixty and short of breath. Each of them could have been judges on that āBest Irish breakfastā awards. W
Another?
Their performance in 2016 was incredible considering what happened in 2011.
I still think they will increase their vote, probably at the expense of FG.
Fair enough. I think it was a rebound which will come back down again. Iād love if it was a dead cat bounce.
Ah but what @Juhniallio has said is true, Mary Lou has struggled since becoming the Leader of SF. Maybe its because Adams is no longer there to take the flak or maybe is the attacks from not only the government but from the FF who are suppose to be the opposition.
If I still logged my international business travel trips I would have logged Mary Lou having a snooze on an early morning flight to London last week. Or would it have been better placed in the Celeb spotting thread.
So much wrong here. God thats seedy.
It truly was.
Correct. Abstention on the vote was still taking a side and supportive of Harris when they crunched the numbers. We have all seen this movie before with PDās, labour and Green party. They will be filleted in the next general election. They are weak and spineless.
FF playing politics first, whole shagging lot of them constantly snipe instead of being a little creative where our real problems are.
It was a recovery but not hugely impressive Iād say. They went up 8% to 25% in first preferences but in 2011 plenty of FF hardcore stayed at home in protest then rather than vote for someone else.
They were still 15% off 2007 numbers and their lowest previous figure was 39% with 40-50% their historic range( though it was in the low 40s always from the 80s onwards for the most party).
I still think theyāre toxic to a large % of the public with as @Juhniallio saying their core vote dying off- I canāt see them getting above the low 30% figure in the next while.
The shinners are now, more or less, a mainstream party who donāt want anything to do with the actual holding of power or governing of the country.
For years and longer, they were the outsiders, the agitators, the rabble, but those labels are now attributable to the independents and other fringes.
As Sinn Fein have stepped into the mainstream of Irish politics, theyāve shown that they donāt really know how to approach it so they bumble around the gaff.
That said they are right to avoid entering any coalition as history has shown what happens to the junior member of any coalition.
Until FFG stop the charade and merge there will never be sensible politics in Ireland. The electorate are as much to blame as the main parties however.
Apparently sharing a bedroom is absolutely dreadful and only happens in social housing.