Friday, May 25, 2007
FF onward march, FG following, the rest nowhere…
FG Mairead McGuinness concedes in Louth… so no second seat there for Fine Gael… Also Harry is calling Meath East two FF, which I’m guessing would see the previously unfancied Tommy Byrne oust the long term favorite Dominic Hannigan.
Harry with the rest of his 1.30 remarks:
Fine Gael have had a good election and will make gains of something in the order of 15 seats. They have had a good election, but not as good as their main rivals.
4. The return of the civil ward divide has meant serious squeezage and decline for everybody else. Many of Fine Gael’s gains will come at the expense of their putatative Rainbow partners - Labour and the Greens - either sitting TDs or prospective gains.
5. Labour have had a poor campaign. At this stage, they don’t look like making any gains and will sustain at least one loss, with another three or four of their seats in trouble.
6. There has been no Green tide. None of their three great hopes, Mary White, Deirdre de Burca and Niall O Brolchain will winn seats, according to the tallies. Ciaran Cuffe and John Gormley are bothvery vulnerable.
7. PD. A near wipe-out. Mae Sexton gone. Tim O’Malley gone. Tom Parlon in trouble. Mc Dowelll battling it for the last seat. Noel Grealish a bit safer. Harney battling. Liz O’Donnell gone. Fiona O’Malley gone. All of their new candidates have been squeezed.
8. Sinn Fein. No tide from the greens of another hue. Sean Crowe is in huge danger in Dublin South West. No gains in Dublin North East or Dublin North West. Donegal South West lookign a bit dodgy. Only Padraig MacLochlainn looks like he has a strong chance.
Mick Fealty @ 02:09 PM
This still looks fascinating. Either FF get an absolute majority or things look very fluid. The PDs don’t look like reaching any number that could support a government, the Inds may be too few to offer support too. Is it the Greens? Would Lab go in as such a junior partner?
May be a huge win for FF but stable government could still be difficult.
Excellent result for both FF and FG, we seem to have gone back to a 2 1/2 party system based on the economy (civil war?)
As a shinner I’m very disappointed, the best we can hope for is the 7 TD level that guarantees recognition as a group in the Dail. Everyone else being squeezed by FF/FG doesn’t make it any nicer.
Posted by on May 25, 2007 @ 03:24 PMWhat on earth is going on. When Jackie Healy Rae is deemed superfluous to Irish political life there’s something sick in the body politic. Perhaps Punt’n’Doc could find him a role as Republican Outreach officer for the New DUP
Posted by on May 25, 2007 @ 03:45 PM“As a shinner I’m very disappointed, the best we can hope for is the 7 TD level that guarantees recognition as a group in the Dail. Everyone else being squeezed by FF/FG doesn’t make it any nicer.”
Can’t see it. It’ll be a good day for SF if they get the 5 back now.
Posted by on May 25, 2007 @ 03:51 PMThe return of the civil ward divide has meant serious squeezage and decline for everybody else.
I think this is inaccurate. While the civil war parties have reasserted themselves the divide is based ever more weakly on the civil war. How would Fianna Fáil have such stonking results in Dublin South and Dún Laoghaire if that were the case.
There was always this idea that some day the old civil war parties would disappear and be replaced by ideological parties like was ‘normal’ in the rest of Europe. Instead, in the rest of Europe ideology has declined and the old ideological parties look less and less relevant; all of a sudden Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael look like the perfect modern European catch-all centrist party. Just like New Labour or the CDU. Fianna Fáil is a bit more cheerfully capitalist and gutsily nationalist; Fine Gael are a bit posher, more ‘arty’ and pseudo-intellectual. And that mirrors the gentle cultural divide in most European countries, Ireland included.
It’s just another example of how the South has moved from being Western Europe’s backwater to its cutting edge.
The lesson here for us in Alliance, I think, is to spend a bit more time getting to know Fianna Fáil better, and letting them get to know us too. Obviously, we’re instinctively closer to other nice liberal bourgeois arty types, but Fianna Fáil is changing, and their vote is increasingly nothing to do with the civil war and everything to with economic competence. That must start feeding in to their activist and membership base over the next few years.
Posted by on May 25, 2007 @ 04:11 PM
