Lessons from #Indyref?

Ok, before the inevitable predictions poll, results debate and recriminations, what lessons can be taken from the totality of the Scottish independence referendum? Here’s a couple of suggestions. 1. The neverendum? A long campaign, or certainly what feels like a long campaign, has pros and cons. The emergence of what seemed to be widespread public engagement by polling day in voter registrations, but will be clearly measured by the actual turn out. Are we to indulge in a bit of …

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Voting intentions survey – 44.1% wouldn’t vote (3:2 women:men) + the party split of those who would vote

2006 Belfast Telegraph masthead saying Today's News Today

LucidTalk’s latest survey is providing headlines for the Belfast Telegraph all week. Their voting intentions survey published in today’s paper shows the uphill struggle [Ed – or opportunity?] parties would have to motivate the electorate to positively engage in an election. [Excluding people who would not vote] Overall the figures for the five Executive parties, with the 2011 vote in brackets, are DUP 29.3% (30%), Sinn Fein 26.1% (26.9%), UUP 10.8% (13.2%), SDLP 13.8% (14.2%) and Alliance 10.2% (7.7%). Forty-five …

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Villiers: “It is crucial that political leaders here concentrate on working together on pressing economic and social issues…”

Both the Irish and British Governments have given their answer to Sinn Féin’s fanciful notion of a border poll.  [Catch yourselves on? – Ed]  Indeed.  Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the Dáil “I think we have a lot of work to do both here and up North before people’s mentality and views change about the future of the island,” he told Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams. The Taoiseach said it was a matter for the British government to decide whether to …

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Sunday Times poll suggests Sinn Fein leading in the battle of the opposition parties…

So, this is pretty good news for Sinn Fein: Sunday Times Poll, State of Parties: FG 32 (+2) LAB 10 (-1) FF 16 (-4) SF 25 (+4) IND (No change) Sunday Times Poll Satisfaction: Gerry Adams 46% (-2) Ends Kenny 41% (-3) Eamon Gilmore 34% (-1) Micheál Martin 33% (-7) Eamon Ryan 25% The last few of the ST’s Behaviour and Attitudes Poll has been out of sync with other recent polls, notably the last Red C poll a few …

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“The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland consider a Bill of Rights to be important”

Fascinating public attitudes research from Ipsos/MORI, on Northern Ireland public attitudes towards a NI Bill of Rights, was published earlier this week as part of a new report (PDF) from the Human Rights Consortium. It seems to explode the myth that there is no appetite from the Northern Ireland public for a Bill of Rights or that such appetite only comes from ‘one side of the house’. In fact, the headline findings from Ipsos/MORI are that: the vast majority (83% …

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Election day open thread #ge11

The big day is here. Mick’s in Cavan at the moment (more on that soon) and will be in Roscommon & Kilkenny later – go along if you can. Update: We’ve added a ‘CoverItLive’ window in this post (thanks Mark McG!) – it’ll probably be fairly quiet until tomorrow but worth checking back to see if you’re not a regular Twitter user: Election 2011 John has just posted on his expectations and is asking you to put your cards on the table …

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Latest polls: As you were (for now)…

If the two polls this morning are anything to go by, not a great deal has changed. Micheal Martin’s got a bounce, and possibly quite a significant one given he tops the poll as prefered Taoiseach in the SBP poll. Note this is not the usually, largely meaningless, who’s doing well as party leader question. But the headline figures are not much changed from what we already know: SBP / RedC : FG 33% -1 Lab 21% -2 FF 16% …

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Is Fianna Fail’s difficulty everyone else’s opportunity?

As Aristotle once remarked, ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’. And the ‘empty space’ at the top of the Irish political game at the moment is the one Taoiseach Brian Cowen should have been occupying for the last two years. A poll in today’s Irish Sun marks a new low point in Cowen’s leadership of his country, and his party who dropped four points on a similar poll conducted just two weeks ago. Fianna Fail now rests at just 13%. It is …

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Lab + SF + GP = FF + FG – 2%

There had been rumours that tomorrows Red C opinion poll for the Sun would produce a surprise (partly because it is a party poll rather than leader poll). It will be tomorrow before we get the details (date of polling, methodology etc). But Matt Cooper (TodayFM) leaked the figures earlier on his radio show – FG 32%, Lab 24%, SF 16%, FF 13%, Greens 3%, others 11%. Many will spin that, post-Donegal SW, SF are merely getting a positive bounce, while ignoring the potential …

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Was it right? Probably not.

On Friday Pete highlighted a poll carried out on behalf of TV3 and asked ‘Can this be right?’. The answer may well be no, as politics.ie carries the results of tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post poll that shows very different figures (the SBP poll is the most regular and respected one carried out in the south): FG 31 (-2) FF24,(nc) LAB 23 (-4) SF 10 (+2) GR 3 (+1) Oths 9 (+3) Blank

Can this be right?

The Irish Independent reports the results of a TV3 opinion poll carried out by Millward Brown Lansdowne – the rest of the poll can be read here [pdf file].  Margin of error is 3 percentage points.  RTÉ have also picked it up.  From the Irish Independent report Compared with the last poll by the same company, published in the Irish Independent in February, Fianna Fail is down five points to 22pc, Fine Gael is down four points to 30pc, and Labour …

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