Votomatic quizes you on a range of policy choices and then scores the parties for compatibility with your views. Give it a try My scores – FG 19, Lab 10, Greens 2, SF 1, FF -3 MackNo bio, some books worth reading – The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves – Matt Ridley . Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance -Nouriel Roubini, Stephen Mihm
Wexford will have fourteen candidates on the ballot on 25th February. All five sitting TDs, 2 FF, 2 FG and 1 Labour, are standing again. In 2007, FF took more than 43% of the first preference vote, whilst FG took just over 31%. Of all the regions, the south-east has the third highest rate of long term unemployment (i.e. longer than one year). In the last election, FF carried 9 of the 19 seats in the region. The highest rate is in the border counties, where FF …
I’m going to try and fit in previews of the unfashionable constituencies in the south-east for the general election (you will barely spot them, or the candidates, in the headline debates). Nineteen of the one hundred and sixty-five Dáil seats are located in four constituencies covering five counties. One constituency where the strengths and weaknesses of the various political groupings are going to be writ large is Wicklow, which I’ll deal with first. A five-seater, it returned 2 FF, 2 FG and 1 Labour in …
Listen! As Paul noted, I was in Dublin on Friday and called into the Irish Times. Here’s my interview with Hugh Linehan, on what #GE11 means and doesn’t mean to Northern Irish pols and anoraks. And just in case Pete’s reading of yesterday’s Red C polls may have convinced you that Gerry’s poor economic performance, means Sinn Fein’s running out of steam, have a read of Stephen Collins’ constituency report from Cork North Central where Jonathan O’Brien (mentioned here previously) …
Nice post from Dan Sullivan, who also blogs with Slugger, which identfies a kink in the in idea that shorter working days (or rather nights) are more friendly. Hmm, not for those TDs who live down country says Dan. Instead, he suggests: …a solution to this might be to question why we need the Dail chamber aspect of being a parliamentarian requires you to be in Dublin at all. Might we start to reconsider the assembly nature of Dail process …
This was a great spot by reader Edward…. Adds: Picked up by Politics.ie where it’s being said the ‘British’ design is often used by private contractors… For reference here’s the full set of Irish roadsigns… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Last week I’d stopped short of describing Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour as economic illiterates, but I’m beginning to think even that would have been overly generous now. The front end of the multi-media happening that is the election campaign is currently dominated by rows over 2, 3 and 5-way debates (depending on who is invited and who turns up). Having watched the first (and given that, as a genre it doesn’t tend to get any better), it looks like they are …
Just a quick reminder about the prediction competition that Slugger is running on the Irish elections. There’s a £150 free bet with Betfair for the best prediction (have a look at the odds on their markets here), and they’ve got their own Election Predict site up with a good bit of detail on each constituency for the real train-spotters among you. We’ve had around 30 predictions from you so far and we’re going to make some of them (anonymously, naturally) …
Your captions please? Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/
Betfair have been in touch about the Election Prediction competition that we’re running here (below – you can read the form guide in a previous post here). We’ve already pointed to their markets here (currently showing 17/2 on a Fine Gael-only government as an outcome and 11/1 on SF getting 23+ seats). Labour are out at 19/1 for getting the most seats (pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will, eh comrades?) Today Betfair have launched their own prediction competition …
I suspect that the tenor of the debate around the economy is going to take an ugly turn with the entry of various independents into the electoral race over the next week or two. Prior to the dissolution of the Dáil, there was the grotesque spectacle of Fine Gael and Labour facilitating the passage of a Finance Bill that they publicly stated they would vote against, but, by their actions clearly condoned. Collectively, their positions on the economy, or specifically, …
One of the features of the Slugger Awards night (places limited! Get your tickets now while they last!) is going to be a bit of audience participation – we’re going to see how close the wisdom of the crowd can get to predicting the final outcome of the Irish Election in terms of seats. Details of that will be released on the night (it’ll be a surprise) but in the meantime, we also want a prediction comp to run though …
As widely expected, Micheál Martin T.D. has been elected as the 8th Leader of Fianna Fáil. The Finance Bill Committee Stage continues in the Dáil. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
So the 2011 Irish General Election (or #ge11) has just got closer as the Greens withdraw from the government; As Colm Tobin (the other one) puts it, it’s “the equivalent of Bin Laden sprinting towards the Twin Towers with a fire extinguisher.” So instead of a March election, it’s starting to look like a date in February. And what do the bookies think about the outcome now? The markets are unusually interesting for broad election outcomes as there are a …
