Sorry Ed,I assumed from your post you really didnt want Sinn Fein in government based on your worry they'll damage the economy,I didnt realise you were still weighing it up. I agree things can always be worse but I cant accept things as they are.
She is the best of them in a debate by a country mile. Two men of the establishment ganging up on her is dodgy ground for them too.
Mental how China built two hospitals in less than 10 days. In this country it’s taken 2 decades to get a children’s hospital plan agreed.
It certainly could - all the issues with housing and healthcare with another deep recession and an increasing massive debt from stupid economic policies would make things a lot worse. Full on Trump/Boris approach "just say whatever people want to get elected and blame others as to why nothing you promised happens" from SF.
is that not exactly what fg have done for the last 9 years, blamed ff for all of their failings cos they bankrupted the country?
I think that woman is doing exactly what any of us would do in the same situation,taking advantage of people being willing to listen to her and give her a public voice. The sad thing is most of those listening and giving her that voice wont care about her or her son by Saturday night.
can't remember the exact figure but i'm sure I heard on the radio last week that FG only delivered something like 30 or 40% of the promises they made in their manifesto in 2016, surely that's a perfect example of saying what people want to hear to get elected.
Mary Lou done well on bringing up the problems caused by FF and FG however I didn’t think she was great at talking about her manifesto when challenged. I didn’t really learn anything I didn’t know, Leo was most concise but his promises will likely never be followed through.
Ff started all this shite of the aftermath of boom. Fg clowns. SF not supporting special criminal court. How the hell cam anyone vote these clowns in
Amnesty International and the UN human rights commission also dont support the special criminal court.
I've no suspicions that Amnesty or the UN are doing it for nefarious means! I know exactly why SF are doing it. Fact of the matter is Ireland has a problem with jury intimidation and a lot of friends of SF would welcome the removal of this court. These are the kinds of policies that I really don't trust SF for, they should abandon their radical republican side if they want to genuinely move mainstream.
According to latest polls they are mainstream though. They are the most popular party based on those polls and have made massive gains this time around so doubt they will change their strategy. I am a bit dubious on these polls so Saturday will be really interesting. One thing I have noted is that the amount of FF folks on social media advising people not to vote SF instead of promoting their own policies which means they are worried.
I believe they have a very large swathe of the population that would just never vote for them because of what is seen as a radical element, they could have the best policies with numbers nobody could argue with and people would avoid going near them. They could do a lot for themselves by letting go of the past and becoming a modern party not rooted in secretarian politics. I like a lot of their social policies and if I could just shake off this feeling that if they got into power they'd pursue, at the expense of most other things, their own radical agenda of pursuing a 32 county republic and abolishing courts that have been remarkably successful in tackling gangland and dissident factions to the benefit of a small cohort of their support base I'd have little reason left not to vote for them. With the number candidates they are running in this election it's impossible for them to form a majority Government regardless of national polls, if they get 30 seats it will be remarkable. They polled somewhere around 20% in the last GE and ended the day on about 14% so maintaining that national poll into the actual GE is important, I think Mary Lou moving in for Gerry Adams breaks one part of that republican psyche down that might make them more palatable.
That's quite the argument when you think about it Ed. An undeniably left wing party needs to come out against Amnesty and a UN human rights committee to avoid raising suspicions about their motives. I'm wondering now if they're only against high rents because the IRA are being fleeced when acquiring safe houses. But it also leaves me wondering why they're against a carbon tax that would be a big boost for diesel smugglers. I'm all over the place here.
I dont think they'll underperform the polls to any large degree on first preferences,2 out of every 3 people I talk to say they're voting Sinn Fein and a lot of them never have before. A problem they've always had is they're not transfer friendly. In this election Fine Gael won't be either which gives FF a big advantage.
The idea of a United Ireland is hardly radical and I’d say there will be a referendum on it in next 10 years. There is no way they are moving away from that to suddenly try and get FG votes. I reckon by the time the next election comes around, it will be very hard for opposing parties to keep dragging up the past.