European Elections

Duke of Marmalade said:
SoConsider SF's taxation policy. Private Sector earners would be taxed at 58% on incomes over 100k whilst Public Sector earners would be taxed at 100%. Taxation and most important things are not within the Stormont remit so the Northern experience is not relevant.
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At the moment they pay 52% of their income over €32'800 in tax.
If the Shinners get in then they will pay an additional 7.5% on income over €100'000. That's 59.5%.

Talk about an incentive not to work!
 
I said it before and I'll say it again, all of these taxes will result in people with good jobs leaving these shores, not just the unemployed.
 
The more you think of it the idea of a mainstream constitutional party coalescing with SF is just plain illogical. Coalition should be about parties linking up with those nearest to them in the spectrum. The UK is a very good example. The Lib-Dems fall naturally between the big two and can coalesce logically with either.

Irish politics has of course the civil war legacy and has developed a taboo against FF/FG coalitions. So we have seen coalitions between Labour and either FG/FF which are not strictly logical as FF and FG are probably closer to each other than they are to Labour, now that the civil war is in the distant political past. However, whilst slightly illogical it was probably better for democracy that a tension was maintained between the big two.

Now when it comes to SF that logic goes out the window, especially for FG.

Paddy Power probably has it right - he goes odds on the next government to be a FF/FG coalition.

(The North situation should be completely ignored in this context. That is not a voluntary coalition of like minded parties but a legally enforced sharing of rather limited powers; the reasons for such a bizarre formula are historic.)
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
(The North situation should be completely ignored in this context. That is not a voluntary coalition of like minded parties but a legally enforced sharing of rather limited powers; the reasons for such a bizarre formula are historic.)
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And that's a critical point in the context of SF already being in Government. They have no taxation powers and no other real power either.
There is no office of the Deputy First Minister, there is just the Office of the First Minister and his deputy.
 
FF/FG coalitions? why not sure there is no real difference between them! same old twiddly dee twiddly dom middle of the road tired policies. however I cant see the new wave of young voters buying into it..they want change, not more of the same rubbish!
 
blueband said:
FF/FG coalitions? why not sure there is no real difference between them! same old twiddly dee twiddly dom middle of the road tired policies. however I cant see the new wave of young voters buying into it..they want change, not more of the same rubbish!
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Change, change, change... change to what?

The same mix of parish-pump politics, incompetence and populism but with a large dose of extremism and utter economic incompetence thrown in?
Yep, that'll change things alright...
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
And another thing. Did you notice that SF got nearly 20% 1st prefs in the Euros and only 15% in the locals. And it was broadly the same 51% of the electorate which voted. This says that a very significant number of those who voted them for the pointless EP didn't trust them with any real power albeit local.

Similarly LMF tops an EP poll in MNW but I presume that even the people of MNW would not be this silly if they thought he would get some real power over their lives.
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It is possible that the discrepancy in the percentage votes is partially a reflection of the granularity of the elections. The relationship between the number of candidates you are choosing from in local elections and European elections is at least 2 orders of magnitude (i.e. thousands of candidates as opposed to tens).
 
so-crates said:
It is possible that the discrepancy in the percentage votes is partially a reflection of the granularity of the elections. The relationship between the number of candidates you are choosing from in local elections and European elections is at least 2 orders of magnitude (i.e. thousands of candidates as opposed to tens).
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The difference is big, too big to be purely random. Either some systemic bias as you suggest or an actual bias in voter's attitudes to the two polls, as I suggest. My understanding (I didn't vote) is that a typical situation is that a voter would mark the two ballot papers at broadly the same time. Clearly a lot of voters marked SF No 1 in the Euro ballot and then turned to their local ballot and marked someone else No 1 despite the existence of SF candidates. I don't think the number of candidates is relevant here, we are talking about party first preferences.

One possibility is that folk who vote SF would also have a tendency to favour independents and when they switched from the Euro ballot to the Local ballot they plumped for their favourite independent. This explanation needs a further explanation as to why they didn't vote independent No 1 in the Euros.

I still feel that these people saw the Euro vote as a protest opportunity pure and simple. When it came to the Local ballet something of more substance was at stake and on "mature reflection" they did not want a SF counselor.
 
I started this thread, before the elections, by saying Irish politics was moving to a straight choice between FG and SF.

The story of the election, which has been completely missed by most commentators, is that FF is not dead. They won more council seats than any other, they polled well in both bye-elections.

FG did very well, most significant was the bye-election win in Longford-Westmeath.

SF polled well, they brought some new young female and impressive people onto the national stage, and they won a significant number of council seats. All a great base for the future.

Labour, Greens, Ming. Irrelevant. Nice people did well too Nessa Childers, Eamonn Ryan, Marion Harkin, irrelevant but nice.

I still believe that although FF did better than I expected they are vulnerable to being picked off by SF. They bright young ambitious people will not be queueing up to join FF.

A lot of FF voters will be more comfortable with SF than FG. If the Free Staters shot your grandfather you will not vote FG. Still.
 
Duke of Marmalade said:
So it has finally come to this - FF and FG falling over themselves to get into bed with SF, god help us Grizzly is even playing hard to get.

A great majority of people in this country are even more adamant that they do not want SF in power than they are passionate about who they do want.
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I don't think that majority is as great as you think.
 
FF is a slightly left of centre, slightly liberal, slightly republican party. That position, despite the disastrous leadership of Bertie and their selling the citizens of the country out to developers and unions, is where the largest group of Irish people sit. FG is a little too socially conservative and Labour is a little too left-wing, liberal and urban. As long as the parties stay in those places then, over the medium term, FF will attract the largest vote.
What we don’t have is a party that positions itself where the PD’s were when they were founded; socially the same as Labour and economically the same as FG. It would be interesting to see how big that market is (I know I’d be in it).
 
cremeegg said:
I don't think that majority is as great as you think.
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A majority nonetheless. Ask the people "do you want to exclude party X from government at all costs?". SF would leave the rest for dead in that contest. FG in particular have grossly overreacted in making the decision to let SF out of quarantine. Let's get real about what happened. 0 to 3 Euros sounds impressive - but a seismic shift? I don't think so.

The key figure is the 15.2% Local 1st pref vote. This is less than recent opinion polls. Also SF tend to do better in Locals rather than Generals. Note that FF got 20 seats with 17.4% at the last General. Given SFs poor share of transfers I don't see them increasing their seat count of 14 by very much, especially if FF have staged a Lazarus like recovery.

What will be the effect of FF/FG officially recognising SF? Either of two. Either this new found respectability will win over those who still identify SF with their all too recent violent past Or this will scare the bejaysuz out of those who were simply protesting and never really meant that they should get into power.
 
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