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PD's Demise Premature?

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    #62
    CrowdedHouse
    Registered Users Posts: 6,853 ✭✭✭CrowdedHouse


    Wonder what odds on Harney re-joining FF ?

    Seven Worlds will Collide



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    #63
    gandalf
    Registered Users Posts: 26,458 ✭✭✭✭gandalf


    CrowdedHouse wrote:
    Wonder what odds on Harney re-joining FF ?

    Thats exactly my thoughts . The PD's as an entity in Irish politics are finished and irrelevant.


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    #64
    daveirl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,483 ✭✭✭✭daveirl


    This post has been deleted.


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    #65
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    daveirl wrote:
    This post has been deleted.

    They simply never put the organisational structures in place. The PDs began life as a break-away party, hastily assembled and to some degree based on a protest against the cronyism of the FF and FG system of the time. They did extremely well in their first election, but seemed to assume that the number of seats were what defined a political party.

    Whatever about Sinn Fein's ideologies and policies, which are brainless, they have a superb party machine and work so well on the ground. Put simply, they know how to work a constituency and what it takes to gather support - I think if they can keep that ethos long enough for people to forget their paramilitary links (that could take a generation), they'll be a force to be reckoned with - of course by the looks of things their policies are due to slowly drift to the centre, so they'll probably make themselves irrelevant in the quest for power before then.

    Anyway, Sinn Fein had a bad election too, not making the gains I thought they would (due to aforementioned hard work on the ground), but the party structures and machine they have in place makes all the difference between a bad result and a meltdown.

    (And I agree - Harney goes back to FF, maybe with Grealish going to FG. Harney will take Health again.)


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    #66
    daveirl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,483 ✭✭✭✭daveirl


    This post has been deleted.


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    #67
    Time Magazine
    Registered Users Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    Word on the street is that Mary's gonna lead them again, and they're gonna stick with it.


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    #68
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    To what extent have the policies of the PD's been absorbed by the mainstream though? On the economic side of things I think that the mainstream parties (including Labour) are a lot more attractive to a "PD minded voter" than they were when the PDs originally broke away.


    On a side note, something similar could happen to the Green Party over the next few terms.


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    #69
    mike65
    Closed Accounts Posts: 88,978 ✭✭✭✭mike65


    True nesf, when the PDs were invented they were talking about matters of church and state, foreign policy, finance, etc in a way that was radical, now its normal.

    Mike.


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    #70
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    I agree nesf - their a victim of the success of their own ideals'. The things they were radical for are now accepted by all the main parties, even Sinn Fein to some extent.

    They simply failed to develop on from that point and have suffered - just like the Green party were likely to be castrated by all the other parties going green in recent months (if only the environment was an issue during the campaign, that is).


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    #71
    Time Magazine
    Registered Users Posts: 8,452 ✭✭✭Time Magazine


    But lads, the whole free-market liberal thing wasn't "brought in" by the PDs. Certainly they didn't hurt, but liberalism has been taking the world by storm for decades. I mean look at Labour in England. Their only competition is the Tories who are no PDs.


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    #72
    flogen
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 10,247 Mod ✭✭✭✭flogen


    Ibid wrote:
    But lads, the whole free-market liberal thing wasn't "brought in" by the PDs. Certainly they didn't hurt, but liberalism has been taking the world by storm for decades. I mean look at Labour in England. Their only competition is the Tories who are no PDs.

    Well no-one's saying they invented it - I'm not even certain if they were the first Irish political party to have it as a central policy... but the fact that they indirectly forced Fianna Fail to accept coalitions for the first time they did help force it into the cabinet, which in turn sped up the slow crawl back to a reasonable economy that Ireland was enduring at the time.

    I'm not one who'd say the PDs changed Ireland, though, but they had an impact all the same... only problem for them is that they've been living off that impact for too long now and have finally paid the price.


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    #73
    solas
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,999 ✭✭✭solas


    Ibid wrote:
    But lads, the whole free-market liberal thing wasn't "brought in" by the PDs. Certainly they didn't hurt, but liberalism has been taking the world by storm for decades. I mean look at Labour in England. Their only competition is the Tories who are no PDs.
    the PD's were responsible for getting it off the ground and applying the concept actively in irish politics. They were like the accountants who introduced the scheme which would benefit the economy of this country immensly.


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    #74
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    Ibid wrote:
    But lads, the whole free-market liberal thing wasn't "brought in" by the PDs. Certainly they didn't hurt, but liberalism has been taking the world by storm for decades. I mean look at Labour in England. Their only competition is the Tories who are no PDs.

    I agree with Flogen. The above is similar to saying that the Greens didn't really bring in Green policies to Ireland. They definitely didn't invent the movement but that doesn't decrease their significance to the movement itself here.


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