Labour overtake FF in polls.

Sparks

The interesting thing about the poll is that it was carried out after the positive media reaction to Cowen's "inspirational off-the-cuff" speech (though in my opinion, if that was the high point of his rhetorical prowess, the man is a dire speaker at best); but before the debacle over what Lenihan read or didn't read had broken, and before nearly 1400 jobs went at Dublin airport and nearly 500 more in Limerick.

FF's figures right now have got to be below 20%.

Stargal

Interestingly, the poll was taken just a couple of days after Cowen's speech at the Four Seasons, which suggests that the media was far more enamoured with it than the public were. Also considering the whole Anglo-ILP thing hadn't broken when the poll was taken, wonder if support for FF would have been even lower if the pollsters had waited a couple of days?

nesf wrote: »

Populist ranting from the pulpit by Gilmore. He's damn good at it.

Actually I think one of the reasons that Gilmore is so good is because he seems to be so sincere about what he says and does, which is resounding with the public in the way that no other Labour leader ('cept maybe for Spring in 91-92) has ever been able to do. Don't see anything populist about it at all - he's echoing what Labour have been saying for years.

ateam wrote: »

They have offered no solid alternative to any government proposals and have been notably quiet on the pension levy.

Actually, they have. They put forward a full stimulus package a few months ago. And just yesterday they put out a whole thing about bank recapitalisation and the principles that must underpin it if it's going to work. Just cos you haven't seen it doesn't mean they haven't done it;)

Edit: Heh, Sparks got there just before me with the thing about Cowen's speech. Great minds dude, great minds...

nesf

samsemtex wrote: »

Populist ranting?

Populist:

3. A person who seeks to represent the views of ordinary people.



Like I said, he's good at it.

Pride Fighter

Labour are offering a lot of good policies IMO. They opposed the bank bailout, which FF and FG supported. I have a bad feeling that guaranteeing 400 billion euro of deposits will bite us in the ass. Labour are offering hope, instead of despair. They want to create jobs and grow us out of the recession like what Obama is doing in the states. Labour want to use the 20 billion pension reserve fund to do this. Whereas Fianna Fail are using the pension reserve fund to bailout their developer friends and hit the most vulnerable in society. I've never voted Labour before but now I want Gilmore for Taoiseach. Can he do a good job?? YES HE CAN.

K-9

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Labour are offering a lot of good policies IMO. They opposed the bank bailout, which FF and FG supported. I have a bad feeling that guaranteeing 400 billion euro of deposits will bite us in the ass. Labour are offering hope, instead of despair. They want to create jobs and grow us out of the recession like what Obama is doing in the states. Labour want to use the 20 billion pension reserve fund to do this. Whereas Fianna Fail are using the pension reserve fund to bailout their developer friends and hit the most vulnerable in society. I've never voted Labour before but now I want Gilmore for Taoiseach. Can he do a good job?? YES HE CAN.

One of the few good things FF did was create the pensions reserve fund, a savings fund. Labour argued against it.

Now they want to raid it!

Pride Fighter

K-9 wrote: »

One of the few good things FF did was create the pensions reserve fund, a savings fund. Labour argued against it.

Now they want to raid it!

FF are raiding it to bail out Sean Quinn, Bertie and Cowens developer cronies and to give Brian Goggin 2 million euro a year. Seems like a great idea:rolleyes:

K-9

Pride Fighter wrote: »

FF are raiding it to bail out Sean Quinn, Bertie and Cowens developer cronies and to give Brian Goggin 2 million euro a year. Seems like a great idea:rolleyes:

It's repayable!

The point is, people moan about the Govt. not saving, they did!

Why raid it more?

irish_bob

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I missed something - what did Labour do to get a rise in popularity other than just get the throw me off clothes of FF dissatisfaction.

they engaged in populism , non specifics about protecting the vulnerable ( which apparently include most public servants ) , going after tax shelters ( no specifics ) and demanding accountability , again no specifics

The_Minister

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Labour are offering a lot of good policies IMO. They opposed the bank bailout, which FF and FG supported. I have a bad feeling that guaranteeing 400 billion euro of deposits will bite us in the ass. Labour are offering hope, instead of despair. They want to create jobs and grow us out of the recession like what Obama is doing in the states. Labour want to use the 20 billion pension reserve fund to do this. Whereas Fianna Fail are using the pension reserve fund to bailout their developer friends and hit the most vulnerable in society. I've never voted Labour before but now I want Gilmore for Taoiseach. Can he do a good job?? YES HE CAN.

We really can't afford a splurge in spending (hell, we can't borrow enough to pay this years deficit, let alone next years and the year after). We don't have the money, and we won't be able to refill the pension fund if we do empty it.

Tabnabs

ateam wrote: »

I would love to see Eamon Gilmore as Minister for Finance(just for a laugh).

Why, aren't you getting enough laughs with Brian Lenihan??? :rolleyes:

nesf

Right some more detail on the Labour number from the Irish Times:

The surge in Labour support has pushed it close to Fine Gael and well ahead of Fianna Fáil in Dublin where it gets 22 per cent. The party gets 18 per cent in Munster, 15 per cent in the Rest of Leinster and 10 per cent in Connacht-Ulster.

In age terms Labour is weakest among the youngest 18 to 24-year-old category. Support increases up the age groups and is strongest among those over 50. In class terms the party’s strongest support comes from the best-off AB voters and is weakest among the poorest DE voters.

from: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0213/1233867934939.html?via=rel


I find this a bit odd. I'd have expected Gilmore to have strong appeal in the 18-24 age group and among DE voters. I appreciate that Labour have aimed more for the AB group over the past few years but I'm surprised that still holds true given the economic conditions.

That said, I imagine voter turnout is a lot better among the over-50 AB group so if I had to pick a group to be supporting me...


Edit: By the way, only 40% of FF voters are happy with the Government and only 15% of Green voters are which is interesting.

stakey

I don't find that surprising at all. There's a huge gap in political education through the development of Ireland's youth. Not only is there very little political education but there is very little relevant engagement with people younger than 25 by all political parties.

Most people in that age bracket tend to either not vote at all as the political system fails to represent their interests and engage with them or vote the way of their parents.

Lockstep

I think the problem here is that Labour was always competing with FF for the working class votes, Labour was great until Fianna Fáil came along and started poaching the working class vote with their social reform, housing schemes and not being socialist (important for the religious aspect)

Now that Fianna Fáil are seen to let down the working class and Labour are vocally supportive of the public sector the results don't really surprise me.

P. Breathnach

kickoutthejams wrote: »

I think the problem here is that Labour was always competing with FF for the working class votes, Labour was great until Fianna Fáil came along and started poaching the working class vote with their social reform, housing schemes and not being socialist (important for the religious aspect)

Now that Fianna Fáil are seen to let down the working class and Labour are vocally supportive of the public sector the results don't really surprise me.

That seems persuasive until one looks back to the demographic nesf pointed out. It's not so much the working class who are moving to Labour, as middle class people with working class sympathies. Them and public service workers.

thebigcheese22

I really think Labour can maintain this momentum going into the local elections and eventually the general election (whenever that is, I don't think anybody expects this government to last to 2012 :rolleyes:) I resent the claim that Gilmore and my party are populist, they have the best interests of the country at heart e.g. opposing the bank guarantee in case it bankrupts us.
If this continues we will be seeing an historical change - the end of Civil War politics.
Surely thats something that all right-minded people can welcome?

YES WE CAN!

irish_bob

thebigcheese22 wrote: »

I really think Labour can maintain this momentum going into the local elections and eventually the general election (whenever that is, I don't think anybody expects this government to last to 2012 :rolleyes:) I resent the claim that Gilmore and my party are populist, they have the best interests of the country at heart e.g. opposing the bank guarantee in case it bankrupts us.
If this continues we will be seeing an historical change - the end of Civil War politics.
Surely thats something that all right-minded people can welcome?

YES WE CAN!

they are engaging in populism at the moment , they see the public sector vote as being up for grabs and they are pulling out all the stops , ruari quinn was talking about public sector reform last summer , you hear no such language from anyone in labour right now

thebigcheese22

irish_bob wrote: »

they are engaging in populism at the moment , they see the public sector vote as being up for grabs and they are pulling out all the stops , ruari quinn was talking about public sector reform last summer , you hear no such language from anyone in labour right now

They're all for getting rid of the fat cats in management - for example they've criticised the HSE consistently over its buerocracy. What's unacceptable is hitting the ordinary worker with a pay cut when they never were responsible for the mess we're in now.

I've said it before and I'l say it again, the public sector is all to easy to blame.

You sir are engaging in populist bull**** of your own.

Lockstep

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That seems persuasive until one looks back to the demographic nesf pointed out. It's not so much the working class who are moving to Labour, as middle class people with working class sympathies. Them and public service workers.

Source please?

The_Minister

thebigcheese22 wrote: »

What's unacceptable is hitting the ordinary worker with a pay cut when they never were responsible for the mess we're in now.

We'll explain this again.

Public sector workers are like babies, sucking on our proverbial teat.

Mommy has just gone dry.

It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter that baby didn't cause it, the fact is that baby is going hungry for a while.

The public sector feed off our collective taxes (and don't give me the "we pay taxes too" stuff, you pay a fraction of what you cost.), and those taxes have pretty much run out. Ergo, you get less.

We aren't blaming you, but we can't give you what we don't have.

Sparks

We should get that put on a T-shirt.

And then make every fireman, nurse, ER doctor, teacher and garda wear it.

Feck's sake, do you really think the public sector have no right to query why they're having to pay for a problem that was caused by the private sector?

P. Breathnach

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Source please?

This thread, two posts before the one to which I was responding.

asdasd

Feck's sake, do you really think the public sector have no right to query why they're having to pay for a problem that was caused by the private sector?

Do you think that the private sector has to pay for a problem that was largely caused by bad regulation, bad political decisions, and mismanagement in the Public Sector?

We paid regulators to regulate the banks. Publicly paid regulators were there to ensure that the banks did not over-lend, as their equivalents in Germany and France ensured. Public Servants failed to do that. Time to pay up.

The levy is just an equalization move - the fact that Public Servants oppose it shows just how inherently greedy they are.

irish_bob

Sparks wrote: »

We should get that put on a T-shirt.

And then make every fireman, nurse, ER doctor, teacher and garda wear it.

Feck's sake, do you really think the public sector have no right to query why they're having to pay for a problem that was caused by the private sector?

the gardai , nurses , teachers , clerical officers etc most likely have t-shirts already that read WE DIDNT CAUSE THIS MESS

ive said it a couple of times already , every single public sector worker in the country must have attended some form of tuition camp in the past month for briefing on what banners to use when confronted with the issue of public sector pension reform etc , to the last man and woman like clones , the slogans are the same

WE DIDNT CREATE THIS MESS , THE PRIVATE SECTOR CREAMED IT DURING THE BOOM

Mr.Micro

FF 22% (-5)

That's the bit I find worrying. 22% is still a respectable base to build upon. What does it take for those 22% too see how bad FF are? It defies belief.

irish_bob

Mr.Micro wrote: »

That's the bit I find worrying. 22% is still a respectable base to build upon. What does it take for those 22% too see how bad FF are? It defies belief.

for close to a quater of this population to vote for anyone but fianna fail , the country would have to be worse than zimbabwe

Lockstep

P. Breathnach wrote: »

This thread, two posts before the one to which I was responding.

Uh..what?

nesf

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Uh..what?

My post, number 42 in this thread. Quotes the demographics in the poll for Labour and links to where I got them from.

They show that Labour's boost in support was from Upper Middle Class and Middle Class voters coming from FF, not from working class voters. i.e. A swing of public sector workers away from FF most likely, though quite possibly more general than that. FF has lost support with the middle class and held its ground better with the working class/unemployed. Labour's gain is from the top down not the bottom up, counter-intuitive as that may be.


Edit: Though if I remember correctly from polls from the past few years that it is in the middle class that Labour has its core support for that time. It's not been a "working class party" in ages. Labour competes more for the middle class vote than the working class vote with FF.

nesf

stakey wrote: »

I don't find that surprising at all. There's a huge gap in political education through the development of Ireland's youth. Not only is there very little political education but there is very little relevant engagement with people younger than 25 by all political parties.

Most people in that age bracket tend to either not vote at all as the political system fails to represent their interests and engage with them or vote the way of their parents.

Quite possibly, I thought that his ability as a speaker, his visibility and his being put beside two poor speakers in Cowen and Kenny would make a strong impression on younger voters who might suddenly have developed an interest in politics given how bad the news was economically for the past year.

Lockstep

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That seems persuasive until one looks back to the demographic nesf pointed out. It's not so much the working class who are moving to Labour, as middle class people with working class sympathies. Them and public service workers.

Where does it say anything about sympathies or public sector workers?

nesf

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Where does it say anything about sympathies or public sector workers?

Well, think about it a large portion of our better off AB voter group are public servants. Which group have FF pissed off enough lately for them to desert the party?

Sympathies, meh, I suppose if you take Labour as a party who looks out for and represents the little guy you could draw that assertion but it's nowhere in the numbers.