The media coverage of where the government went wrong

Thelomen Toblackai

Is anyone else annoyed at how the media (RTE in particular) are leading with this argument that the government did badly because they didn't get the right message across in their campaign ?

They did badly because they failed to adequately listen to their constituents over the length of their term in government surely ? Why isn't that the big story from this mess of an election ? That the government party TD's failed to retain their seats because their constituents thought they failed miserably at representing them ?

downey2003

RTE are only spreading the word their paymasters want them to spread. WE know the last government did so badlt because THEY failed to listen, but they want it to seem that the fault is with the electorate - just like it was our fault the banks failed.

ThisRegard

Surprise, more RTE conspiracy posts.

Thelomen Toblackai

ThisRegard wrote: »

Surprise, more RTE conspiracy posts.

How is it a conspiracy post ?? The 6 o'clock news today was saying FG/Labour got it badly wrong by not getting the right message across in the campaign.

piuswal

downey2003 wrote: »

RTE are only spreading the word their paymasters want them to spread. WE know the last government did so badlt because THEY failed to listen, but they want it to seem that the fault is with the electorate - just like it was our fault the banks failed.

I'm trying to understand what this means.

Paymasters of RTE? That is us, the licence payer.

I would have thought it is quite clear that FG in particular failed to hear what the rural electorate, in particular, were saying.

I would also suggest that the decision to wait until now, rather than going in November, cost them a few percentage points because of the flooding and the perceived inadequate response from central Government (not the local authorities who had the real responsibility. This was a Labour requirement as I understand it.)

Sleepy

Thelomen Toblackai wrote: »

Is anyone else annoyed at how the media (RTE in particular) are leading with this argument that the government did badly because they didn't get the right message across in their campaign ?

They did badly because they failed to adequately listen to their constituents over the length of their term in government surely ? Why isn't that the big story from this mess of an election ? That the government party TD's failed to retain their seats because their constituents thought they failed miserably at representing them ?

The problem here is that the majority of people are of average, or below average, intellect.

So the electorate needs to be lead, rather than followed. The key to leading people is to communicate well with them. To explain to them why the necessary course of action must be taken even when it's a bitter pill to swallow. There's a beautiful illustration of this in the West Wing episode "In the Shadow of Two Gunmen" where Bartlett first wins Josh's loyalty by admitting to a constituent that "yeah, we screwed you there" before proceeding to explain to him why it was necessary to do so.

And this was where the government parties failed: neither Enda Kenny, nor Joan Burton are good communicators. They didn't get the message across during their period of government and they didn't get it right in the election either. Most of the unpopular things they'd had to do, they never justified properly to the electorate in plain simple language, in the historical context, Enda never delivered his "we are living way beyond our means" speech.

Roger_007

Where the government got it wrong is that they didn't promise enough free stuff to the 'entitled' classes..........simples!

CIARAN_BOYLE

Personally FG in government didn't do badly. They weren't great and inspiring but they failed to shoot the country in the foot either.

The campaign however was treated as we did amazing lets keep that going.

If they were more honest and came out with we got a crap economy but we managed not to make it worse and to ride international recovery somewhat but we have more to do then I think Fine Gael would have come out with 5-10 more seats.

Sleepy

Their biggest problem was that the slogan 'A lot done. More to do.' was already used by Fianna Fail back in 2002!

Mr.Micro

I would love to know what another Government would have/ could have done in the last 5 years? There was hardly much room to do anything, other than try and save the country. As bad as much of our public sector is at the minute, health service and the rest, we are lucky to have anything at all, other than a wrecked wasteland of an economy. The debt is still there, parked.

K-9

They were always betting on the economy improving and hoping that would do them. Kenny was always on the back foot during the campaign, ceding the point about rural Ireland to FF in particular and then he made a mess of the last week.

If Enda had performed better I don't think we'd be discussing on FG much at all and would be focusing on Labour. They were seen as not delivering enough of their promises and not protecting their base support enough, no PR campaign was going to change that.

Sleepy

A campaign based on the central message of "we've had 5 years of doing what we had to do after FF wrecked the economy, now give us 5 years to do what we want to do" might have worked better imo.

oscarBravo

Sleepy wrote: »

A campaign based on the central message of "we've had 5 years of doing what we had to do after FF wrecked the economy, now give us 5 years to do what we want to do" might have worked better imo.

I don't think anything would have worked. Most of the talk in the buildup to the election was about anger. Angry people can't be reasoned with.

Mr.Micro

oscarBravo wrote: »

I don't think anything would have worked. Most of the talk in the buildup to the election was about anger. Angry people can't be reasoned with.

No angry people cannot be reasoned with. Angry about what? Water charges, that in reality will be for the better of the country long term for all, both in supply and quality. Having to contribute to pay for our enormous debt. Having some sort of public services other than nothing, which was the reality of a bankrupt nation. Angry that we can't have this, that and the other, because we spent every cent and more. To top it all vote for FF, the architects. Is there a word for that?

Sleepy

oscarBravo wrote: »

I don't think anything would have worked. Most of the talk in the buildup to the election was about anger. Angry people can't be reasoned with.

I'm not so sure. Anger can be deflected.

And in FG's case, their biggest problem was that they failed to deflect the anger back onto those to blame for the "hard" decisions they had to make in government: FF.

oscarBravo

Sleepy wrote: »

I'm not so sure. Anger can be deflected.

And in FG's case, their biggest problem was that they failed to deflect the anger back onto those to blame for the "hard" decisions they had to make in government: FF.

That worked for about three years. Then people started complaining every time they pointed out that they'd inherited a trainwreck, and the deflection became something to attack them on.

K-9

oscarBravo wrote: »

That worked for about three years. Then people started complaining every time they pointed out that they'd inherited a trainwreck, and the deflection became something to attack them on.

Similar to SF and terrorists, people get sick of it after a while and see it as a deflection tactic.

oscarBravo

K-9 wrote: »

Similar to SF and terrorists, people get sick of it after a while and see it as a deflection tactic.

...and, like SF and terrorists, once it's seen as a deflection tactic, it no longer matters that it's true.

Mr.Micro

oscarBravo wrote: »

...and, like SF and terrorists, once it's seen as a deflection tactic, it no longer matters that it's true.

It could also be that people do not like reality. Better to believe what the other guy is promising, even if it's pure BS.

nice_guy80

they really should have kicked the Irish Water can down the road

Macy0161

nice_guy80 wrote: »

they really should have kicked the Irish Water can down the road

But in fairness to them, despite the outcry, that was in the FG manifesto for the last election. One part of Government hammered for breaking promises, the other hammered for keeping them!

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

keeponhurling

Thelomen Toblackai wrote: »

Is anyone else annoyed at how the media (RTE in particular) are leading with this argument that the government did badly because they didn't get the right message across in their campaign ?

They did badly because they failed to adequately listen to their constituents over the length of their term in government surely ? Why isn't that the big story from this mess of an election ? That the government party TD's failed to retain their seats because their constituents thought they failed miserably at representing them ?

Agree with you.

FG/Labour have been around since almost the foundation of the state, and been in power for the last 5 years.
We are familiar with who they are.

It's not like the voters didn't understand what they stand for, or confused them with somebody else. There was no mistake about the election results .

Charles Babbage

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

FG could have said "extend the recovery", which would have made clear that it had already started, but could have included extension both by time and to people and places.

Sleepy

Seems like FG badly missed Frank Flannery.

johnnyskeleton

Charles Babbage wrote: »

FG could have said "extend the recovery", which would have made clear that it had already started, but could have included extension both by time and to people and places.

If, and I'm not saying it is necessarily the case, but if it is the case that FG stand for supporting the free market and encouraging private businesses rather than increasing social welfare, exempting some people from paying for anything themselves and keeping the public sector workers happy at all costs, then the "keep the recovery going" message was precisely the right message to send to their core voters.

The problem is that only 26% of the country likes this agenda. Apart from the 2% or so of the country that voted for Renua, everyone else promised the magic formula of lower taxes, higher services and tap the magic money tree of big business and those nasty high earners.

So it wasn't that they failed to get the message across, it's that they did get the message across and that message only applies to a minority of people in the State.

nice_guy80

'A recovery for all' would have been a better slogan.

Anyway, their arrogance ruined them in the end

Charles Babbage

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

If, and I'm not saying it is necessarily the case, but if it is the case that FG stand for supporting the free market and encouraging private businesses rather than increasing social welfare, exempting some people from paying for anything themselves and keeping the public sector workers happy at all costs, then the "keep the recovery going" message was precisely the right message to send to their core voters.

The problem is that only 26% of the country likes this agenda. Apart from the 2% or so of the country that voted for Renua, everyone else promised the magic formula of lower taxes, higher services and tap the magic money tree of big business and those nasty high earners.

So it wasn't that they failed to get the message across, it's that they did get the message across and that message only applies to a minority of people in the State.

This is too easy to say. Responsible people expected FG not only to start a recovery but to a change so that this mess would not happen again. Some progress was made on the former, owing to the Troika, but little on the latter. The conduct of FG was largely the same old sh|te, the setting up of Irish Water was done in manner even FF would blush at. Yes the Central Bank did something to stop excessive lending, but the only response to planning reform was to re-legalise shoebox apartments and we have a housing crisis. There is no public pay policy, the policy of pay more regardless the nature of the work done, has been replaced with pay less regardless of the work done.

There was golden opportunity to make changes as most people recognised the need for change, but this opportunity was largely wasted.

Sam Russell

The media took the simple way of filling empty pages with polls - lots of them. The discussion of issues was very thin.

The IW issue was done to death - yet no mention of bin charges, the last such issue. The Gov should have put a referendum down that would make IW and other state assets, like ESB Networks, Bord Gais Networks, Coilte, etc impossible to privatise. That would have kicked the IW can down the road.

Labour should have answered the broken promise canard with - 'If you want Labour policies then vote Labour - we did all we could with the support we got!'

Enda did not help much either.