General Election 2020 - See MOD note in First Post

debok

friendlyfun wrote: »

Who do you think is our best bet?

His hero is not running

Max Powers

Gardner wrote: »

Our best bet is another not so law abiding politician. Will ya ever f off

I see where you are coming from but if ff are going to be the biggest party and possibly lead govt party, would 2 td's in that party help Waterford's cause, you'd have to conclude yes.in my view, if we had 5 seats, our best bet would be 2 ff, 2 fg and maybe one sf. Obviously we only have four so there is the crux.

Paddy@CIRL

Folks,

Is there anywhere online where the local candidates and their policies have been collated into one place? Preferably as non-biased as possible, but that might be asking too much...

azimuth17

The Big Debate, with all 11 candidates confirmed - is hosted by Darren Skelton and Dermot Keyes, and takes place in WIT Arena this Thursday evening, January 30 at 7pm sharp.

There are still some audience tickets available. If you're interested in attending, please email:
nicky.heffernan@waterford-news.com

From Facebook Page Waterford News and Star.

Cabaal

friendlyfun wrote: »

Did the people just joining vote for it? I think not. Joe McHugh spinning his election promises saying FG will restore it in 2021 if elected.

No, the established teachers voted for a two tier system.

Throwing new teachers under the bus to save themselves, pretty shameless. I've talked to teachers who deny this, but it was well covered in the media at the time.

robtri

Paddy@CIRL wrote: »

Folks,

Is there anywhere online where the local candidates and their policies have been collated into one place? Preferably as non-biased as possible, but that might be asking too much...

thats a big ask

but a list of candidates here
https://www.rte.ie/news/election-2020/results/#/national/overview

E38E3E38E3EE33

WhichCandidate.ie (I can't post links) is good to check how you match with each candidate on a list of issues.

Harry Palmr

http://whichcandidate.ie/events/8/constituencies/48/candidates

It's Naked Attraction for politics, no actual policy statements as far as I can see.

hardybuck

Harry Palmr wrote: »

http://whichcandidate.ie/events/8/constituencies/48/candidates

It's Naked Attraction for politics, no actual policy statements as far as I can see.

The party manifestos are all that really matters at this point.

Harry Palmr

Harry Palmr wrote: »

http://whichcandidate.ie/events/8/constituencies/48/candidates

It's Naked Attraction for politics, no actual policy statements as far as I can see.

I matched most with Cullinane - 78%

Harry Palmr

The problem with judging local candidates is that they might say nice and right things about X but the party they represent might have no particular policy on X, indeed it may hardly know X is an issue or important to a constituency or they do know but don't care as it will not matter with regard to forming government.

Now I'd like to think the NQP is big enough to cause a splash but I fear it's just another ripple in the pool up in Dublin.

hardybuck

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The problem with judging local candidates is that they might say nice and right things about X but the party they represent might have no particular policy on X, indeed it may hardly know X is an issue or important to a constituency or they do know but don't care as it will not matter with regard to forming government.

Now I'd like to think the NQP is big enough to cause a splash but I fear it's just another ripple in the pool up in Dublin.

Hasn't that been discussed? One party has committed to it and the others haven't.

SF, for example, found a magic way to increase public spending by €20bn, but didn't see fit to mention that project.

I heard the Greens talking about a Cork and Galway Luas again - parties have had plenty of opportunities to get behind North Quays.

Cabaal

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The problem with judging local candidates is that they might say nice and right things about X but the party they represent might have no particular policy on X, indeed it may hardly know X is an issue or important to a constituency or they do know but don't care as it will not matter with regard to forming government.

Now I'd like to think the NQP is big enough to cause a splash but I fear it's just another ripple in the pool up in Dublin.

Not to mention TD's who will go off and do their own thing like independents.

Look at the marriage ref and repeal 8th ref, dispite FF supporting a yes vote in both cases all the FF TD's in Kilkenny wanted a no and off hand I'm pretty sure it was the same in Waterford.

But if you were supporting FF based on their support of the yes vote you'd have been undermined by their TD's. (of course you'd be foolish to think FF would want to change issues they've kicked down the road for years)

Harry Palmr

Simon Coveney on WLR, only half listening as they are only half interested.

www.wlrfm.com

curmudgeonly

hardybuck wrote: »

The party manifestos are all that really matters at this point.

Ha they are wish lists at best, there is going to be a coalition Government is the only thing we actually know, so the manifesto's will be the first thing to go out the window in negotiations.

Cabaal

curmudgeonly wrote: »

Ha they are wish lists at best, there is going to be a coalition Government is the only thing we actually know, so the manifesto's will be the first thing to go out the window in negotiations.

They are and perhaps 30-40% of manifesto's simply don't happen.
BUT, people should still read them (and keep in mind the above when doing so)

Why should people read them?
Well, if you go back to 2011 people voted for FG, fg very clearly had water charges as part of their manifesto. Yet when FG tried to implement this aspect of their manifesto it was a farce for people to be outraged.

I've spoken to so many anti water charges people that admit they prev voted FG but never bothered to check what they were voting for.
:rolleyes:

Reading manifestos and doing some basic research is important, its really your only job before you vote. Blindly voting based on some buzz words is dangerous. It's like blindly voting for the Irish Freedom Party and then being outraged because you realised the party hates the EU, hates anyone that isn't white and has links to the well known far right members in the UK. You only have yourself to blame.

hardybuck

curmudgeonly wrote: »

Ha they are wish lists at best, there is going to be a coalition Government is the only thing we actually know, so the manifesto's will be the first thing to go out the window in negotiations.

I think most of the smaller parties, including SF, are wish lists. Either they aren't going to be in Government, or they'll be trying to get some of their main priorities on the table as junior coalition partners.

The big two on the other hand will be leading Government, and will pursue most of their priorities.

Cabaal

hardybuck wrote: »

I think most of the smaller parties, including SF, are wish lists. Either they aren't going to be in Government, or they'll be trying to get some of their main priorities on the table as junior coalition partners.

The big two on the other hand will be leading Government, and will pursue most of their priorities.

I'd tend to agree,
SF know for a fact they can't form a Goverment on their own, they simply don't have enough people running to form one. Is this intentional perhaps? Afterall they've known a election has been on the cards for sometime.

Best they can hope for is a coalition, but they pretty much know FF, FG and labour won't want to form a goverment with them.

So this creates an ideal situation for them to be able to comfortably stand on the side lines claiming they know how to run a country with no actual fear of having to do so.

Meanwhile people that fail to do research or look at their track record in NI (not having a government, NI having more homeless issues, failure of SF on Brexit etc) think SF seem to be the answer for everything. The only way SF look good on Brexit in NI is because the DUP on their own and in full control of NI's future got screwed over by the Tory's.

Now i say this as a person who doesn't have any specific party alligance, last time I blindly followed a party was when I was around 17.

If I look at manifesto's of FF, , SF, FG, Labour, Social Dems etc I can honestly say they all have good things, but they also have things that are pipe dreams that won't fly for a numbers of reasons including budgets, public going against the idea, civil/HSE/Teachers going against the idea.

Frankly it really scares me when people can't be critical of aspects of a party manifesto they decide to allign themselves with.

hardybuck

Cabaal wrote: »

I'd tend to agree,
SF know for a fact they can't form a Goverment on their own, they simply don't have enough people running to form one. Is this intentional perhaps? Afterall they've known a election has been on the cards for sometime.

Best they can hope for is a coalition, but they pretty much know FF, FG and labour won't want to form a goverment with them.

So this creates an ideal situation for them to be able to comfortably stand on the side lines claiming they know how to run a country with no actual fear of having to do so.

Meanwhile people that fail to do research or look at their track record in NI (not having a government, NI having more homeless issues, failure of SF on Brexit etc) think SF seem to be the answer for everything. The only way SF look good on Brexit in NI is because the DUP on their own and in full control of NI's future got screwed over by the Tory's.

Now i say this as a person who doesn't have any specific party alligance, last time I blindly followed a party was when I was around 17.

If I look at manifesto's of FF, , SF, FG, Labour, Social Dems etc I can honestly say they all have good things, but they also have things that are pipe dreams that won't fly for a numbers of reasons including budgets, public going against the idea, civil/HSE/Teachers going against the idea.

Frankly it really scares me when people can't be critical of aspects of a party manifesto they decide to allign themselves with.

In my opinion SF have a built the party, and their individual careers, on being in opposition.

They don't have enough candidates as they aren't big enough. David Cullinane is Waterford's first SF TD in 90 years for example. 23 seats is a lot for them and they'll do well to hold it or make a small gain. They know nobody will go into Government with them, and therefore they can develop a quite a manifesto that appeals to their target audience in the knowledge that it won't be actioned.

I think that more of the FF and FG manifestos are based on reality because they know one of them will be leading the Government, and they'll be held accountable for whatever happens. If the junior coalition partner has to drop things they'll get a dig for rolling over too easy. Could be worse - Greens are back and Labour and the left always end up suffering drama at their own hands.

Wanderer78

hardybuck wrote:

They don't have enough candidates as they aren't big enough. David Cullinane is Waterford's first SF TD in 90 years for example. 23 seats is a lot for them and they'll do well to hold it or make a small gain. They know nobody will go into Government with them, and therefore they can develop a quite a manifesto that appeals to their target audience in the knowledge that it won't be actioned.

Or we could end up in our current situation whereby both ff and fg are in government

hardybuck

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Or we could end up in our current situation whereby both ff and fg are in government

We could definitely end up in a scenario where one of the parties leads another minority Government.

Wanderer78

hardybuck wrote:

We could definitely end up in a scenario where one of the parties leads another minority Government.

Oh I think it's more or less a done deal now, I also suspect, we could end up with another confidence and supply

Cabaal

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Oh I think it's more or less a done deal now, I also suspect, we could end up with another confidence and supply

Pretty good odds alright,
But again I think even SF knows this,

hardybuck

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Oh I think it's more or less a done deal now, I also suspect, we could end up with another confidence and supply

It will obviously depend on who comes out with the most seats, and if they want to make a deal with a coalition partner.

For example, if FF, Greens and Labour all have good days out, and have over 80 seats between them, they might be forming a majority coalition.

noby

hardybuck wrote: »

It will obviously depend on who comes out with the most seats, and if they want to make a deal with a coalition partner.

For example, if FF, Greens and Labour all have good days out, and have over 80 seats between them, they might be forming a majority coalition.

They'd all want to have really good days out for that scenario. I could see a few indies thrown into the mix again to make up numbers.

Squidvicious

hardybuck wrote: »

It will obviously depend on who comes out with the most seats, and if they want to make a deal with a coalition partner.

For example, if FF, Greens and Labour all have good days out, and have over 80 seats between them, they might be forming a majority coalition.

Not beyond the bounds of possibility. On Paddy Power, the spread suggests 53/54 seats for FF, 6/7 for Labour and 11/12 for Greens. Still short of the magic 80 but possible on a good day or with a few willing Independents. I assume that the Social Democrats could pick up a seat or two and might also play ball.
There is little or no chance of FG returning to power.

hardybuck

noby wrote: »

They'd all want to have really good days out for that scenario. I could see a few indies thrown into the mix again to make up numbers.

Absolutely - but I do think there's a bit of movement possible in the next two weeks yet.

hardybuck

Squidvicious wrote: »

Not beyond the bounds of possibility. On Paddy Power, the spread suggests 53/54 seats for FF, 6/7 for Labour and 11/12 for Greens. Still short of the magic 80 but possible on a good day or with a few willing Independents. I assume that the Social Democrats could pick up a seat or two and might also play ball.
There is little or no chance of FG returning to power.

Let's be clear though, polls said Donald Trump wouldn't be President and Brexit wouldn't happen.

A few years ago FF did better than opinion polls suggested they would because people were embarrassed to say they supported them.

Polls are only as good as the information people provide. People change their minds, and people lie.

noby

Polls are mostly very accurate, but they're only a snapshot in time. They can't account for undecideds, or people changing their mind.

sillysocks

For anyone interested in the debate in WIT with all the candidates tonight it’s being streamed live....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2mI8J4uGmGo#