Why is the Irish Labour party such a failure ?

Having been at some point in my life a member of both the Irish and UK LP's you are comparing chalk and cheese. They are very different parties.

UK's LP as envisaged by Kinnock/Blair/Starmer is more like the old Liberal (Whigs) - it presents it'self as more socially caring but still very much part of an establishment based on a Imperialist past (they still believe in the British Empire as a 'good' thing and can't accept it's dead).

Corbyn was a threat to that as he was part of the Socialist part of the LP - the one that brought in the NHS etc etc. Dithering on Brexit was their downfall. That and the whole anti-Semitic B.S media assassination. Israel is grateful a pro-Palestinian PM was avoided.

The Irish LP hasn't has a socialist leader since Connolly. They are utterly rudderless. I agree they appeal to the upper middle classes - but not that this is based on 'identity politics', it's because they are just another version of the Irish Greens - a red tinge rather than a green one but still exists only as a mudguard willing to throw their election promises in the bin at the first whiff of a TD's pension. Both allow smug well-heeled people to have a veneer of social conscience without any danger of real political change.

Again, the issue is not that the term is overused but that you don't quite understand it. You are confusing "populist" with "trying to be popular".

Edit. Just noticed breazy1985 already covered it in the post above

I think it seems to you because that's how you want it to seem to you.

It is hard to tell what you are saying in these posts. I tried to give an analogy of a workplace and use social services as you said that your missus works there.

I'll try to keep it even more basic.

Would you think that it would ever be possible that somewhere along your missus' chain-of-command that there is someone who is in their job, not because of an inherent desire to help people, but instead because it was just a handy job that they could get by cynically pretending to have an interest in the area?

I don't know but my hope would be that we would have still have a pretty strong labour party afterwards.

Do you think MLM is the only electable SF candidate? That wouldn't say a lot about the rest of the party. So that, when she arrived in the door on her way back from handing in her FF membership card, they said "oh, finally, we have someone who can be elected"?

Why couldn't she get elected by Rathgar voters? She couldn't get away with the same guff there but she could have still done the work and spread her message and got elected. It's not as if SF run no candidates there ever is it?

In one of the recent elections, SF parachuted in many candidates into local areas to "reward" those individuals with easy seats at the expense of local SF people. Here is a similar example. https://www.independent.ie/regionals/fingalindependent/news/sf-parachute-in-candidate-from-crumlin-31105227.html There was a local SF councillor who was topping the polls. It was going to be a fairly safe seat for SF but O'Reilly was happy to parachute in to take it off the local man.

Basically, there is a very strong suspicion that the individual just wants the role. It's not actually for any inbuilt belief or ethic. It was just whatever route was the handiest way for them to get into office. It could have been SF or it could have been The Irish Fredom Party or similar nutjobs. It wouldn't have really mattered.

MM is the leader of FF. I haven't heard of him running in Dublin.

Yes. Wasn't Shortall one of those that left then?

I think they should try to iron out their differences with the SDs.

They are the only credible poiticians who are somewhere in the realm of their politics ( eh, what are Labours policies, anyone know? )

They have some excellent young councillors coming up the ranks. It would be good to know what their agenda was for the future.

Every election it feels like you are voting for a party based on quicksand / or evolving as a politician would say :)

She was disgraceful and an embarassment in government.

Talked herself and her party out of a job.

Nobody questioning the good work ethic and will of many of those you mention in the party.

Ivana Bacik has been exemplary also in battling for womens rights and equality all along and all that held her back from being elected was the difficult constituency she represents. That and leadership of the party who didn't think she was made of the right stuff!

Its the future of the party as opposed to individuals that is the issue really.

The ironic thing is that SF is now the largest party in the Dail. The Sindo and Indo are not reliable sources when it comes to reporting on SF as they have supported FG. The new owners, Mediahuis, have been trying to move the newspapers more to the centre of the political spectrum. Under the discredited and unlamented Barbara J. Pym (Eoghan Harris), the coverage had been fanatically anti-SF. SF's problem with the last GE was that it had too few candidates to take advantage of the surge against FF/FG. As for the incompetent Martin, he lost a GE that FF should have won easily because of his neo-Unionist/pro-FG leanings and wanting to commemorate the Black and Tans/RIC. Does anyone remember what Labour's position on the FG Black and Tans/RIC commemoration and, more importantly, does anyone care? That is what is killing Labour. It doesn't really stand for anything.

Regards...jmcc

She was also the most clueless Labour leader ever and considered that opening a food bank was a photo opportunity. Labour went from 37 in the 2011 GE to just seats to 7 in 2016 under her reign of error.

Regards...jmcc

Labour was more the party of the Public Services. It depended on the soft FF vote transfers moreso than any genuine Labour vote. When those transfers disappeared, so did most Labour seats. It had also been the beneficiary of the "Nice But Dim" vote from people who don't know much about politics and who are easily swayed by right-on and politically correct causes. The problem for Labour is that the SocDems have now hoovered up much of that Nice But Dim vote and there were even noises from Labour a while back about Labour and the SocDems merging. The SocDems don't seem to be interested.

Regards...jmcc

I don't trust the Sindo/Indo pro-FG agenda. There are reasons that parties will select candidates other than the obvious ones and they will often try to get their best media performers elected. What happened in 2020 took SF by surprise (the neo-Unionists in FG and FF wanting to commemorate the Black and Tans/RIC and FF/FG's failure to deal with Health and Housing) and it had not run enough candidates whereas FG had run too many.

Regards...jmcc

Disagree.

How can you say that their middle class voters are a) smug and b) only aspire to a veneer of social conscience?

That is a description of FF / FG voters 😂

After Dinny O'Brien snarfed the second mobile phone licence, the newspapers shifted to being pro-FF (The payback time headline). Tony O'Reilly was part of another consortium that expected to win the licence but the fix was in and O'Brien got it. Then when Eircom was being plundered, O'Reilly was part of the winning Valentia consortium and this didn't go down well with O'Brien who also wanted to take over Eircom. O'Brien then spent around 500 million Euro to acquire a major shareholding in IN&M and oust O'Reilly and his family. The problem was that the whole newpaper industry was collapsing at the the time and IN&M's shareprice also collapsed. It became very pro-FG after O'Reilly was removed. O'Brien had to sell his IN&M shares for about a 450 milion Euro loss when Mediahuis acquired IN&M in a firesale.

Regards...jmcc

Because I used to be a member of the LP, used to canvas for the LP.

With few exceptions their core support in is middle class areas where university educated people aspire to being a bit socially aware but not in a way that impacts their lifestyle. Just like core Green support.

And yes, I am university educated and would be considered middle class.

That's an artifact of the voting system which allows votes to transfer between them. Under any other system this (and the whole AAA/PBP/SP alliance joke) would not be viable and they would either have merged or all sunk without trace.

I grew up in a middle class area in SCD. My parents are lifelong labour voters. They never studied at third level, and had working class upbringings in North Dublin and Kildare respectfully. They are by no means the exception, at least not for the large estate where I grew up.

You're talking sh*te.

Not making much sense there to me so will leave it 🤔

I think you forget that a lot of voters are naïve. You only have to look at people think that SF will solve all the national problems with a wave of there hand.

You forget the savagery of the cuts post 2011. It was especially savage on people with children of college age. Fees went from 1k to 2.5 k in a few years. As well the CA which was paid to college going children at 21 was stopped on leaving Primary school, add to that that taxes increased by 1k+/ couple. On top of that you in SW instead of spreading the burden by making a cut accross SW it was cuts in areas like special needs or carers that were targets.

In one budget I do know that the cuts effects us to the tune of over 5k/ year and it was 2-3k the following year.

Labour went over the top in the last ten days before the election as FG looked to be getting an overall majority. Senior members like Rabbit, Gilmore, etc made promises on top of promises to get into power.

People forget that if Labour had been in opposition. It is there leader would be attacking FG policy not the leader of FF and SF. Labour always had a rural vote. They would have had a teflon coat in 2016 and would have won that election hitting 60-70 seats.

But Gilmore, Rabbitte, Bruton, Howlin and Quinn were unwilling to wait as age was against them

I already said that I don't trust the Sindo/Indo agenda. That regional newspaper is an IN&M one.

Regards...jmcc

So your response to a fact is to stick your fingers in your ears and go "nah nah nah nah, it's fake news from the Sindo/Indo".

Do you want me to send you the official link that the existing SF councillor in the Swords area topped the poll in 2014? Or is it just that once something is published in a "IN&M" paper, that it will also render any other source of that fact false?

Perhaps it's only true is it comes via a statement from "The Army Council"? Is that what we are dealing with now?

Gilmore was just a Stickies pension tourist who mistook a massive anti-FF vote for a pro-Labour vote.

Regards...jmcc