FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3 - Threadbanned User List in OP

I think it's a case of FG and FF knowing they need each other to cling to power tbh. They'll put up with anything to do that.

The younger FFers may well seek to differentiate themselves from FG. The problem is that they may have more in common with SF than with older FFers. There has been a momentum building for SF in the younger demographics and it is outperforming FF and FG. They are the ones who will have to deal with a Reunified Ireland after the Border Poll and a vastly more complex political landscape. Some of the older FFers also realise this. Barry Cowen's comment about getting FF to take ownership of the Border Poll issue was a very smart one. The problem is that Martin is a neo-Unionist/Partitionist and his action in removing O'Cuiv as deputy leader showed that. It would have been interesting to see O'Cuiv leading FF.

The big problem for FF and FG as a single party is that the second and third preference votes will split over FF and FG candidates. That will cause a fratricide effect where FF and FG candidates will knock each other out when may be enough votes for a single FF or FG seat. This happened on a smaller scale in 2020 where FG ran too many canidates and the candidate with slightly more votes than either was elected without reaching the quota because the two FG candidates were eliminated in the same count.

The problem with the media is that there is always an agenda and many of the political correspondents seem to get institutionalised from covering politics for so long. The whole Special Advisor thing also takes some of the better journalists out of the media. There will be quite a few of them unemployed after the next GE. Some journalists may want to make their reputations with a killer soundbite or quote and they are the ones that will worry some of the politicians. The Labour supporters in the media will be churning out puff pieces and trying to reinvent Labour as a party of the Working Classes but there has been a bit of a shift to the SocDems as being the new Left of centre option. Many of the old pro-FF and pro-FG journalists are still in place and SF is not going to get an easy time. You can see it and hear it on RTE where SF representatives are interrupted every few seconds by the presenters and FF/FG/Lab representatives are rarely interrupted.

Regards...jmcc

Reservoir Dogs.

The problem with FG's approach is that the electorate is changing. That whole Middle Ireland thing was, I think, a Sindo creation of Eoghan Harris that was not really based on any evidence. The opinion polls try to break down the demographics along economic grounds and that's where the whole Middle Ireland thing runs into problems. With the age demographics as a layer over that, the support for anyone but FF/FG/Lab is gaining. SF is the recipient of most of that support. The age demographics is the important one because it is linked to older voters having children who cannot buy or rent. In normal times, those voters would have been solid FF/FG voters but that's beginning to change. If it accelerates before the next GE than all bets are off for the survival of FF and FG with anything close to their current seat counts. The pensions thing is going to add to that problem. And then there's the Border Poll issue.

There's a second order possibility (not a short term problem) that will be caused by the fragmentation of the conservative FF and FG vote. It could result in a new Right of centre party. It wouldn't be PDs 2.0 as the PDs were only ever Provisional Fianna Fail. There's a relatively untapped conservative vote that's been lost in the noise of the political incompetence and virtue sigalling of FF/FG.

Regards...jmcc

I'm beginning to think this government won't last till September, let alone December 😁

Night all

FF was able to get away with having a very nebulous identity in that it became all things to all people. That's because it was a party that had a very wide support. It lost that from Ahern onwards. FG never had that kind of broad appeal to voters. (Don't think that FG was ever given a majority because the electorate just didn't trust them.) SF is becoming like the old FF. FG should consider making Jennifer O'Carroll McNeill leader (she's a lot more academically qualified than some of the others) rather than Helen McEntee. Paschal Donohoe and Simon Coveney might also want to be leader (less sure). Coveney might not want to be leader though given how the FG parliamentary party installed Varadkar instead of him. Had he, rather than the FG politburo candidate Varadkar, been FG leader, I don't think that FG would be quite so low polls and the 2020 GE might have gone a lot better.

The big killer for FG is the sense of entitlement combined with a Dunning-Kruger effect. The first irritates voters. The second, when FG screws up even simple things in government, makes voters angry enough to not vote FG again. FG is more than capable of destroying itself without any help from FF. Unless it gets rid of Varadkar, it probably will.

Regards...jmcc

Your still up Blanch , how do you do it , remarkable. Actually this September, but now that remind me it looked pretty precarious last September too, Leaks, Makey uppy jobs , a certain matter I won't re hash , must be a seasonal thing I guess but MM was determined to continue being undermined in pursuit of completing his Term as Taoiseach no matter how underhanded FG was . I admire his stamina albeit he's destroying FF with every day he spends as Taoiseach.

I was quite surprised at the little indignation about those pesky FG backbenchers stirring it in the background, seems the Opposition only face the wrath of deflection when they question Government policy, Funny old world it is .

Night night

That's a funny start to my Sunday, as the givernment pick up the pieces of another round of bungling and chaos.

Opposition Finance spokesperson is on the News At One, should be worth a listen to see how far this will run.