New poll sees government satisfaction down to 10% /New Red C Poll

tonys wrote:

Seriously though, the real level of support for FF can be seen in the 40% who don't want an election. People are pissed off, but even in their pissed offness they know what way they'd vote if it were an election rather than cheap talk to a pollster.

This is an excellent point. I guess the feeling in the government is that its impossible to remain popular when you are presiding over a recession anyway. There is a large wave of disillusionment with governments sweeping the world in the wake of this crisis. If I were in power I'd be confident of the wave passing overhead provided any serious gaffe's can be avoided. All this talk of an end to FF is really premature and a bit naive (unfortunately imo I might add).

shutuplaura wrote:

tonys wrote:

Seriously though, the real level of support for FF can be seen in the 40% who don't want an election. People are pissed off, but even in their pissed offness they know what way they'd vote if it were an election rather than cheap talk to a pollster.

This is an excellent point. I guess the feeling in the government is that its impossible to remain popular when you are presiding over a recession anyway. There is a large wave of disillusionment with governments sweeping the world in the wake of this crisis. If I were in power I'd be confident of the wave passing overhead provided any serious gaffe's can be avoided. All this talk of an end to FF is really premature and a bit naive (unfortunately imo I might add).

Tis premature indeed. If FF get knocked over for a term they have come back twice as strong as before.

I think they feed on the likes of Papal Knight's schadenfreude and glee ...

NO SCHADENFREUDE AND GLEE THEREFORE

New Red C Poll in tomorrows Sunday Business Post - 1,000 adults questioned:


1,000 adults Monday to Tuesday

Fianna Fail 23% – 5
Fine Gael 30% – 3
Labour 22% + 8
Sinn Fein 11% +2
Greens 6% -2
Others 8

How many candidates are Labour able to field though ?

cactus flower wrote:

New Red C Poll in tomorrows Sunday Business Post - 1,000 adults questioned:


1,000 adults Monday to Tuesday

Fianna Fail 23% – 5
Fine Gael 30% – 3
Labour 22% + 8
Sinn Fein 11% +2
Greens 6% -2
Others 8

How many candidates are Labour able to field though ?

An interesting poll. For the parties it contains mixed messages:

For Fianna Fáil the gloom continues. Remember Red C tends to overestimate support. So we have had two polls in three days from pollsters who over-estimate FF. And they put FF in the 23-25 range. That suggests, going by past over-estimations 20-23%. What is even more important is the trend, which remains down, down, down. On the current trends, and considering that the government has not even started to take some of the difficult decisions that are coming, a FF in the teens looks likely. In addition the longer the drop continues the more I wonder if the what we are witnessing is not the standard decline in tough times that will be reversed when things get better, but a political realignment of the sort Italy experienced in the 1990s and Britain experienced in the 1990s, when one of the dominant parties in the case of the UK, or the dominant one in Italy, was sidelined. In the case of Italy's Christian Democrats they were killed off completely, something unthinkable on a short time earlier (they had been in every government since the foundation of the Italian Republic. There was astonishment when only a couple of years someone outside the CDs had become prime minister. A decade later the party was gone).

For Fine Gael the result is mixed. Yet again they are in the 30s, the longest run the party has had above the 20s in well nearly two decades. The party will also be aware that Red C and Millward Brown/IMS do tend to underestimate them historically. So it suggests that Fine Gael is in the region of 33-34%. But it will want to stop further falls. If it can stay in the 30s, then it could establish itself as the leading party in Irish politics for the next decade or more.

Labour will be delighted with the result, but calmer heads will be nervous also. An 8% swing is impressive, but it will see the downsides - a lot of this was due to the appeal of Eamon Gilmore. But Eamon's analysis, through theatrical has not always been substantive. Becoming the voice of protest is valuable, but protest votes can be transient. Labour will also be aware that it has got an incredibly easy ride to date in the media. (They openly admit that.) Their economic policies in terms of how to solve the crisis are back-of-an-envellope stuff; great for soundbites, but little actually of substance. But with public support comes media scrutiny, and Labour will need, very quickly, to put together policies to match the soundbites. Otherwise they could face a media savaging. The media love to have someone to kick around. They have been kicking the daylights out of FF for ages. When everyone joins in (and the polls show they are) it becomes a little stale and they will move onto other targets. Enda Kenny has been a media target for ages, mainly because they feel it is dead easy to kick someone whose actual skills are behind the scenes (which is how government works) but who does not put in the performance on top which in superficial media coverage so many want. Labour, by being in the 20s, will be aware that the media can turn on them, and so they will need to develop substance behind the soundbites. Another problem for Labour is that the party in the Dáil is almost a one-man-band. Rabbitte and Quinn make appearances, Joan Burton is good but shrill. But beyond that the entire Labour Front Bench/Parliamentary Party is very poor. In addition many of its TDs are elderly, quite a few in back health (Michael D for one) and a large chunk of the parliamentary party is close to retirement. The party has an elderly retiring parliamentary party and weak organisation. Kenny, cleverly, devoted much of his first term to building the organisation up and that was how it won the seats it won in 2007. Rabbitte didn't do that and as a result saw the party fail to move in 2007. Gilmore is working to rebuild the organisation but it is so bad in some places, and so many of its TDs are so unable to run again that they may be unable to capitalise on poll showings. The support increase is impressive. It is too early to say if it is significant. It could simply be the traditional protest vote that goes between parties (at one stage the PDs looked like winning 40 seats when they got the protest vote, but they actually got less than half that as they had no means of copperfasting that support). Labour's big task is to (i) develop to more than a one man band, and (ii) develop actual policies behind the soundbites. If it does that, and gets the organisation right, it could be a 20s party longterm, with it and Fine Gael becoming the two dominant parties and FF fading into the background a-la the Liberals in Britain in the 1920s. For Labour the hard work starts now in turning a protest following into something lasting.

Sinn Féin's results are so-so. As a populist party of protest it should be winning far more support. It has spent most of the last couple of years going up a few points, then down a few points, then up, then down. 11% really is the minimum it should have in the current climate, and it built that vote on an ard fheis, something that invariably will give a boost.

The Greens cannot tell from this result what has happening. Have the public turned against them? Is it a statistical anomaly? One poll is not enough to give a sign. But they will be worried in case they have peaked and now the rage felt against FF by the public might be about to move to them. But it is simply to early to say.

Polls are interesting for trends. This poll is important in so far as it shows trends:

- Fianna Fáil plunging to electoral support levels never believed possible before.
- Fine Gael still in the 30s, not making the most of its opportunities, but not in trouble.
- Labour showing itself to be the party of protest, but now finding that it has to find a way to turn the usually transient protest vote into something more meaningful.

On Labour - they are struggling to field candidates in some areas in the locals. It is likely that much of their new support is from former Fianna Fail supporters. Will Fianna Fail perhaps think an earlier General Election rather than later might stop Labour from capitalising on its growing support in terms of seats?

The Labour Party has benefitted from its strong critique of the Government's handling of the banking crisis, and also from avoiding the unpleasantness of talking about the need for cuts.
They are an ageing party. That could be said of FF too. I was shocked by the elderly appearance of the Ard Fheis tonight - a number of them were asleep.

The whole thing is wide open.

I doubt Fianna Fail's result will be anywhere near as bad at a General Election, though it will be enough to put them in opposition, no doubt about that. With regard to Fine Gael, their results are good, but if they weren't good now when could they ever be? It is Labour making the large gains, and there's one reason alone - leadership. Gilmore is an impressive leader, and this is reflected in the leadership satisfaction ratings. Kenny does not inspire, in fact, when I hear him mentioned out and about, it's a tone of derision that is commonly used. It's unfair in a way, the man is decent and has impressive qualities in other respects (he'd make a fine minister), but he's not a Taoiseach material. Put Bruton in charge and then you're in a different game. There needs to be change, quickly, in this country, but it is being retarded by FG's dithering over what to do with Kenny. Kenny is in the kind of situation now that should be manna from heaven, he should be wiping the floor with Cowen on FF's responsibility for the extent of the scheisse we are in now. He isn't. Labour are taking the plaudits, Gilmore is being feted, and FG are standing by and watching. Remove Kenny, then the day will be yours.

toxic avenger wrote:

I doubt Fianna Fail's result will be anywhere near as bad at a General Election, though it will be enough to put them in opposition, no doubt about that. With regard to Fine Gael, their results are good, but if they weren't good now when could they ever be? It is Labour making the large gains, and there's one reason alone - leadership. Gilmore is an impressive leader, and this is reflected in the leadership satisfaction ratings. Kenny does not inspire, in fact, when I hear him mentioned out and about, it's a tone of derision that is commonly used. It's unfair in a way, the man is decent and has impressive qualities in other respects (he'd make a fine minister), but he's not a Taoiseach material. Put Bruton in charge and then you're in a different game. There needs to be change, quickly, in this country, but it is being retarded by FG's dithering over what to do with Kenny. Kenny is in the kind of situation now that should be manna from heaven, he should be wiping the floor with Cowen on FF's responsibility for the extent of the scheisse we are in now. He isn't. Labour are taking the plaudits, Gilmore is being feted, and FG are standing by and watching. Remove Kenny, then the day will be yours.

I'd agree with that assessment only I have long wished for Richard Bruton to have a term as Minister for Finance. If he were to become leader, he wouldn't be able to do that and the likelihood would be that a Labour finance minister would emerge. The only Labour TD I'd want in that position is Ruairí Quinn but that is no longer possible. In any FG/Lab coalition, it is essential that Finance go to FG and Bruton would be in his element there.

Would it be politically possible for Labour to go into coalition on that basis?

And who would you see as Taoiseach Ard Taoiseach ?

I don't understand the Kenny-baiting either - can someone say why they think he's not as leaderly as someone else would be ? I just don't see him deserving the baiting he gets.

Auditor #9 wrote:

And who would you see as Taoiseach Ard Taoiseach ?

I don't understand the Kenny-baiting either - can someone say why they think he's not as leaderly as someone else would be ? I just don't see him deserving the baiting he gets.

I don't think he deserves stick at all, and he would make a fine minister. But there's no question about it, his delivery is wooden, his propensity for using 100 words where 10 would have sufficed, and for asking ten mediocre questions instead of one killer one, plus his school prefect demeanour, it all goes down badly with the public. I've never heard anyone mention Kenny without a negative qualification being added, usually of the kind that Pat Kenny gets. It might not be fair, but it's my experience...

toxic avenger wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

And who would you see as Taoiseach Ard Taoiseach ?

I don't understand the Kenny-baiting either - can someone say why they think he's not as leaderly as someone else would be ? I just don't see him deserving the baiting he gets.

I don't think he deserves stick at all, and he would make a fine minister. But there's no question about it, his delivery is wooden, his propensity for using 100 words where 10 would have sufficed, and for asking ten mediocre questions instead of one killer one, plus his school prefect demeanour, it all goes down badly with the public. I've never heard anyone mention Kenny without a negative qualification being added, usually of the kind that Pat Kenny gets. It might not be fair, but it's my experience...

Actually Kenny would make a fantastic taoiseach. The key skills a taoiseach needs are (i) the ability to select the right people for the right post, (ii) the ability to run a co-ordinated team ensuring constructive debates don't descend into negative fighting, (iii) the ability to co-ordinate, delegate and facilitate.

Cowen has none of those skills. Ahern had some of them. John Bruton had them all (much to the surprise of Labour - Dick Spring described Bruton as the best taoiseach he had ever experienced). Garret lacked them. Haughey lacked them. Reynolds totally lacked them. Kenny's reputation is that he has them all in spades, a point Bertie Ahern once privately said, saying that if Kenny became taoiseach he would shock his critics by being a great taoiseach.

The way the vote gets spliced down to different minority votes for the different parties, then is mixed and repackaged into a mini-coalition, without the prior consent of the electorate, reminds me somewhat of the toxic assets that are giving us so much trouble in the financial system.

How many people who voted for the Greens and Finian McGrath last time knew that they were voting to keep Fianna Fail in ?

Papal_knight Two wrote:

toxic avenger wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

And who would you see as Taoiseach Ard Taoiseach ?

I don't understand the Kenny-baiting either - can someone say why they think he's not as leaderly as someone else would be ? I just don't see him deserving the baiting he gets.

I don't think he deserves stick at all, and he would make a fine minister. But there's no question about it, his delivery is wooden, his propensity for using 100 words where 10 would have sufficed, and for asking ten mediocre questions instead of one killer one, plus his school prefect demeanour, it all goes down badly with the public. I've never heard anyone mention Kenny without a negative qualification being added, usually of the kind that Pat Kenny gets. It might not be fair, but it's my experience...

Actually Kenny would make a fantastic taoiseach. The key skills a taoiseach needs are (i) the ability to select the right people for the right post, (ii) the ability to run a co-ordinated team ensuring constructive debates don't descend into negative fighting, (iii) the ability to co-ordinate, delegate and facilitate.

Cowen has none of those skills. Ahern had some of them. John Bruton had them all (much to the surprise of Labour - Dick Spring described Bruton as the best taoiseach he had ever experienced). Garret lacked them. Haughey lacked them. Reynolds totally lacked them. Kenny's reputation is that he has them all in spades, a point Bertie Ahern once privately said, saying that if Kenny became taoiseach he would shock his critics by being a great taoiseach.

Hey, it's your party, far be it for me to tell you what you should do. My view is that he's holding you back, but I could be proved wrong yet....

Perhaps I might suggest some people read Brian Farrell's Chairman or Chief? (Studies in Irish Political Culture). There is not only one successful model of leadership in the office of Taoiseach nor is there anywhere.

cactus flower wrote:

Would it be politically possible for Labour to go into coalition on that basis?

Yeah, they would get Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs - another important office of state. I don't think I really want to see a Labour FinMin at the moment. They have rather worryingly taken a left-ward swing in the last few months.

Auditor #9 wrote:

And who would you see as Taoiseach Ard Taoiseach ?

A pleasing mixture of Jed Bartlet, FDR and Margaret Thatcher would be a good choice for Taoiseach. To my mind, no-one in our political firmament applies to that description.

Quote :

I don't understand the Kenny-baiting either - can someone say why they think he's not as leaderly as someone else would be ? I just don't see him deserving the baiting he gets.

Well, even though he has led his party to the biggest comparative seat gain ever made by an Irish party - a commendable achievement, he has failed to transmit this ability to the nation at large. He to me is like Fine Gael's Moses. He brings them to the Promised Land of leading government and Fianna Fáil but must give way to a Joshua who can rule them there.