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Ireland election 2016

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Casually Red said:
Very decent chap this

Profile: Thomas Pringle (Ind)
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So ...

So that's...

Sinn Féin - 23
AAA-PBP - 6
Thomas Pringle, Seamus Healy (Workers and Unemployed Action Group) , Clare Daly, Mick Wallace & Maureen O'Sullivan - 5
Greens - 2

Social Democrats (left of the labour party) - 3

That's 39 in all. Has to be regarded as progress.

Any more of the Independents fit, however loosely, the 'left of neo-liberal' bill?

Kind of a shame Ming Flanagan went off to Brussels. I met him a few months ago. Only went over to sat hello. 20 minutes later we were still yapping and putting the world to rights and an irate group of (mostly) German MEP's were giving out about having to wait on their bus for him. Sound skin.
 
AFAIK Brendan Ogle is not, nor has he ever been, a Sinn Fein mouthpece.

But he has some interesting things to say about Ruth Coppinger's campaign's 'tactics'. So not just the Shinners being 'lazy' and 'bleating' then?

Right2Change organiser hits out at AAA for 'disgraceful attacks' on Sinn Féin | An Phoblacht

Good to see Padraig MacLochlainn (SF) showing his class by raising Thomas Pringle's hand after Pringle (independent/left/republican) pipped him at the post.

I would put my mortgage on Ruthy paying a price in the longer term - and Donnelly getting elected on the first count next time out.

I just hope SF get a grip of some of the more vociferous (and less politically educated) of their supporters and remind them of the bigger picture. Whatever their feelings of betrayal in Dublin West, a popular front must be maintained and built.
 
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“Whether I, or you, like it or not, there will be no non-FF/FG Government without Sinn Féin. This is simply a mathematical fact,” he said.

And whether Ogle or anyone else likes it or not, there will be no progressive non-FF/FG government without a Sinn Fein that has to deal with a serious threat to its left. That, too, is a mathematical, political, fact.
 
Here's a graphic that shows the bigger picture. (edit: can't get that to post) It shows that 21% of SF 2nd preference transfers went to AAA-PBP candidates, whilst only 12% of AAA-PBP's went to SF. Given that in many cases there WERE no AAA-PBP candidates for SF voters to transfer to and indeed many had a 2nd SF candidate to transfer to, then the discrepancy is even more pronounced.

It will be interesting to see the figures from Dublin West.

From what I can gather, SF's main beef is that had Donnelly been elected (maybe even on the first count) then Coppinger would ALSO have been elected and Joan Burton would have been collecting her P45 - instead of remaining as a serving Minister.

I look forward to proper analysis of whether both Donnelly and Coppinger could/should have been elected had Coppinger's mob played ball. I understand they were worried she would not make the cut, but if both could have been elected and Joan's head placed on a pike then it has to be recognised as a huge missed opportunity.

Don't get me wrong Idris2002 , I think it is absolutely vital that there remains a strong Left outside of SF, to a) keep the Shinners on the right road (ie not forget who voted for them in the first place) and b) strengthen the position of the left within SF.
 
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Idris2002 said:
Didn't a lot of former PDs join the Greens, after the first party joined the choir invisible?
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To be honest I've no idea where members of the PD's went. It wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway now the election is almost over, everyone can rest assured that Enda will be going to Washington for Paddy's day.
 
LiamO said:
AFAIK Brendan Ogle is not, nor has he ever been, a Sinn Fein mouthpece.

But he has some interesting things to say about Ruth Coppinger's campaign's 'tactics'. So not just the Shinners being 'lazy' and 'bleating' then?
Click to expand...

Ogle for all intents and purposes may as well be a Sinn Fein mouthpiece, as the head bureaucrat behind "right2change". He also hates the socialist left with a passion and loses no opportunity to rant about it.

During the recent Dublin West by-election, Sinn Fein made up a poll showing Coppinger out of the running and mass distributed a leaflet to that effect. Now they are sulking like spoiled children, claiming that AAA canvassers referred to a real poll published the week before the general election that really did show Donnelly sitting on a quota and Coppinger and Burton fighting for the last seat. The problem isn't that the AAA believed that Donnelly was safe - the bookies had him 100/1 on! - it's that Sinn Fein thought he was safe, were complacent, didn't get their vote out and let Burton back in. If Sinn Fein had got their vote out, Burton would have lost. They didn't, so she didn't. There's nothing more to it.

Instead of looking at their failings, Sinn Fein are behaving like sulky children, blaming someone else and throwing the most bizarre four day tantrum. Their approach has been to poison the wells, making vague allegations of "dirty tricks", while allowing their more rabid activists and supporters off the leash. The result has been a torrent of character assassination of Coppinger (and in some cases her family) across social media. Sexist stuff, implied threats of violence, even racist stuff. If it wasn't so vicious it would actually be funny. I've never seen a campaign react so childishly to losing an election, ever. Plenty of other local Sinn Fein candidates failed to win seats that they thought they might get, but none of them are behaving like this.

Burton could have been taken out, but that wasn't in Coppinger's gift. All she could do was take a seat. It was up to Donnelly to win enough votes to take another seat. He didn't. The weird lies SF people have been spreading about transfers aren't just insane on their face - Burton is actually trying to jail a chunk of the AAA, the AAA aren't going to help her out for any reason - they are based on a misunderstanding of the count. Neither Coppinger nor Donnelly made the quota or had their transfers distributed on elimination. Neither transferred any votes to anyone as all of their votes were used up.
 
LiamO said:
Evidence for this Nigel? Not saying it doesn't exist. Just asking you to provide it.
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Evidence for what? Ogle has been an extremely close ally of Sinn Fein throughout the anti-water charges movement, against the socialist left which was calling for non-payment. You only have to look at his rantings on his facebook page to see his attitude towards the socialist left. The point of R2C, which is entirely controlled by Ogle and his small group of union officials, was to create support for an allegedly "progressive" government, centred on Sinn Fein. Ogle is many things, but he's about as credible as you or I would be as a supposedly neutral, uninvolved, observer when it comes to disagreement between the AAA and SF.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
Instead of looking at their failings, Sinn Fein are behaving like sulky children, blaming someone else and throwing the most bizarre four day tantrum. Their approach has been to poison the wells, making vague allegations of "dirty tricks", while allowing their more rabid activists and supporters off the leash. The result has been a torrent of character assassination of Coppinger (and in some cases her family) across social media. Sexist stuff, implied threats of violence, even racist stuff. If it wasn't so vicious it would actually be funny. I've never seen a campaign react so childishly to losing an election, ever. Plenty of other local Sinn Fein candidates failed to win seats that they thought they might get, but none of them are behaving like this.
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I've seen some of the unsavoury stuff. Are you suggesting that SF is actually backing it? I sincerely doubt that. In fact I would imagine they are working very hard to put a lid on it. Do you have evidence that anyone who is actually 'an activist' is involved in it? Or is it just peripherals?

Given the fact that many SF voters will be more hairy-arsed than most, I think it is naieve to expect them to rant in anything other than hairy-arsed language. If I am wrong on this, it should be easy for you to demonstrate where SF activists are indulging in it. And I don't mean some old shite posted on FB by some randomer.

QUOTE="Nigel Irritable, post: 14403017, member: 1131"]

Plenty of other local Sinn Fein candidates failed to win seats that they thought they might get, but none of them are behaving like this.
[/QUOTE]

A la Padraig MacLochlainn in Donegal.

QUOTE="Nigel Irritable, post: 14403017, member: 1131"]

The weird lies SF people have been spreading... [/QUOTE]


examples please

QUOTE="Nigel Irritable, post: 14403017, member: 1131"]

they are based on a misunderstanding of the count. [/QUOTE]

Can you exppand on this?
 
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After last years (Westminster) elections up here I was in a local pub listening to dark mutterings (well more rantings really) from some SF members/canvassers (One was from New York and one was former SDLP). They were whinging long and hard about the SDLP bussing in FF and FG members to canvass on their behalf at local Polling stations. They also said they had been told by some of them that they were getting paid for their efforts.

There was a loud silence hanging whenever they stopped, which was broken by me saying "What a load of old bollocks"

They were outraged and shouted about all the exotic places (like Dundalk, Dublin, Navan and Cavan) the 'sdlp' canvassers had been from.

I replied that I didn't doubt what they were saying. What was bollocks was the hypocrisy/stupidity of them giving out about it when a) in a few months time they would all be getting on buses themselves - in fuckin droves - to canvass in the Dail elections; and b) Conor Murphy was gonna walk it anyway.

They reckoned that was different - that they were actually members of SF whereas none of the interlopers were actually members of the sdlp. I replied they were supporters of the sdlp and up here giving them a dig out to sabotage Sinn Féin, which they were quite entitled to do... and if they did not trust their own support enough that they could see through it then they needed to have a serious word... with themselves.
 
SF's approach has been to make vague claims that Coppinger engaged in "dirty tricks" and was in some not quite specified way responsible for their loss. Their leading figures have not been the ones directly making threats or using sexist language etc. The real bile has come from random members and supporters, who have been wound up by Donnelly and co but don't have their restraint. After four days of bile, I actually thought that the SF leadership would step in and put a muzzle on people but instead they've published Ogle's ramblings, backing up the "it was Coppinger's fault" finger pointing. That I'm afraid gives a signal to the nutters.

I'm not sure how much I can expand on the count point. For transfers from any candidate to be relevant, that candidate must either reach the quota or be eliminated when there are still more candidates than seats remaining. If they reach the quota part of their vote transfers as a surplus. If they are eliminated their whole vote transfers. Coppinger came second, but she didn't reach the quota so none of her vote transferred to anyone. Donnelly came fifth and was eliminated, but his elimination left only four candidates standing in the four seat constituency, so none of his vote transferred to anyone. Every single Coppinger vote could have had Donnelly as second preference and it would have made no difference at all.

What's more everyone knew from the start of the campaign that the top five would be Varadkar, Donnelly, Burton, Coppinger and Donnelly, that none of them would be eliminated and that few if any votes would form a surplus because nobody was going to smash the quota. The second and lower preferences on votes which had any of those candidates first were always going to be basically irrelevant. Donnelly or Coppinger could have asked their supporters to transfer to each other and it would have led to no actual transfers, or they could have asked people to transfer to Varadkar for that matter and it would have made no difference.
 
flypanam said:
To be honest I've no idea where members of the PD's went. It wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway now the election is almost over, everyone can rest assured that Enda will be going to Washington for Paddy's day.
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A friend was active in the greens in Dublin around the time of the coalition and he called their membership "PDs who recycle"
 
12801604_10153254386771058_66764309431697025_n.jpg
 
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