Sinn Fein seats next General Election

[stripey cat]

What about focus groups? All the parties do it.

Not SF. Unless this is a focus group.

[stripey cat]

Labour is largely a party of middle class teachers, librarians and social workers. They won't be switching to SF.

I don't think that's the entirety of Labour Party support, but anyway, some of them may switch if they believe Sinn Féin better represents the sort of Ireland they want to live in.

If SF have anything going for them, perhaps they really are a party of the working class, or the underclass. Their best hope is to get people out who never voted before.

Plus all the people who used to vote FF and, dare I say, a few of the ones who used to vote Green. There will be plenty of people who will be switching at the next election.

It's up to the way SF play it whether they can hoover up some of these votes while keeping their own base intact.


It's also, of course, up to the media and the general atmosphere in the country at the time of the election.

[hiding behind a poster]

It doesn't really work like that in SF. Canvassing is about meeting the voters and everyone else, trying to counter the endless bad media by being available to constituents whether they support the party or not, and putting forward the Republican view.

Very little opinion polling is done outside of canvassing.

Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing I don't know, but it's the way SF prioritise things.

Its not a question of prioritising one over the other - they're completely different things. A party poll is carried out just like an independent poll, and you certainly don't say to people on the doors "Hi, I'm from Sinn Fein, we're doing an opinion poll". So you canvas, AND you do polling research as well - not that often, but often enough to be relevant. Now in my constituency SF lost a seat at the last election - I don't know if they did any polling, but if they had, they'd have seen what we saw in our polling - that their vote was slipping, and their seat was vulnerable. And when you have that info, you can take action to try and stop the slide. Equally, if you're doing really well, you might want to run extra candidates to capitalise on this, as there's no point in having two quotas and one candidate.

The fact is that ALL parties carry out their own polls, and I'm sure SF do it too.

[hiding behind a poster]

SF simply do political canvasses as a means to improve constituency services rather than acting as a spring board to tailor policies.

So if you were canvassing tonight, and someone said to you "if Sinn Fein were in government, what kind of budget would you have?", you'd just say "No idea, sorry - we're just here to improve constituency services". Would you really say that?

[Pat Mc Larnon]

So if you were canvassing tonight, and someone said to you "if Sinn Fein were in government, what kind of budget would you have?", you'd just say "No idea, sorry - we're just here to improve constituency services". Would you really say that?

I personally would be able to give a fairly comprehensive revue of the recent SF proposals on the economy.

[Gordon Freeman]

Here.

Another internet warrior, eh? Why didn't she stand in the local elections? She obviously doesn't intend to stand for S.F. in that constituency again. Bye bye!

Poor interview. She didn't "debunk" any "myths". We have a budget deficit of €22bn, which needs to be drastically reduced. We need to do this through cuts in public expenditure and welfare. Whether or not our public expenditure-to-GDP ratio is high or low compared to other countries is irrelevant. What is undeniable is that public sector wages are amongst the highest in Europe, and therefore public sector workers now earn on average significantly more than workers in the private sector. Much of the surge in public expenditure of latter years went to wages by virtue of the benchmarking process, surely almost as great a crime as N.A.M.A., which is being perpetrated now by F.F. Pretty swingeing cuts in public pay can both narrow our deficit and obviate the need for job losses in the public sector (for front-line workers, at least). It's pretty obvious that is what has to be done, but S.F. is living in some sort of fantasy land that all of this can be achieved through borrowing (we now pay 1.5% more than Germany, other states. This is costing us billions in the medium to long-term) and tax rises (€350bn wiped off the value of property developers, capital gains taxes have collapsed). S.F. thinks that by ingratiating themselves with the unions, they too can benefit from some of the trade unions political funds that Labour usually receive. But the unions' leadership detest S.F. and will never abandon Labour. How much of the trade union money has S.F. received lately? How many paid-up union officials are S.F. members? There's a significant number of low-paid private sector workers looking for a party to represent their interests, many formerly thought S.F. was it, but instead No.44 bet on the I.C.T.U. horse. Public opinion of the public sector unions has rightly gone through the floor and S.F. is stuck on 9-10% in the polls, going absolutely nowhere. How does it fell, Wendy, the last couple of years to be going absolutely nowhere??

Interesting her attitude towards savers. At the moment, 51% of the workforce do not pay tax. She apparently thinks this is completely sustainable into the long-term. Instead, she plans to punish savers. The cautious and hardworking are punished for their prudence. She doesn't seem to realize that these people are tomorrow's investors or entrepreneurs: money saved today can be used to (re)-establish businesses and get economy working again. Her notion that tax here is so very low is complete rubbish, another sign of economic illiteracy. At the height of the boom, about a third of the workforce was on the top rate of tax (no declining to 28%). Tax rates and the cost of living are lower elsewhere. Capital flight is a very real prospect: we are losing jobs to Eastern Europe because we are so uncompetitive. Furthermore, we are experiencing a brain drain because skilled, technical expertise is leaving the country to work elsewhere. People aren't going to stay here and pay Joanne's high taxes so that we can have the second-highest paid nurses in Europe. Did the see The Sheriff and Me? Remember the engineer, Reynolds? He went to Saudi Arabia. He will earn a reasonable salary there and many others will follow him. Capital and labour (particularly the highly skilled) will leave for sunnier climes. I note that see intends to tax farmland? I wonder how this will play in rural constituencies?

Very poor stuff. Fortunately, you probably won't have an opportunity to implement any of it.

[hiding behind a poster]

I personally would be able to give a fairly comprehensive revue of the recent SF proposals on the economy.

I don't doubt that, Pat - but you said you use canvassing as a means to improve constituency services. Surely what the canvass is about depends on what the person on each door wants to talk about?

[Gordon Freeman]

I personally would be able to give a fairly comprehensive revue of the recent SF proposals on the economy.

Well, go on then, let's have it!! What would you do with these scroungers cheating the welfare system? It's costing us €2-3bn annually. Leave them alone, is suppose?

[Gordon Freeman]

Wonderful analysis.



You might want to check this again. SF went up by 6 and 7% in the Tralee and Listowel electoral areas and performed a lot stronger than they did in 2004. Topped the poll in the Listowel area and Listowel TC as well as taking Labour's only seat on the latter.



This about sums up your entire post.

Meeow. Would you like a slice of spite with your bitterness?

Ferris is in trouble: basically, the constituency is now somewhat larger as it contains a portion of Co. Limerick. This has to have an effect, does it not? According to the Sunday Tribune, based upon local election results, Labour would pip Ferris for the final seat (though I am sure he has more than a fighting chance).

Cullinane, well what can I say? His first preference shares had collapsed by almost 50%? S.F. lost a councilor in the city? (Perhaps somewhat offset by a gain in the county, I know). Doesn't look like much of a prospect, does he?

[factual]

SF believe in maintaining and improving public services financed by progressive tax.

On the main point of the thread, great to see so many posters predicting SF to continue to grow electorally.