Greens = Turncoats?

[markmchugh]

surely people that voted for them must be annoyed that they even consider talking to the most dishonest bunch of people on the planet?

[John_C]

I voted for them and I'm not.

[markmchugh]

are you happy then?

[John_C]

Am I happy? Are you Pat Rabbitte?

I'll be happy with their decisions if they get a good chunk of their policies implemented.

[markmchugh]

i'm not a big fan of the Rabbitte, but i'd rather him than the gangster party

[DSC Floater]

I voted for the greens and I am happy they are going into government with FF.

[ciaranmac]

We said we wanted to go into government. We never ruled out dealing with any other party including FF. Our slogan was "It's Time" - that hardly meant it's time to go into opposition again to criticise from the sidelines while more tough decisions got fudged.

Now I am not a fan of FF but the electorate trusted them with enough seats to make a government without them almost impossible. After the opinion polls predicting a meltdown it was a surprise but I was in the count centre and I saw those votes being counted. If it had been electronic, questions would have been asked, and it's the big flaw of electronic voting systems that they can't ever answer those questions convincingly... that's another day's argument however.

This was an election where the smaller parties got squeezed badly - it was an election about stable government - and of all the small parties only the Greens kept the seat numbers we had before the election. It's reasonable to think our voters want us in Government.

[Worldbystorm]

Got to wonder markmchugh whether the sort of rhetoric you're serving up here is helpful to any oppositional project, or whether in its own way serves to explain just why Labour and FG remain in opposition while the Greens are apparently on their way to government.

Certainly I, and I'm no fan of FF, find it fairly distasteful to hear them branded as 'gangsters' or 'the most dishonest people on the planet'. They're not, and they're not. They're simply a very effective political party with all the virtues and vices of same.

I'd park the rhetoric - if I was you - and try to work out some way to deal with a political environment where they're well capable of getting 40% plus of the vote and a seemingly firm grip on political power in this state.

[markmchugh]

Got to wonder markmchugh whether the sort of rhetoric you're serving up here is helpful to any oppositional project, or whether in its own way serves to explain just why Labour and FG remain in opposition while the Greens are apparently on their way to government.

Certainly I, and I'm no fan of FF, find it fairly distasteful to hear them branded as 'gangsters' or 'the most dishonest people on the planet'. They're not, and they're not. They're simply a very effective political party with all the virtues and vices of same.

I'd park the rhetoric - if I was you - and try to work out some way to deal with a political environment where they're well capable of getting 40% plus of the vote and a seemingly firm grip on political power in this state.

errr, i would never call them angels.......and as said before, the only reason they got this votes was by their use of the politics of fear... i.e. we will never have a change from FF. FF kept saying, "can you trust anybody else to run the country" the fact that 40% voted for them says more about the intelligence of the irish people than it does about FF being great politicians

[John_C]

If the greens get things from FF in three areas I'll be happy.
Planning, Transport and Energy. The three are intertwined and they're where I think the country is going down the wrong path.

I don't particularly care about hospital locations or Shannon airport, if I wanted to vote on those issues, there are plenty of socialist parties I could have chosen. The greens only have 6 seats and aren't needed so their political capital is limited. I'd prefer to see it spent on their core environmental policies.