General Election 2020

[nigel-harps1954]

So, it has been called.

Saturday 8th February.

Strange to be held on a Saturday. Only the second time a General Election will be held on a Saturday in Ireland since the very first Dáil election in 1918.

Bookies have Fianna Fáil installed as favourites.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Fairly likely we'll see a switch of FF becoming larger party, but they'll be well short a majority. Question then is will a coalition (with Labour or the Greens?) be possible, or will it just be "Confidence and supply" with the names reversed. I'd suspect the latter.

Greens will do well, Labour should recover a bit. Sinn Fein should at least hold-steady.

[passinginterest]

Hard to see any real significant changes. Labour haven't done enough to really revitalise but might take a couple more seats. Sinn Féin are in a really strange place and could go either way, seem to have gone a bit stale as have the more hard left parties, although some more of the hard left might move towards SF this time, they seem to be becoming more of a viable option for the middle class left (where Labour has lost out), the outpouring of nationalist sympathies after the RIC commemoration might work in their favour too. Greens should make a few more gains, but unlikely to be as much of an impact as the locals. Soc Dems looked like they had potential but failed to push on and compounded this would some poor decisions in the locals, unlikely to make any ground and none of the other new parties look like taking more than a seat or two. Independents might lose a few which will most likely go Green, or the big two. Hard to see a dramatic rise or fall for either FG or FF, it's bad timing for FG, they've had a run of really awful stuff (swing gate, Verona, broadband, children's hospital, overcrowding, homeless, RIC, rural broadband), I'm sure they'd have liked a few more months to spin their Budget spending on sports grants, roads, infrastructure etc. and to hopefully avoid anymore individual slip ups and to see overcrowding and homeless figures trending downwards. That's likely to see them lose a few seats, with the swing back towards FF for the most part (how soon we forget). As said above, most likely scenario is "confidence and supply" with the roles reversed and FF in the comfy chairs.

[dahamsta]

Fairly likely we'll see a switch of FF becoming larger party, but they'll be well short a majority. Question then is will a coalition (with Labour or the Greens?) be possible, or will it just be "Confidence and supply" with the names reversed. I'd suspect the latter.

That's why we're having an election IMO, they met last week and came to an agreement that confidence and supply between FG and FF will be the result whichever way the wind blows. Of course I don't know that for a fact, but it seems blatantly obvious to me.

At this point I'm not sure it'll make much of a difference. I wasn't keen on Varadkar on becoming Taoiseach because he came across as a bullshirt artist beforehand, but at the outset I didn't think he did too badly. But then the money messages started happening, and that's just inexcusable. Plus of course the health service is still wrecked, housing is still appalling, the roads are still wrecked, etc, etc.

I don't like Fianna Fail, at all, but I think I'd trust Micky Martin at the helm more than Varadkar at this point. Of course that would mean voting for Fianna Fail TD's, and I'm not sure I could bring myself to that. I'm in Cork East though, and generally speaking there's no-one to vote for here, they're all useless, awful, or both.

The next battle to watch for will be Coveney vs. Varadkar. I assume they have a peace treaty, but I'd say Coveney's patience must be waning at this point.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Coveney also looking quite good with his part in Stormont resuming.

RTE had a piece on polls - https://www.rte.ie/news/election-202...poll-of-polls/ - which could be summed up by saying that very little is likely to change. By their metrics it's actually not all that unlikely that Fine Gael could come out ahead of Fianna Fail by a seat or two.

Haven't a clue who to vote for. Not FG, FF or Labour, I'm still not convinced by Sinn Fein or the hard-left, and Aontu can f**k off. I'd look to the Soc Dems, but their candidate in my constituency is a muppet. No Ind's yet.

[nigel-harps1954]

Donegal will be interesting. Sinn Fein will look to regain two seats after making the disastrous choice to run three candidates last time out. Pearse Doherty is a cert and Padraig MacLochlainn should do well.

Joe Mchugh and Thomas Pringle will fear for their seats. More likely Pringle will get his back than McHugh, who has been a disaster.

Pat The Cope should retain his seat.

Anyones guess after that, although Peter Casey throwing his hat in is an interesting one.

[ForzaForth]

Seanie O'Shea, Chairman of Wexford FC, has been endorsed by Mick Wallace MEP and is standing in the election as an independent.

[Real ale Madrid]

Live in Cork South Central.

The only constituency in the country that elected 2 FF TD's in 2011 in the aftermath of the biggest economic crash the country has ever seen.

With that in mind I'm surprised they don't run a 3rd candidate.

Michael Martin FF
Michael McGrath FF
Simon Coveney FG

All 3 are certs - Donnacha O'Laoghaire is the SF seat holder. Beat off Jerry Buttimer by about 600 votes last time out so i'd imagine the last seat will be between them again. Ciaran Lynch (LAB) went from topping the poll with 12,000 odd first preference votes in 2011 to 2,400 last time - id expect the Lab vote to improve a bit - The Green party had a seat here in the not too distant past as a 5 seat constituency so it is not unimaginable that Lorna Bogue might make some headway but i suspect this may be 5 years too soon with the vote gathering powerhouses at the head of affairs which leaves little for the rest.

[Kingdom]

I don't like Fianna Fail, at all, but I think I'd trust Micky Martin at the helm more than Varadkar at this point.

You can take this request either way from someone who doesn't post in this forum regularly, but can I ask why?

The next battle to watch for will be Coveney vs. Varadkar. I assume they have a peace treaty, but I'd say Coveney's patience must be waning at this point.

I think it's just as likely - possibly moreso, that the next battle will be Martin vs McGrath.

Interesting Mick's address on the EP website is listed as Ferrycarraig Park.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Not exactly a stellar opening day for Fine Gael, with news stories zeroing in attention on homelessness and "law & order". Yet a poll still ranks Leo as the most popular party leader, though not by much.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein will be hoping this doesn't become national news: https://extra.ie/2020/01/15/news/iri...n-leo-varadkar

[Eminence Grise]

Mother of God! He actually said: ‘Someone that knows what it’s like to have kids, maybe, hopefully, boys and girls, so when you’re creating policies and stuff that’s going to go on, you’re like: “right, that makes sense”.'

As opposed to know what it's like to have those things like kids that aren't boys and girls, y'know, maybe, hopefully, unicorns or baby goats because that makes no sense either, but unlike Paddy I never intended it to.

One to many kicks to the head, I think. Always knew MMA was dangerous.

Meanwhile a bad opening day for FG. Instead of expressing concern, Leo turns a story about a homeless man injured when some jobsworth b*****d couldn't be bothered to look inside his tent before removing it with machinery into an attack on the FF Lord Mayor for not doing his job properly, and G-eoghan (G-eoghan, gone) Murphy's equally caring response is to remove his election poster from the scene of the incident. Have I just woken up in a dystopian re-run of the eighteenth century when posh boys and toffs lorded it over the peasants? Varadkar is proving what I've felt all along: that his only competency was avoiding trouble by avoiding doing anything at all, but that doesn't work when you're front and centre as Taoiseach. Promoted too early, like Murphy, Harris and Madigan - proof of the Peter Principle if ever it was needed: the cream will rise till it sours.

Thought for Day 1
FG's election's slogan should be: FG - putting the RIC into P - - - Ks.

[The Fly]

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein will be hoping this doesn't become national news: https://extra.ie/2020/01/15/news/iri...n-leo-varadkar

It'd be a bit of mountain out of a molehill if it did.

[NeverFeltBetter]

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein will be hoping this doesn't become national news: https://extra.ie/2020/01/15/news/iri...n-leo-varadkar

There we go: https://www.rte.ie/news/election-202...-fein-holohan/

[osarusan]

Paddy Power have FF at 2/9 to win the most seats, with FG at 11/4, and have Michael Martin at 1/5 to be the next Taoiseach, with Varadkar at 3/1.

No idea how they have reached those odds though.

[dahamsta]

You can take this request either way from someone who doesn't post in this forum regularly, but can I ask why?

I've already explained why my trust n Varadker is waning. On Martin I don't think I could pin it down, but I would say that the way he's handled his family difficulties has inspired some confidence.

Again though, I'm not an FF man, and I don't vote in his constituency any more, so it's a moot point. I haven't looked into the candidates down my way yet, but I assume they'll all be the same, and they'll all still be rubbish. There usually isn't a single good candidate, from any party, in Cork East.