Election 2011 Offical Thread.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

My head says it is the return of GNevin but my heart says it is a Rossie.

Embarrassed of your own Mayo man so you try to call him a Rossie 

He hates all things Mayo, so he is hardly one of our own is he? Only the Rossies on here throw as much abuse in our direction as him but even still I think his motive is political rather than anything to do with Gaa.

I think the lads are having a go at me, not PSTG Muppet. I love Mayo more than life itself. I think PSTG is on here to make Mayo & or Fine Gael look like flutes and is from elsewhere and has very different politics. While I am a Mayoman and if I give that negative impression that is my personal fault not anything wrong in the character of Mayo or Fine Gael. I know I am a bellend, many others here don't realise they are, or are WUM's.

[muppet]

My head says it is the return of GNevin but my heart says it is a Rossie.

Embarrassed of your own Mayo man so you try to call him a Rossie 

He hates all things Mayo, so he is hardly one of our own is he? Only the Rossies on here throw as much abuse in our direction as him but even still I think his motive is political rather than anything to do with Gaa.

I think the lads are having a go at me, not PSTG Muppet. I love Mayo more than life itself. I think PSTG is on here to make Mayo & or Fine Gael look like flutes and is from elsewhere and has very different politics. While I am a Mayoman and if I give that negative impression that is my personal fault not anything wrong in the character of Mayo or Fine Gael. I know I am a bellend, many others here don't realise they are, or are WUM's.

I wasn't talking about you, I know where you are from. Part of me thinks PSTG is here merely to run around after you but the intensity of the bile suggests he is for real and not merely a wum.

[ross4life]

My head says it is the return of GNevin but my heart says it is a Rossie.

Embarrassed of your own Mayo man so you try to call him a Rossie 

He hates all things Mayo, so he is hardly one of our own is he? Only the Rossies on here throw as much abuse in our direction as him but even still I think his motive is political rather than anything to do with Gaa.

Rossies throw as much abuse really? banter replying to digs you guys continue to give to us.

[oakleafgael]

Conor Lenihan fairly sinkng Cowen on Tonight. The waste of space AKA Dan Boyle got an awful going over. I wonder if Kenny will have the guts to go on some time between now and the election.

Vincent Browne's introduction to the show tonight is worth watching again.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

My head says it is the return of GNevin but my heart says it is a Rossie.

Embarrassed of your own Mayo man so you try to call him a Rossie 

He hates all things Mayo, so he is hardly one of our own is he? Only the Rossies on here throw as much abuse in our direction as him but even still I think his motive is political rather than anything to do with Gaa.

I think the lads are having a go at me, not PSTG Muppet. I love Mayo more than life itself. I think PSTG is on here to make Mayo & or Fine Gael look like flutes and is from elsewhere and has very different politics. While I am a Mayoman and if I give that negative impression that is my personal fault not anything wrong in the character of Mayo or Fine Gael. I know I am a bellend, many others here don't realise they are, or are WUM's.

I wasn't talking about you, I know where you are from. Part of me thinks PSTG is here merely to run around after you but the intensity of the bile suggests he is for real and not merely a wum.

No worries, I think the lads are missing the point, my hatred of Fianna Fail far outweighs any political or regional affiliations. I cannot understand anyone who does not want drive this evil cult into the sea. I hate these people for so so so so so so many more reasons other than my personal political views. My life was ruined by them seperate from Political affiliation or county of birth.

[sammymaguire]

Those pay outs and pensions to the TDs walking away from the mess are a complete scandal to the Irish people paying for it

[Declan]

Classic Vincent Browne last night basically called out the Greens as liars and wafflers and then got Conor Lenihan to nearly self combust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHtOp8gBFmc

Here's what the New York Times had to say about it

Irish Prime Minister Calls for Early Elections

LONDON — Brian Cowen, the embattled Irish prime minister, on Thursday announced an earlier-than-expected general election for March 11, the latest development in a political meltdown for the governing Fianna Fail party.

Battered in the opinion polls after in the wake of last month's $114 billion bailout for Ireland's debt-burdened economy, the party is widely expected to be ousted from power, perhaps by a humiliating margin, in the March vote.

The party's prospects appeared to have been further damaged in recent days by events that have had more than a tinge of political farce. For Fianna Fail, which has held the largest bloc of seats in Parliament continuously since 1932, dominating Irish politics for most of the history of the Irish Republic, the recent infighting within the party has been one of the most embarrassing episodes in its history.

The latest dramas began last week, when Mr. Cowen announced that he would resist growing calls for his resignation, prompting six of his ministers — more than a third of his cabinet — to resign. The first to go was the foreign minister, Micheal Martin, who left on Sunday and declared himself a candidate to succeed Mr. Cowen as party leader and head of government. On Wednesday night, the Fianna Fail ministers of defense, health, justice, trade and transport also resigned, saying they did not plan to contest the forthcoming election.

Mr. Cowen responded by letting it be known that he planned to fill the cabinet vacancies with a group of younger, little-known Fianna Fail lawmakers who, he told aides, would convince voters that the party was rebuilding, and fit for another term in office. But that plan collapsed when the Green Party, junior partners in the coalition that took office after the last election in 2007, refused to support the shuffle.

That forced Mr. Cowen to announce on Thursday that he would redistribute the vacant portfolios among surviving cabinet ministers — a process in which he had already awarded himself the joint posts of prime minister and foreign minister, in succession to the popular and well-regarded Mr. Martin. By committing the government to serve on a caretaker basis until the March 11 election date, he fast-forwarded his earlier plan for a late March vote, a date he had hoped would allow more time for the beginnings of an economic recovery.

"I want us to get through the hard times and see the country is prosperous in the future," he said as he announced the election date.

The opposition leader Enda Kenny of the Fine Gael party was dismissive, both of the prime minister's strained tone of optimism and of his bungled cabinet reshuffle. "It's another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into," Mr. Kenny said.

The sequence of events appeared to have made Mr. Cowen, 51, a figure of contempt to many in his own party. "I've been in the Dail for 23 years, and I've never seen anything like this," one Fianna Fail lawmaker, Tim Kitt, told RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, referring to the Irish Parliament. "There is a total disconnect between the leadership of my party and the public out there. People are rightly very upset."

For others, Mr. Cowen, a short, heavyset man with a bruising political style who is known among his Irish detractors by the nickname Biffo, has become something of a laughingstock. Irish newspapers have had a field day with the revelation that in 2008 he played a round of golf with Sean FitzPatrick, then the chairman of the Anglo Irish Bank, only a few weeks before the Irish financial crisis broke. That was one of four Irish-owned banks the government later rescued at a cost of tens of billions of dollars to Irish taxpayers. One newspaper commentary described Mr. Cowen, in his unrelenting political troubles, as "putting from the rough."

As prime minister for most of the past three years, and finance minister for four years before that, Mr. Cowen has been widely blamed for the government's failure to curb a property boom fueled by reckless lending by Irish banks, and then for pushing a blanket government guarantee for the banks' debts, thereby sticking Irish taxpayers with the bill and threatening the country's solvency.

His reputation was not helped by denying insistently, until days before the start of negotiations on the international bailout, that a rescue was necessary. He has spent the past two months fighting for parliamentary acceptance of the bailout, and of the harsh austerity measures international lenders demanded as the price of keeping the economy afloat.

He had been expected to quit once those objectives were secured, but surprised his own supporters by digging in. On Tuesday, he won a Pyrrhic victory in a confidence vote among the party's lawmakers, with a third of those participating voting against him, and some of those who backed him, including the finance minister, Brian Lenihan, saying publicly that it might have been better if he had quit.

Recent polls have shown that Fianna Fail has support among fewer than 15 percent of voters, and that Mr. Cowen has the backing of fewer than 10 percent of those surveyed, results that have prompted Fianna Fail insiders to predict that the party could lose half or more of the 71 parliamentary seats it currently holds. The polls have pointed to the formation of a new coalition after the election between the two leading opposition parties, Labour and Fine Gael.

Unreal stuff

[rossie mad]

When you read the view of the outside world it actually makes the likes of georgia,albania or someother cinderbox of a goverment not too far away.The only difference is that our army wont get involved (which in fairness should not happen) and more importantly our people wont march or protest.

We are a shower of gombeens ourselves.
We put up with both the lisbon decision to vote again,the bank guarentee and then the IMF bailout but yet with all our giving out we hide behind our media oulets and computer screens.

No other country would have put up with it.Christ the likes of the people of france blow a fuse with the suggestion of their pension age being increased and bring parts of the country to a halt over an issue like that.

Compare that to here and we probably would read our sensationalised headlines, give out for a day or two and take it.

The political system here has dubbed us and we accept it.

We dont deserve anything better because we are too me fein.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Would any of the 15 votes cast for FF care to explain their reasoning (taking for granted that no one wants to hear from the 16th PSTG)? Beggars belief people are still going to vote for them after what they've done to this country.

[stephenite]

I voted FF to annoy Mayogodhelpus and I'd imagine I wasn't the only one!

[muppet]

I voted FF to annoy Mayogodhelpus and I'd imagine I wasn't the only one!

This is becoming a problem. At this stage those 15 votes would make a big impact on their share of the national vote.

[Tubberman]

Sure you can't have any sort of accurate political poll on this site.
The Nordie's cannot resist the temptation to have their say even though they don't actually have a say, if you follee me.

[Peter Solan the Great]

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/nigger-joke-reveals-ignorance-of-racism-503626.html

[Lone Shark]

Anybody else sick of the election already?

Not at all, I can't wait to see Dev spinning in his grave with a copy of the Irish Press shoved up his hole

as Charlie runs burning with the fires of Hell through Phoenix Park.

For Fine Gael's sake I really hope you have nothing to do with them especially on the canvassing end of things.

I was just thinking that Seanie. Maybe he's a FF plant, a sort of double agent. Like Ian Paisley being the IRA's best recruiter.

Lads I know ye're coming at this from a different perspective and of course deep seated rage is not an attractive trait that will bring along a lot of support, but surely ye must understand that while people keep it under their hats as best they can, for a lot of people who have seen through FF and their ways for the last five years, of course it's natural to want them to suffer. Just as the parents of a murdered child want the killer to go to jail for the crime, so it is natural that the citizens of Ireland would want to see justice done to those who brutally raped and sodomized our collective society.

A year or so ago I would have taken part in a discussion on this board on the death penalty and I remember opposing it on the grounds that if I wouldn't be willing to be the guy to flick the switch, then I shouldn't support it, but that was at a time when it would be designed for bog standard murderers and abusers. Fianna Fáil have systematically robbed thousands of wealth from everyone in this country for the enrichment of themselves and their friends, they have denied the opportunity to live and work in Ireland to a whole generation, and their administration of everything is geared towards re-election, to the point that if you're part of the clan, you get your debts written off and a cosy job on a state quango somewhere, if you're not, your vital medical treatments go undone. That's a crime, organised, orchestrated and deliberately executed, on a scale way beyond anything else in the history of the state. Ask me would I flick the switch if Bertie was in the chair? I honestly don't know.

Don't presume that because there are people out their who feel that they should all burn in hell, that they are a plant. I find it a quite natural feeling right now.

I also understand that I'm probably helping their cause by getting the backs up of traditional FF voters who are just looking for an excuse to return home to the party with their vote on March 11th, but I can't help it. These people are going to find some excuse to do so anyway,they're conditioned to do so.

[Lar Naparka]

Would any of the 15 votes cast for FF care to explain their reasoning (taking for granted that no one wants to hear from the 16th PSTG)? Beggars belief people are still going to vote for them after what they've done to this country.

Well, I just can't see myself giving the effin' effers any sort of vote this time around but I sincerely hope lots of other aren't feeling as thick as I am and will vote in the country's best interests!
BTW; I am being very, very serious here.
We need a change of government fast; going by the opinion polls, it's fair to say that the vast majority of voters agree.
However, in order to have good governance we need good opposition. It won't serve anybody's interests if we get some sort of alliance, FG/Labour or whatever, that gets in with a massive majority. Now, I don't mind if SF gains more seats than FF or if 10 Jackie Healy-Rae clones make it onto the gravy train- I just want to see an administration with a workable majority, 5 or 6 would be sufficient.

I'd like to see Enda, or whoever becomes Taoiseach, getting a comfortable working majority and no more.
Back in '77, Jack Lynch was returned with a 20 seat majority for FF and he was to say some years later that it was the worst thing that could have happened for himself as Taoiseach and for the country at large. For one thing, there was open warfare in most constituencies between the various FFs who got elected as each one tried to ensure that he copper-fastened his chances of re-election at the next election and spent more time and energy sparring with his colleagues than in looking after his/her duties.
It's looking like FG and Labour will have a massive majority when the dust settles after March 11th but I hope it's nowhere near as large as Jack Lynch got in '77. Jack at least had only one party to contend with but I can see plenty of scope for conflict countrywide as FG and Labour heads start to eyeball each other and start thinking about the pecking order and ignore the affairs of state.