Election 2011 Offical Thread.

[LaurelEye]

Of course an examination of the policies might be uncomfortable for him, as trying to save billions on populist measures like cutting TD's salaries seems a bit like the loaves and the fishes.

A close examination of their policies would be uncomfortable for any of them. The problem is that the debate format last night didn't allow for close examination (which was especially good news for our probable next Taoiseach).

[lawnseed]

it was laughable for martin to talk about bringing in experts to help with politics ie not professional politicians. biffo and brian leno paid 4.2 million to have professional analysis of the banking crisis and then went against this expensive 'professional' advice and gave the banking guarantee. what he means is that he doesnt have a clue how to un-bankrupt ireland but if he can get some of his cronies some easy money well its all good. it must be quite a shock to fianna fail that they cant just spread the usual slurry and people will buy it. instead they are buying endas slurrie its much better

[Hardy]

It was a five-way nil-all draw after extra time and penalties. I found myself sinking further and further into the sofa with depression as I watched these clowns unable even to produce a convincing acting performance in a poorly scripted farce and the conviction grew that I can't vote for any of these people or their parties.

Leaders my arse.

[Lar Naparka]

Adams - comfortably exceeded expectations in that he came across as being reasonably familiar with the system down here (unlike 2007 when he seemed clueless) and connected well to the audience, even if there was still the odd platitude.

Gilmore - better than the last night and tackled Martin on his past and Kenny on his economic projections, but then pretended he hadn't facilitated the budget when he had and was out of the debate for long periods.

Gormley - largely irrelevant. Spouting on about f***ing list systems when asked about emigration made me feel like throwing something at the TV.

Kenny - stilted as ever, reciting things that he'd learnt off, and sticking in slogans, but didn't fall over or make any major mistakes, so exceeded expectations.

Martin - Martin's problem (during this debate as well as the last) is that he has to defend what he did for the last fourteen years and being assertive about it simply pisses off an already pissed-off population. The cat fight with Adams may have lost as many votes as it won, and an aggressive debate persona loses him the sympathy vote that he got from the initial contrition when he became leader. He made a potentially good point about the potential cost of FG's health insurance scheme but no-one from this government has any credibility on the issue, so it was wasted.

All in all, a wash. It won't sway anyone who wasn't already leaning towards a particular party.

That's a pretty accurate assessment IMO.
I'd add that while Gerry did fairly well, he had a lot of ground to make up where his credibility is concerned. He was coming on here with a public perception that he was badly briefed on our current political situation. He goofed badly on TYV in '07 and in a radio interview earlier this year. Both of the previous interviews got widespread publicity, whereas it remains to be seen if there was enough public interest in what happened last night to dispel the notion that he's clueless. It may be a case, for him, of too little, too late.
I did a quick, makeshift vox pop this morning and found most people I spoke to had changed channels well before the end.
It was incredibly tedious with Pat Kenny the star of the show!

[An Gaeilgoir]

Gormley and Adams did well tonight. Martin made a hames of it. Gilmore did do too badly and Kenny.... too slick for my liking.

Aren't you luck you aren't having to vote for them! Gormley did well? did you have a different feed to the rest of us, what did he contribute to the debate, besides sucking up to Kenny. As for Adams, he even managed to get a dig in at the DUP, wrong country there Gerry!

wrong country??? wrong jurisdiction maybe but not wrong country pal

Not to be too pedantic, but i thought the 6 counties were not part of the Republic of Ireland? pal.

[Banana Man]

Gormley and Adams did well tonight. Martin made a hames of it. Gilmore did do too badly and Kenny.... too slick for my liking.

Aren't you luck you aren't having to vote for them! Gormley did well? did you have a different feed to the rest of us, what did he contribute to the debate, besides sucking up to Kenny. As for Adams, he even managed to get a dig in at the DUP, wrong country there Gerry!

wrong country??? wrong jurisdiction maybe but not wrong country pal

Not to be too pedantic, but i thought the 6 counties were not part of the Republic of Ireland? pal.

nice partionist attitude to have 

[armaghniac]

Not to be too pedantic, but i thought the 6 counties were not part of the Republic of Ireland?

Of course they are not, but the reference was to the country not the state.

Is there a Mayo campaign to reduce Ireland to 26 counties, perhaps in the hope of then winning an All-ireland?

[An Gaeilgoir]

Not to be too pedantic, but i thought the 6 counties were not part of the Republic of Ireland?

Of course they are not, but the reference was to the country not the state.

Is there a Mayo campaign to reduce Ireland to 26 counties, perhaps in the hope of then winning an All-ireland?

If we reduced it to ourselves and the Kilkenny football team, i still wouldn't be so sure, we would win it! The comment was about Gerry was a tongue in cheek one, i really dont care about Gerry and his policies are they are in my opinion, of no merit.

[Geoff Tipps]

Not to be too pedantic, but i thought the 6 counties were not part of the Republic of Ireland?

Of course they are not, but the reference was to the country not the state.

Is there a Mayo campaign to reduce Ireland to 26 counties, perhaps in the hope of then winning an All-ireland?

Wouldn't work as long as Kerry is part of the 26 counties 

[ziggysego]

Gormley and Adams did well tonight. Martin made a hames of it. Gilmore did do too badly and Kenny.... too slick for my liking.

Aren't you luck you aren't having to vote for them! Gormley did well? did you have a different feed to the rest of us, what did he contribute to the debate, besides sucking up to Kenny. As for Adams, he even managed to get a dig in at the DUP, wrong country there Gerry!

A dig in at DUP? I read it as a dig at Fianna Fail.

As someone else said before me. A different state, but same country old boy

[lawnseed]

Gormley and Adams did well tonight. Martin made a hames of it. Gilmore did do too badly and Kenny.... too slick for my liking.

Aren't you luck you aren't having to vote for them! Gormley did well? did you have a different feed to the rest of us, what did he contribute to the debate, besides sucking up to Kenny. As for Adams, he even managed to get a dig in at the DUP, wrong country there Gerry!

exactly ziggy it was a dig at fainna fail nothing to do with the dup. gaeilgor anti nordie hat fell over his eyes/ears.
what happened last night was that martin thought that gerry was going to be easy meat and that the freestaters would gang up and send his nordie ass well kicked back over the border what he found out was that fainna fail are equally loathed to sinn fein.

A dig in at DUP? I read it as a dig at Fianna Fail.

As someone else said before me. A different state, but same country old boy

[AZOffaly]

Back to our predictions, which are proudly open to all 32 counties and beyond. Sinn Fein doing better in our predictions, probably to be expected, but it's noticable that FF have not collapsed in our predictions. They're currently predicted by us to win 25% of the seats. Fine Gael are hovering below an overall majority on 40% and it's Sinn Fein, on 17% of the seats, not the votes remember, who would be the biggest 'king maker' to keep the fine Gael government in power. Labour are just about doing enough at the moment, but may improve as we move into the cities like Dublin, Cork and Limerick. So far we have 52 seats predicted, so 27 would be an overall majority.

Fine Gael have 21.
Fianna Fail have 13
Sinn Fein have 9
Labour have 6
Others have 3





Results for the first 5 Leinster Constituencies are

[An Gaeilgoir]

AZ, I think you will be getting a job offer soon. That is some piece of work. Well done.

[lawnseed]

AZ, I think you will be getting a job offer soon. That is some piece of work. Well done.

+1

[DUBSFORSAM1]

very little substance in what went on last night which was a shame for the people watching

I think if Gerry had his numbers right he would have been much more credible, as for the rest as possible Taoiseach's, its rather depressing, hardly any Obama-like figures amongst them.

Leaders they are not imo

What good has Obama done with his great speaking abilities?