Political World

Party strategy meetings tread water as voter anger gives way to indifference

Published

10 years ago

September 19, 2013

World of Politics with Harry McGee

I’m writing this from Waterford where Fianna Fáil is holding its annual September strategy meeting – or think-in to use the more vulgarian but widely inaccurate term. In the past the parties have coordinated them so that none have been held on the same day and that each would have its news cycle.

And back then, they worked for weeks to come up with some policy or organisational announcement – an ‘eye-opening initiative’ as we love to call them – that would feed the news cycle.

But not anymore. Now their currency has been devalued. No Inchdoney Strategy. No criticism of decentralisation. No alternative budgetary strategies. Or party strategy papers – at least not for public consumption.

Everything that is of real merit is discussed in private. And what is given to the media is a well-gnawed bone.

So it was no great surprise to learn that all three major parties would hold their think-ins on the same day, on Monday of this week, two days before the return of the Dáil after the summer break.

Sure – Enda Kenny disclosed during his dinner to Fine Gael that the general election will not be held until March 2016….in other words the Government will go to its full term. That’s hardly a surprise given that governments with such a strong majority usually go for as long as possible.

What has happened to devalue these meetings so much? Well a combination of things. For one, the debacle of the Fianna Fáil think-in (or was it drink-in?) in 2010 did a fair bit of damage and spoiled the brand.

Fine Gael felt stung last year when the Daily Mail ran a cynical story bemoaning the fact that with the country in recession the party enjoyed a five-course meal. The reality was that the correspondent who wrote the story had no qualms about partaking fully in the meal, which was in fact a seven-course affair, but downgraded by the Mail to a five-course affair for nothing other than reasons of alliteration in the headline: Five Course Feast for Fine Gael. The Mail did a similar number at the Labour conference the following day.

So the parties have become wary of overselling or overhyping their events. The result is that they have become a husk, a shell of what they were before.

There are also the peculiar circumstances that pertain this year. Unlike other years, there are two major events which will take place within weeks of the Dail returning – the Seanad referendum on October 4 and the Budget on October 15.

Unsurprisingly, the main stories that emerged from all the meetings either concerned the referendum or the Budget. It was exactly the same at the Sinn Fein think-in last Friday week.

It is the private sessions of the meetings that are the most pertinent because it is there that TDs and Senators get a chance to discuss strategy for the forthcoming Dail term, voice their concerns or criticisms of policy or the leadership, and also plan for upcoming elections – and for now, the soonest are the local and European elections that take place next year.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune

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Connacht Tribune

Those political swings often lead to a tumble

Published

6 days ago

March 16, 2023

Harry McGee

Lisa Chambers...Euro option?

World of Politics with Harry McGee

The last local elections in May 2019 were dominated by the story of a big swing; nothing to do with the voting though – it was the famous swing in the Dublin version of the Dean Hotel that former TD Maria Bailey took a tumble from.

That’s how exciting local and European elections are for the media and the public. As a political story, they ran a distant second to the so-called Swing-gate.

As it happened there were political swings too. In the locals, the Greens made big gains. Fianna Fáil and the Social Democrats made some gains. Fine Gael was treading water. Sinn Féin lost a fair few seats.

It was a little different for Europeans. The Greens gained two seats. Fianna Fáil gained two but failed to take one in Midlands North West. Sinn Féin lost two of its three MEPs. Fine Gael ended up winning four with Maria Walsh taking a second seat in Midlands North West.

At the time, Sinn Féin was on a downward slope and had been since the general election of 2016. What won it gains in 2014, messages of anti-austerity, protests against water charges, no longer applied. It was struggling to find its feet.

It lost almost half its seats in the locals, falling from 159 down to 81. Its share of the vote had dipped to below 10 per cent, a drop of 5.6 per cent.

So, the ‘read’ at the time of the 2019 election was that Fianna Fáil seemed to be continuing its recovery from the nadir of 2011 into the next general election. Fine Gael was in its second term of government and was concerned about holding its own. Sinn Fein looked like it would have a difficult general election.

For the Councils, Fianna Fáíl held remained the largest party in local government and showed strongly in working class areas of Dublin. Its European election was mediocre though.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Connacht Tribune

Sinn Féin gets one shot at changing political narrative

Published

2 weeks ago

March 9, 2023

Harry McGee

Big winners last time...Galway West Deputy Mairéad Farrell and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.

World of Politics with Harry McGee

In 1980s Galway, we teenagers thought we were different as we listened to U2, wore Smiths badges on our lapels, and railed against the conservatism of our parents’ generation.

But we weren’t. Ireland was a mono-everything society – church, State, political parties, race, and thinking.

We were more conformist than radical but didn’t know it at the time.

At the time there were two dominant political parties. Over 80 per cent of the population voted for them. They included a majority of practically every demographic.

Implicit in that vast vote for the establishment party was a deference, more or less, from the population for the powerful institutions of the State.

The death grip of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was loosened gradually in succeeding decades. That said, until a decade ago, it was inconceivable to think any other party would be able to form a government.

Because if you didn’t want to vote for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, where did you turn?

Labour might have been an alternative. But the party went in with Fine Gael in 2011 with 37 seats and got hammered in 2016 and were left with seven. So they were hardly going to step up to the breach, were they?

The battering of Labour told us another lecture. There had been a long tradition in Irish politics of the smaller party in government taking a hiding after the election. Labour were (nominally) the small party in government and suffered because of it.

What people did not fully realise then was that it was not just the smaller party in government that was coming out worse when they next encountered the electorate. It was also the main party in government.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

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Connacht Tribune

Take polls with a pinch of salt but don’t ignore them

Published

3 weeks ago

March 2, 2023

Harry McGee

Mary Lou McDonald... party shines in polls.

World of Politics with Harry McGee

Opinion polls are like popcorn; nothing really too substantial or nutritious in there, but you can’t help devouring them. There are times when opinion polls are very accurate. That tends to be very close to an election when people have plumped for their choice and don’t mind telling you how they are voting.

Conversely, mid-term polls can be well wide of the mark, because voters aren’t thinking too deeply about politics when there’s no trip to the polling booth on the horizon.

It’s not that they are completely inaccurate; any Irish poll will tell you that the three big parties are Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They’ll also tell you that the rest of the parties are much smaller, with few of them struggling to top five per cent of support.

It is – as they say – a snapshot in time.

Polling is more scientific now than it was when Gallup first invented the method over a century ago. In the early days, surveys were all done face-to-face – and it was such a novelty that people were thrilled to be asked a really long list of questions about themselves, their families, their work and their voting intentions.

The gloss faded over the years. The face-to-face poll is still there but there are so many other methods now too – by telephone, by smart phone and online.

The difficulty is that each method has its drawbacks. Older people tend not to have up-to-date technology and so are not always fully captured in polls using smartphones, or that are conducted online.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.