The Hard Centre

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Today’s Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll

“Today’s numbers offer further evidence of the strengthening of the centrist consensus in Irish politics. Since the last general election both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have seen their support grow, slowly but steadily. Both parties are now five points ahead of their result in the last general election.

That time, in February 2016, the two old Civil War parties struggled to hit 50 per cent of the vote – a far cry from the days when they commanded 80 per cent between them. Their opponents hailed it as further evidence of their irreversible decline and the end of the old duopoly. And that’s how it looked.

But that decline has proved not so irreversible. Now their combined support is at 60 per cent. Throw in the Labour Party, the Greens and a lot of the Independents and you have well over two-thirds of voters aligned to broadly centrist politics.”

Pat Leahy, Irish Times

FIGHT!

‘Irish Times’ poll: Radicalisation of Irish politics seems to have been arrested (Pat leahy, Irish Times)

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24 thoughts on “The Hard Centre

  1. digs

    Stephen Donnelly had the right idea! Would have been political suicide to carry on with those batpoo crazy indy types in their jeans and t-shirts!

    1. Andrew

      Stephen Donnelly joined Fianna Fail though. PROVEN to be incompetent AND corrupt.
      If I was in his constituency I would never ever vote for him again.

      1. digs

        If I were in your constituency I wouldn’t vote for him either.

        See, we have something in common. Now we can begin to build for the future!

        Yay!

      2. snowey

        FF are great – best party we have ….
        martin is the best leader they’ve had in years.
        gone is the bluster of Charlie and bertie and the gombeenism of old

        Donnelly is an asset to them
        funny how he was lauded even called our most intelligent politician (on many platforms) joins FF and now is not so great..

        people are stupid.
        I only wish I could vote for S Donnelly.

        1. digs

          You know what they say about youth being wasted on the young? It’s also true that democracy is wasted on the democratized….
          You’re right, the electorate are, to a large extent, kind of stupid.

      3. God IV

        He is one of my local TDs and he got my vote last time out. He can whistle for it next time. Disgusted.

    1. GiggidyGoo

      Irish Times. Let’s hope they continue to lull those ‘bigger’ parties into a false sense of security. We had the same old rubbish before the last general election.

          1. Rob_G

            Yes, but the votes that FG lost went mainly to FF (in other words, one of the other bigger parties).

  2. Fact Checker

    Basically this is the return to the status quo ante of where parties whose heritage is in the Civil War regularly pulled in 80% of the vote.

    We’ll see in time, but it’s most likely that the 2011 election was the exception rather than the new normal.

  3. Col

    So basically everyone is centrist, except SF & Solidarity, who are left?

    Not surprising people vote centrist if there’s few viable alternatives.

    1. Cian

      Arguably it’s not surprising that the main parties are centrist if that is want people vote for.

  4. MoyestWithExcitement

    A poll, conducted by a newspaper that said the general population should be nicer to politicians, showed results that back government narrative? :D

  5. Chris

    What a joke. So the mainstream parties get a small bump of one poll, during a lull immediately following one of the biggest mass movements in a generation, after years of decline and now the IT declares a new era of centrism. It’s wishful but delusional thinking on the IT editorial board!

  6. Pat Harding

    I have been living in England for the last twenty one years. When it comes to elections I vote for the Lib Dems as the party closest to my political views. If Ireland there is no equivalent party to the Lib Dems, and neither Labour (i.e. version) or the Social Democrats fill that void.

  7. :-Joe

    If labour can sack all those muppets who tried to pull a neo-blairite-esque revolution on a cynically pointless leve and help to unify the independents greens and the left they have a chance at being the main opposition.

    As usual the 60%ish base of the establishment is going strong…

    Congrats to all you ignorant masochistic clowns who keep voting against your own self interests… and evolution in general.

    :-J

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