The Cedar Lounge Revolution

That poll at the weekend… December 14, 2015

Got to be honest, at this stage the polls are so similar from whatever source that there’s a real sense of dialing it in in regards to analysis. But – deep breath – I’ll do my best to find something new to find here.

Adrian Kavanagh’s projections on foot of the B&A/ST poll here are interesting:

 Fine Gael 31% (up 5%), Independents and Others 24% (down 2%) – including Green Party 4%, Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit 4%, Fianna Fail 19% (down 1%), Sinn Fein 17% (down 4%), Labour Party 8% (up 1%).

Fianna Fail 31, Fine Gael 64, Sinn Fein 24, Labour Party 7, Green Party 3, Independents and Others 24. 

As always, let’s treat this with considerable caution. But let’s also note the trends. Fine Gael inch upwards, something that other polls appear to reflect. Fianna Fáil remains becalmed, hardly more than a percentage point or two above 2011. Sinn Féin is doing okay, but hardly stellar, though in line with RedC/Paddy Power which had the following:

Fine Gael 28% (down 3%), Independents and Others 25% (NC), Fianna Fail 20% (up 1%), Sinn Fein 18% (NC), Labour Party 9% (NC). 

Fianna Fail 31, Fine Gael 54, Sinn Fein 27, Labour Party 9, Independents and Others 37.

Ind/Others are widely at variance with that last poll in terms of seat numbers (37 in RedC/PP – only(!) 24 in B&A).

Labour at or around RedC/PP’s figure.

But what does all this mean? It’s difficult to say because a difference of just 3% for FG makes a difference of 10 seats for that party in outcomes. And intriguingly that is mined, as it were from Ind/Others who consequently see their numbers differ between 37 TDs in the RedC poll and 24 in the most recent one.

That said, consolidation, as noted here many times before, for FG makes sense. This comment here at the weekend from 6to5against sums up my thoughts on that perfectly. But then…but then… are matters fundamentally stable enough to deliver them the high numbers? Probably yes, definitely – perhaps not. The newer parties, Renua and the SDs are simply not making any great impact.

Independents (11%),  the Independent Alliance (2%), Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit (4%), Social Democrats (1%), Green Party (4%), Workers Party (1%) and Renua (1%)

The WP tenaciously hanging on in there is fascinating. But look at how even the Independent Alliance, which has a fair number of TDs already is just about not there. Hardly surprising, they’ve not been doing that much promotion of the alliance, but one would have to wonder whether they’d even return their current crop of TDs on the basis of this. AAA/PBP is doing well, perhaps it should be doing better, but 4% is a solid figure.

What’s most obvious is that with an election surely no more than 12 or so weeks away there’s still no clear path to government. 158 seats in the next Dáil. 80 is the key figure for a bare majority. No one, on these figures is likely to have it, bar unlikely/and/or unwieldy combinations of TDs. There’ll be many hoping that 12 weeks concentrates minds. But with Christmas up next will they?

The far right in France: falling at the last hurdle… December 14, 2015

Telling, in a way:

The extreme right-wing National Front (FN) on Sunday night failed to win a single region, after leading in six of 13 French regions in the first round of regional elections one week earlier.

In some respects this is structural…

The FN claims to be France’s “first party” and often leads in the first round, as it did on December 6th, with 27.8 per cent of the vote. But unlike the ruling socialist party (PS) and Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative “Les Républicains” (LR), the FN has no allies or reserve voters to bolster its score in the run-off.

But one can see this argument being deployed again and again over the next few years.

Ms Le Pen said the results proved “the secret ties between those who pretend to oppose each other but in reality share power without ever solving your problems”.

The question is, if not now, in the wake of Paris, then when? But one also has to wonder at the way in which the narrowing of political choices in regard to the ‘centre’ left and right has allowed this situation to develop and continue across the years. And one has to wonder at whether there is any potential for the actual left to pull back those who have, regrettably, followed the FN’s siren calls.

Left Archive: United Irishman – An t-Eireannach Aontaithe, Nollaig (December) 1975, Official Sinn Féin December 14, 2015

To download the above please click on the following link. UI DEC 75 copy

Please click here to go the Left Archive.

This edition of the United Irishman from Official Sinn Féin is one of a series of United Irishman and other left wing materials that date from the feud between PIRA and the OIRA towards the end of 1975. The Archive hopes to present a rounded picture of those events and therefore would welcome IRSP, PSF or other left political publications from the same period. Please contact us at the contact section on the Irish Left Archive.

Interestingly the cover makes no mention of those events, instead focusing on ‘The Year of International Crisis: Little hope for our economy’.

Inside though there are numerous mentions including letters from Kilkenny Comharle Ceanntair professing sympathy. On page 3 there is an account of Seamus Lynch, of the Six-County Executive of Republican Clubs, and the oration he gave at the funeral of John Brown, one of those murdered during the feud.

The editorial makes no mention of the feud however there is a detailed outline of the activities of the Republican Clubs which seeks to rebut:

…the propaganda campaign waged by the Provisional Alliance… and accusations that our members were engaged in acts of petty gangsterism against the people of Belfast.

In these pages we show what the activity of the RC really is not only in Belfast but throughout the Six Counties.

This includes the declaration that ‘Rights and R.U.C. the targets’ of RC efforts.

Provisionals have condemned the Republican Clubs for demanding Civil Rights in the North. They say that such rights are ‘British rights’ and therefore Irish men and women should have nothing to do with them. Yet the Provisionals negotiated with the British authorities, and until recently were in constant contact with them through the Incident Centres. By doing this they recognised the de facto reality of British control in the North. And tried to get all they could for their organisation on that basis.

In another part of these articles there is the following:

The participation of the Republican Clubs in elections has often been attacked from the ultra-left as reformist. The accusation comes usually from maniacal fringe groups who fail to see the importance of presenting policies to the people so they can see the need for change and support those policies which will benefit them.

Later there are condolences extended by the Ard Comhairle of Sinn Féin ‘to the bereaved families of all those murdered during the Provisional attacks on our Belfast members’.

Another piece notes that Mac Giolla restates Civil Rights demands including the abolition of the RUC and its replacement by a ‘police service’.

Other articles include a two page spread on International Women’s Year and a column asking ‘Whatever happened to the Southern Labour Party?’.

Retail spends in advance of Christmas December 13, 2015

For all the hype about Black Friday and pre-Christmas trade the Observer Business section had this analysis last Sunday which is worth considering in this the immediate pre-Christmas period…

the spending figures for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the Saturday and Sunday in between are quite something. Online sales over the four days reached £3.3bn, including £1.1bn on Black Friday and £968m on Cyber Monday. This equates to £763,000 being spent every minute on Black Friday, up roughly a third on last year.

But…

But unfortunately for high street stores, this spending spree did not translate to “physical” shops.

And:

Although retail bosses have not yet admitted it publicly, they are privately expressing surprise at the shape of spending over that weekend. Rather than flocking to the sales on Black Friday, consumers spread their spending over a week, and focused on grabbing deals online from the comfort of their sofa.
We’ll see the consequences of this over the next few weeks and in January when most of Britain’s retailers publish their results for the festive season. Last weekend’s events raise a series of key questions. Are high street shops left with unsold goods they now need to shift before Christmas? How much did the Black Friday sales cost, and has this damaged profits? Can retailers deliver customers’ orders on time? Who were the winners and losers?

What strikes me as curious about Black Friday etc is the seeming belief that all these ‘events’ don’t cannibalise sales (small ’s’, not New Year Sales, or what are now de facto directly after Christmas Sales) that might occur elsewhere, whether before or after Christmas and equally that they don’t seem to think they might eat into prices that could be charged. Of course beyond this is the idea that somehow there’s unending pits of consumer resources, financial of course, to purchase these goods.

Speaking of the Soviet space programme December 13, 2015

This too from the BBC is interesting in terms of outlining the realities and challenges of that era and what came after…

Abastumani, hidden in the wild Georgian mountains, was a once-secret Soviet observatory. BBC Future visits to see how it has adapted to life after the Cold War.

The Soviet space programme December 13, 2015

Thanks to the person who sent me the link to this highlighting the curators pick from an exhibition at the London Science Museum of eight objects that ‘define the Soviet space race’. As the accompanying text notes:

It was the Soviets who put the first satellite, dog, woman and man into space.

One could go further and note that both the PRC and Russia continue to use and build on the technologies used during that period. Indeed, ironically, now that the US space shuttle has been decommissioned only the fruits of that space programme offer a way for astronauts and cosmonauts into orbit until others provide human rated launchers.

New B&A poll December 12, 2015

From Liberius, the following analysis of the latest poll.

New B&A poll. Headline figures as follows:

FG 31% (+5)
FF 19% (-1)
SF 17% (-4)
LP 8% (+1)
AAA-PBP 4% -(4)
GP 4% (+3)
IND ALL 2%(NC)
SD 1%(NC)
RENUA 1%(NC)
WP 1%(-1%)
IND 11%(-1)

Calculating from the figures on page 40 of the pdf yields these figures to two decimal places

FG 31.33%
FF 18.99%
SF 17.19%
LP 7.91%
AAA-PBP 3.91% (once a few stray SP numbers are added)
GP 3.80%
IND ALL 2.16%
WP 1.37%
SD 1.11%
RENUA 1.05%
IND 11.13%

Interestingly if we look at page 64 we see that FF overshoot in terms of who people voted for in 2011, FG (who are usually spot on) are undershooting. LP at near half their 2011 figures; SF near double, which would help LP and hurt SF in the readjustments. All in I’d say the sample looks a bit wonky, we could be look at a rogue one, we’ll see next time B&A poll.

Demographics (from page 40) split 50.85% ABC1, 43.00% C2DE, 6.14% F. Reasonably consistent with last time; perhaps a bit low on the C2DE front.

http://banda.ie/wp-content/uploads/J.7012-Sunday-Times-December-2015-Report.pdf

Sausages… December 12, 2015

This in the SBP caught my eye last weekend.

Sausage sales are rebounding from a 20 per cent slide in sales when shoppers cut out the Sunday morning favourite for health reasons.

This was on foot of the WHO report that noted processed meats ‘ranked alongside smoking as a cause of cancer’.

Weirdly, to me at least…

the Chief Executive of the Associated Craft Butchers of Ireland… said sausages were the only product to be hit by the negative attention surrounding the report.

Why only sausages? I’d have thought cured meats, bacon etc, would be much more obviously a problem. And doesn’t it point to the limited impact of such information? That’s striking in itself.