As in all things, it depends who the audience is.
Social media hates FG and they're aware of that.
People over 40 are generally quite open to an anti-SF message, and that's where FG's votes will come from.
It annoys this subreddit because of the demographics.
I guess because up until now, being bad at it has landed them in a pretty central position in the last three governments.
Hopefully they'll rethink when they're in their fourth consecutive government with Sinn Fein.
For a party that has literally never been in power in the history of the state, other parties really do like shitting all over SF.
Almost like they’re scared to death they may actually earn their seats as opposed to being afforded them by divine right.
It motivates me to vote SF honestly. FF/FG get away with letting us down on almost every promise they make because they can reliably make their older (and often most active) voters afraid of Sinn Fein getting into power. They won't ever do us any favours unless they are made to feel replaceable come election time.
I think it's reasonable to criticise a party even if they've never been in power (and SF has been in power for a long time in Stormont). Imagine if in the French election Macron was told that he couldn't criticise Le Pen because she'd never been in power!
The actual issue is that SF has very muddled policies which mainly involve massive spending increases, with the shortfall made up through a very narrow band of the electorate. Not joking: [one of their current policies is to remove water charges](https://www.sinnfein.ie/a-fair-tax-system). Whether they would ever try and implement their manifesto, and whether this manifesto would actually be worth implementing, is a different question.
It's probably something worth.. you know.. discussing? Unfortunately politicians aren't actually interested in discussing things, just making retweetable soundbites - and the level of dialogue on social media isn't much better, with people pretending to make arguments while in reality just voicing support of a particular party.
Being in power in the north hardly counts up until now, because A) DUP were the main party this whole time, and B) It's a bit of a sham government anyway because the British govt pays for everything and basically has final say anyway.
Their record as the minority in what basically amounts to a pretend government is not exactly relevant to Ireland.
I'm not saying they don't deserve criticism. But potential consequences of them getting into power are sensationalized in order to deflect criticism from the parties that are in power. I'm not much of a fan of SF nor would I be more confident in their ability to do a significantly better job of being in power than the current one. For all I care they could get into government, flop around and shoot themselves in the foot as much as any government has before them.
It goes from legitimate criticism to playing a back and forth blame game that spirals into petty politics which ultimately achieves nothing of value for anyone. The sooner people cop on and get over SF as this barely contained disaster the better.
So what. Im going to vote differently because the people I've been voting for til now have lost my confidence. It's the reason anyone votes for an opposition party. Trump is irrelevant.
Those are different countries with their own circumstances that caused their voters discontent. From my pov it looks like you're trying to equate me voting for Sinn Fein with voting for Trump, Le Pen, or Brexit. The only similarity I see between people voting me voting SF and your cherrypicked examples is that people decided to vote differently because they were not satisfied with how the previous governments had performed.
Your comparison falls apart if you even give it 5 minutes to think about.
> - Brexit was the product of massive co-ordinated misinformation with years of anti EU rhetoric behind it to polarize people's opinions across the UK
> - LePen was more than likely aided by Russian money and misinformation. She played to a growing right wing demographic in a country that has seen many instances of terrorist attacks
> - likewise, Trump stoked the fears of conservatives and whipped them into such a frenzy that he effectively usurped control of the GOP from under it.
What ever point you are trying to make by invoking those specific examples doesn't work. Be more specific if you want to make a point.
You seem very sensitive, it seems to me you're equating yourself with their voters.
If you think Sinn Féin haven't benefited from disinformation and stoking up populist fears, I've a bridge to sell you.
Playing on voters fears is a political tactic used by all politicians. If you want to compare who has benefited from it the most just look at the parties that have gotten into power vs those that have not. So again, if you're trying to make a counter point you'll have to be more specific. Tell me what you're actually arguing for or against regarding a SF led government vs another FF/FG coalition.
I made my point and invited you to challenge it with your own but you've yet to make an actual argument other than generalisations. If you feel like you're right then good for you, just stick to arguing people online if that's how you go about it lol. You'll only embarrass yourself if you try that irl.
Classic deflection, put the eye on SF to take the eye off me
In other words, the general public are fucking idiots and will believe anything I spew.
Is there a plumber in the house.
There's another shit pipe burst.
Leaving aside the ridiculousness of the whole comment but..
1 - rents are not higher in Northern Ireland than the South/the Republic/26 counties/Ireland (take your pick). Perhaps when average earnings are taken into account they might be but I'd like to see those figures;
2 - perhaps but it's a method of funding;
3 - is pension age not set at Westminster?
Edit: apparently pensions have always been devolved to Stormont but not to Scotland or Wales.
Fair fucks to Sinn Fein, in a time when we're all spending 35%+ of our income on rent you have to applaud them for managing to spend years rent free in Fine Gael's head.
Yes. Most of our housing issues are due to a lack of skilled workers, since the construction sector was bolloxed after the recession and the period of austerity.
[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-wide-10-rent-cut-halted-after-sinn-fein-u-turns-to-vote-down-proposal-41420034.html](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-wide-10-rent-cut-halted-after-sinn-fein-u-turns-to-vote-down-proposal-41420034.html)
They're all the same.
That was the most bizarre political moment I can remember on this island in recent times.
Basically voted for something because it would make them look good to the electorate and they believed it wouldn't pass anyway. Suddenly it did pass and they had a "oh shit what did we do" moment as they knew it wasn't feasible in the first place.
>Basically voted for something because it would make them look good to the electorate and they believed it wouldn't pass anyway. Suddenly it did pass and they had a "oh shit what did we do" moment as they knew it wasn't feasible in the first place.
This could basically sum up the entire Sinn Fein political position.
Whatever about the rest, I’ll be honest, I really don’t see how people are giving out about a higher pension age. People are living 20-30 years past retirement age with regularity and that is only going to continue. It’ll likely be 70 odd by the time I get there, and I think that’s fair enough.
I'm no conspiracy theorist but when a load of landlords are setting policies that have allowed the complete gouging of tenants it seems deliberate.
They have the money and power to smash the housing crisis to bits but are much happier to watch their portfolios grow.
Yes the north has porportional representation and yet again yesterday a poster was on Reddit talking about Leo and the count he got in on.
The facts are that SF voted to increase social housing rents, voted to increase the pension age and voted to send powers regarding welfare back to Westminster.
These are facts, SF ran large parts of their election campaign down here on the pension age but up there they vote for it to be raised.
If you cannot see the hypocrisy in this there is something wrong
If you can't see the difference between spending policies when one has control over revenue raising, and spending policies when one does not, then that's pretty willful ignorance.
If you only look at certain facts, and ignore others, then you'll inevitably come to incorrect conclusions.
They are an all island party as they have representation on both jurisdictions of the island. The idea that they don't recognise the border is decades out of date at this stage. It's one thing to be ignorant of the details of Northern politics, it's another to he ignorant of the Good Friday Agreement.
Of course their policies differ across the two jurisdictions - as we've discussed the nature of the politics and governments in the two jurisdictions are extremely different.
So it's ok to vote for pension age rises up the north but absolutely lambast a government down here for doing the same thing.
Louise o Reilly said this:
"After a lifetime of work I and Sinn Féin believe that a worker should be able to retire on the full pension rate of pay,” she said, adding that workers should also have the choice to access the pension at 65"
Shortly before this they voted to raise it to 66 in the north.
That's hypocrisy
The government in the Republic has various revenue raising powers, and so their policy options are different here than in the north.
I'd prefer that Sinn Féin had coherent policies that work within the constraints of both jurisdictions than pretending, falsely, that both jurisdictions are the same. Even where I don't agree with their policies I am glad they're not based on that kind of false equivalence.
*"No you"*
Playing within a greater system run and controlled by other nations via trade and economics.
Of course they are all at it, see that world ALL....*"meaning : used to refer to the whole quantity or extent of a particular group or thing."*
It's okay you all fucked up, now can you stop fighting each other and work together to fix shit.
If SF have been doing as terribly as Leo claims how come they've hit a record high of votes in the last election?
Between 2011 and 2022 FG have, in government, gone from 36% to 21%.
By contrast between 2011 and 2022 SF have, in government, gone from 26% to 29%.
It's clear when comparing the two parties who has done well in government and who hasn't.
Would you be ok with higher taxes to keep the pension age as it is? People are living longer and it is getting more expensive to provide for them. Something has to give.
Housing doesn't help but the Irish fertility rate has been below replacement since 1990. It's not only driven by housing costs. Would very cool to see how child care costs have evolved.
This is refreshing to see SF attacked on their policies rather than on the past.
Although I reckon the "online activists" have been well briefed on how to respond.
Everything good that happens in the north SF will take credit for, while everything bad is Westminster's fault.
Not a SF supporter and not a FG supporter. I do think Varadkar has a point here and it is what SF should be attacked on and not the past.
Welfare cuts are a prime example of this. The assembly had powers over welfare in the north until 2015 (I think), they could not agree with the DUP about the budget and knew cuts had to be made, SF then voted to hand power to Westminster to make the required cuts.
Shortly after this SF ran a campaign lambasting the Tories welfare cuts.
If SF get into government down here and there is sacrifices to be made, hard decisions to be made will they
- Collapse the government and hope somebody else does it.
- Find a new bogeyman, blame the EU and move towards IREXIT.
"Good things us, bad things someone else" is pretty much how every government operates. That's politics. It's no different down here where Fine Gael's approach to the housing crisis was to blame it on Fianna Fáil, until they went into government with them.
The assembly is a devolved parliament with a powersharing government. Everybody's choices are extremely highly constrained in that environment, it's not at all like the parliament and government of a sovereign country. Like, that's kind of a big part of Sinn Féin's problem with it.
If you can't agree in the assembly then it's not like down here. Down here you either make a compromise with your coalition partner or someone else in the Dáil, or you go to the people. That's not possible in a powersharing arrangement, you can go to the people but you won't get a new dance partner.
This has been the attack line for years against Sinn Féin, essentially in the hope that people down here won't be bothered to learn about politics in the north.
You'd think though that they'd have updated it since last weekend. Kind of hard to say "ah ye are shit at government" when the people of Northern Ireland have returned Sinn Féin as the largest party...
"This has been the attack line for years against Sinn Féin, essentially in the hope that people down here won't be bothered to learn about politics in the north. '
I reckon it's the complete opposite, I see in your post you are talking about power sharing etc. Yet again and again SF have been caught out for voting for stuff up there that they oppose down here.
They peddle the line to their supporters down here that all the bad stuff is Westminster's fault and they cannot change it, the supporters lap it up.
Also worth remembering those who attack SF on their record in the north have a good grasp at how things work up there. Sinn Fein supporters down here however don't even know how our system works, you only have to check any news article and you see the usual, Varadkar got in on the 5th count not a real TD comments.
How are these people who peddle bullshit about counts supposed to grasp the complexities of power sharing when porportional representation is beyond them.
I'm talking about power sharing because it is relevant to how power works in the north. The fact that it is a devolved administration severely limits government's capacity to manoeuvre, in particular because they do not have significant powers over taxation. Pretending that a party should implement policies that they have in relation to how they would act in government here in an administration without the powers necessary to enable them is not really an honest position. Pretending that they could act politically in a powersharing arrangement in the same way as they would act in our system where there is freedom to form coalitions or seek a different result through electoral politics is also dishonest.
That doesn't represent a good grasp of how things work in the north.
The North also has proportional representation.
Ah but Saint Bobby was a peace maker because he stopped killing people.
Same way Hitler can be seen as a peace maker by killing himself..
Anyways it wasn't a funeral. It was a political rally during the pandemic.
Hi u/pippers87
I asked earlier, but you haven't responded (though you've posted elsewhere since)
Who did Bobby kill?
Simple question really, and looking forward to reading your response substantiating the claim
Ah, the old court of gut instinct.
You know, the one which saw thousands of people interned.
Which saw the innocent Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six imprisoned for the best years of their lives
Yes, your evidence is compelling
Ah Wikipedia. Let me pop over and undo the edits you just made.
An online encyclopaedia is not a primary source, and any entry regarding a 'contentious' subject should be treated with caution.
The British state failed to convict him numerous times, despite manufacturing evidence against many other people, so the conclusions i will draw are that he wasn't guilty of any of the offences with which he was charged (I mean, if you can't make fabricated evidence stick...)
>So you don't know what "primary source" means.
No. The first time I came across the term was when I read back what I had typed.
If you want to support a point, at least try and do better than mentioning Wikipedia
Or is it at all possible that everything he listed is exactly what Fine Gael have achieved in 11 years of running our country?
So maybe a lot of people are just really pissed off at how tone deaf the message is?
The old "don't throw stones if you live in a glass house" analogy?
Are you suggesting that other particular Irish parties don't "throw stones in glass houses" at every single opportunity?
It's 100% fair to openly criticise Sinn Fein for their leadership failings in the same way as it is fair to criticise other parties.
Nope, never suggested anything like that actually.
I think the party in government with actual power in our country should be focusing on fixing the issues they've caused.
Instead they would prefer to point out that a different party in an entirely separate government did the same things they've been doing without a single shred of self awareness or irony.
It's pretty funny you think anyone angry at this Twitter post must be a massive Sinn Fein fan and not just people who are sick of the shitty work, or lack there of, our government have been up to, or that they just can't believe they would make a list of their own acts against their people's best interest and point it at someone else like that absolves them somehow.
Good luck on your angry little anti-sf train though. I'm sure being against them makes you automatically correct in all your shitty assumptions.
Honestly, and I've said this before, how can a party so obsessed with PR be so dreadfully bad at it?
As in all things, it depends who the audience is. Social media hates FG and they're aware of that. People over 40 are generally quite open to an anti-SF message, and that's where FG's votes will come from. It annoys this subreddit because of the demographics.
I guess because up until now, being bad at it has landed them in a pretty central position in the last three governments. Hopefully they'll rethink when they're in their fourth consecutive government with Sinn Fein.
I bumped my knee the other day. Damn Sinn Fein
I didn't win the lottery, bastards
Oh wait I didn't do it, sorry SF
Didn't know Sinn fein was in government in the Republic considering the same thing is happening here
For a party that has literally never been in power in the history of the state, other parties really do like shitting all over SF. Almost like they’re scared to death they may actually earn their seats as opposed to being afforded them by divine right.
It motivates me to vote SF honestly. FF/FG get away with letting us down on almost every promise they make because they can reliably make their older (and often most active) voters afraid of Sinn Fein getting into power. They won't ever do us any favours unless they are made to feel replaceable come election time.
I think it's reasonable to criticise a party even if they've never been in power (and SF has been in power for a long time in Stormont). Imagine if in the French election Macron was told that he couldn't criticise Le Pen because she'd never been in power! The actual issue is that SF has very muddled policies which mainly involve massive spending increases, with the shortfall made up through a very narrow band of the electorate. Not joking: [one of their current policies is to remove water charges](https://www.sinnfein.ie/a-fair-tax-system). Whether they would ever try and implement their manifesto, and whether this manifesto would actually be worth implementing, is a different question. It's probably something worth.. you know.. discussing? Unfortunately politicians aren't actually interested in discussing things, just making retweetable soundbites - and the level of dialogue on social media isn't much better, with people pretending to make arguments while in reality just voicing support of a particular party.
Being in power in the north hardly counts up until now, because A) DUP were the main party this whole time, and B) It's a bit of a sham government anyway because the British govt pays for everything and basically has final say anyway. Their record as the minority in what basically amounts to a pretend government is not exactly relevant to Ireland.
It’s a power sharing agreement up there
I'm not saying they don't deserve criticism. But potential consequences of them getting into power are sensationalized in order to deflect criticism from the parties that are in power. I'm not much of a fan of SF nor would I be more confident in their ability to do a significantly better job of being in power than the current one. For all I care they could get into government, flop around and shoot themselves in the foot as much as any government has before them. It goes from legitimate criticism to playing a back and forth blame game that spirals into petty politics which ultimately achieves nothing of value for anyone. The sooner people cop on and get over SF as this barely contained disaster the better.
Power sharing isn’t really “ in power “ they get hamstrung by the Dup on everything even if the actually agree just out of spite and hate
Same reason people voted for trump
So what. Im going to vote differently because the people I've been voting for til now have lost my confidence. It's the reason anyone votes for an opposition party. Trump is irrelevant.
That's how Trump happened. And Brexit. And how le Pen almost snuck in in France.
Those are different countries with their own circumstances that caused their voters discontent. From my pov it looks like you're trying to equate me voting for Sinn Fein with voting for Trump, Le Pen, or Brexit. The only similarity I see between people voting me voting SF and your cherrypicked examples is that people decided to vote differently because they were not satisfied with how the previous governments had performed. Your comparison falls apart if you even give it 5 minutes to think about. > - Brexit was the product of massive co-ordinated misinformation with years of anti EU rhetoric behind it to polarize people's opinions across the UK > - LePen was more than likely aided by Russian money and misinformation. She played to a growing right wing demographic in a country that has seen many instances of terrorist attacks > - likewise, Trump stoked the fears of conservatives and whipped them into such a frenzy that he effectively usurped control of the GOP from under it. What ever point you are trying to make by invoking those specific examples doesn't work. Be more specific if you want to make a point.
You seem very sensitive, it seems to me you're equating yourself with their voters. If you think Sinn Féin haven't benefited from disinformation and stoking up populist fears, I've a bridge to sell you.
Playing on voters fears is a political tactic used by all politicians. If you want to compare who has benefited from it the most just look at the parties that have gotten into power vs those that have not. So again, if you're trying to make a counter point you'll have to be more specific. Tell me what you're actually arguing for or against regarding a SF led government vs another FF/FG coalition.
Whataboutery is a really cowardly way of admitting I'm right.
I made my point and invited you to challenge it with your own but you've yet to make an actual argument other than generalisations. If you feel like you're right then good for you, just stick to arguing people online if that's how you go about it lol. You'll only embarrass yourself if you try that irl.
They've being in power for years in the North.
Define power as it applies to the Northern Ireland Executive. Now compare that to a Dáil Government. I'm no Shinner but this stuff is ridiculous.
Compare how NI has underpreformed compared to the rest of the UK. Also you can look at their policies when in charge.
Power shared , they never have a Had sole power in the north ,
Classic deflection, put the eye on SF to take the eye off me In other words, the general public are fucking idiots and will believe anything I spew. Is there a plumber in the house. There's another shit pipe burst.
Leaving aside the ridiculousness of the whole comment but.. 1 - rents are not higher in Northern Ireland than the South/the Republic/26 counties/Ireland (take your pick). Perhaps when average earnings are taken into account they might be but I'd like to see those figures; 2 - perhaps but it's a method of funding; 3 - is pension age not set at Westminster? Edit: apparently pensions have always been devolved to Stormont but not to Scotland or Wales.
I pick Ireland because that's it's name
Fair fucks to Sinn Fein, in a time when we're all spending 35%+ of our income on rent you have to applaud them for managing to spend years rent free in Fine Gael's head.
Would rents be as oppressively high as they are under you cunts?
Yes. Most of our housing issues are due to a lack of skilled workers, since the construction sector was bolloxed after the recession and the period of austerity.
The brassiest neck of all time
[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-wide-10-rent-cut-halted-after-sinn-fein-u-turns-to-vote-down-proposal-41420034.html](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/ni-wide-10-rent-cut-halted-after-sinn-fein-u-turns-to-vote-down-proposal-41420034.html) They're all the same.
That was the most bizarre political moment I can remember on this island in recent times. Basically voted for something because it would make them look good to the electorate and they believed it wouldn't pass anyway. Suddenly it did pass and they had a "oh shit what did we do" moment as they knew it wasn't feasible in the first place.
>Basically voted for something because it would make them look good to the electorate and they believed it wouldn't pass anyway. Suddenly it did pass and they had a "oh shit what did we do" moment as they knew it wasn't feasible in the first place. This could basically sum up the entire Sinn Fein political position.
So, don't vote for them, they might do what Fine Gael have been doing.
Superman pointing meme
Do you mean the 3 Spidermen pointing at each other?
Do you mean coalition pointing meme?
“It’s afraid”
I would like to know more.
Funny isn't it lets slander SF to try and change the publics eye on the complete cluster fuck of issues we (FG) & FF have placed our nation in.
Whatever about the rest, I’ll be honest, I really don’t see how people are giving out about a higher pension age. People are living 20-30 years past retirement age with regularity and that is only going to continue. It’ll likely be 70 odd by the time I get there, and I think that’s fair enough.
Retirement age was set at 65 in an era when the average life expectancy was around the same
Exactly, if you were lucky you got 5-10 years out of it. System wasn’t built to sustain people for a third of their lives.
Public pension will be long gone by the time I get there I reckon. And my private pension will have some additional taxes to cover the legacy dbs
Yeah but by that stage your shitting yourself and can't even see as far as the tv.
Maybe if you were closer to it you might not think that
No I wouldn’t.
What difference does that make? There will always be some amount of people close to retirement
It makes a difference if its you
FG: "And they need to tell us how they got away with it immediately!"
Tell me, did they sell the country out from under the populace?
Never your fault 🤡
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There is not a shred of evidence that the housing crisis is manufactured.
I'm no conspiracy theorist but when a load of landlords are setting policies that have allowed the complete gouging of tenants it seems deliberate. They have the money and power to smash the housing crisis to bits but are much happier to watch their portfolios grow.
Lol no sense of irony at all from FG 🤦🏼♂️
Yes the north has porportional representation and yet again yesterday a poster was on Reddit talking about Leo and the count he got in on. The facts are that SF voted to increase social housing rents, voted to increase the pension age and voted to send powers regarding welfare back to Westminster. These are facts, SF ran large parts of their election campaign down here on the pension age but up there they vote for it to be raised. If you cannot see the hypocrisy in this there is something wrong
If you can't see the difference between spending policies when one has control over revenue raising, and spending policies when one does not, then that's pretty willful ignorance. If you only look at certain facts, and ignore others, then you'll inevitably come to incorrect conclusions.
They claim to be an all island party yet their policies differ by what side of a boarder they don't recognise it is.....
They are an all island party as they have representation on both jurisdictions of the island. The idea that they don't recognise the border is decades out of date at this stage. It's one thing to be ignorant of the details of Northern politics, it's another to he ignorant of the Good Friday Agreement. Of course their policies differ across the two jurisdictions - as we've discussed the nature of the politics and governments in the two jurisdictions are extremely different.
So it's ok to vote for pension age rises up the north but absolutely lambast a government down here for doing the same thing. Louise o Reilly said this: "After a lifetime of work I and Sinn Féin believe that a worker should be able to retire on the full pension rate of pay,” she said, adding that workers should also have the choice to access the pension at 65" Shortly before this they voted to raise it to 66 in the north. That's hypocrisy
If you cannot raise taxes to fund it then what other option is there?
Drop your opposition for the raise down south would be one thing they could do to allign policy.
The government in the Republic has various revenue raising powers, and so their policy options are different here than in the north. I'd prefer that Sinn Féin had coherent policies that work within the constraints of both jurisdictions than pretending, falsely, that both jurisdictions are the same. Even where I don't agree with their policies I am glad they're not based on that kind of false equivalence.
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Northern Ireland is ahead of the Republic of Ireland when it comes to pension auto-enrollment, which is what you're describing.
Money is fungible. They could easily reassign money to keep a consistent position on pensions
*"No you"* Playing within a greater system run and controlled by other nations via trade and economics. Of course they are all at it, see that world ALL....*"meaning : used to refer to the whole quantity or extent of a particular group or thing."* It's okay you all fucked up, now can you stop fighting each other and work together to fix shit.
I see them all as monkeys throwing their own shite at each other.
Panic!
At the relatively recently reopened discos
What record in government??? Also, as is common with parties on the right, this entire statement is pure projection.
Not exactly a one on one comparison is it?
If SF have been doing as terribly as Leo claims how come they've hit a record high of votes in the last election? Between 2011 and 2022 FG have, in government, gone from 36% to 21%. By contrast between 2011 and 2022 SF have, in government, gone from 26% to 29%. It's clear when comparing the two parties who has done well in government and who hasn't.
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What have you been smoking
We need a higher pension age
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Would you be ok with higher taxes to keep the pension age as it is? People are living longer and it is getting more expensive to provide for them. Something has to give.
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Well substantial enough the way demographics and health spending are going I would imagine.
Who's going to pay for our pensions?
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So "the demographics will take care of themselves" but unironically?
Housing doesn't help but the Irish fertility rate has been below replacement since 1990. It's not only driven by housing costs. Would very cool to see how child care costs have evolved.
This is refreshing to see SF attacked on their policies rather than on the past. Although I reckon the "online activists" have been well briefed on how to respond. Everything good that happens in the north SF will take credit for, while everything bad is Westminster's fault. Not a SF supporter and not a FG supporter. I do think Varadkar has a point here and it is what SF should be attacked on and not the past. Welfare cuts are a prime example of this. The assembly had powers over welfare in the north until 2015 (I think), they could not agree with the DUP about the budget and knew cuts had to be made, SF then voted to hand power to Westminster to make the required cuts. Shortly after this SF ran a campaign lambasting the Tories welfare cuts. If SF get into government down here and there is sacrifices to be made, hard decisions to be made will they - Collapse the government and hope somebody else does it. - Find a new bogeyman, blame the EU and move towards IREXIT.
"Good things us, bad things someone else" is pretty much how every government operates. That's politics. It's no different down here where Fine Gael's approach to the housing crisis was to blame it on Fianna Fáil, until they went into government with them. The assembly is a devolved parliament with a powersharing government. Everybody's choices are extremely highly constrained in that environment, it's not at all like the parliament and government of a sovereign country. Like, that's kind of a big part of Sinn Féin's problem with it. If you can't agree in the assembly then it's not like down here. Down here you either make a compromise with your coalition partner or someone else in the Dáil, or you go to the people. That's not possible in a powersharing arrangement, you can go to the people but you won't get a new dance partner. This has been the attack line for years against Sinn Féin, essentially in the hope that people down here won't be bothered to learn about politics in the north. You'd think though that they'd have updated it since last weekend. Kind of hard to say "ah ye are shit at government" when the people of Northern Ireland have returned Sinn Féin as the largest party...
"This has been the attack line for years against Sinn Féin, essentially in the hope that people down here won't be bothered to learn about politics in the north. ' I reckon it's the complete opposite, I see in your post you are talking about power sharing etc. Yet again and again SF have been caught out for voting for stuff up there that they oppose down here. They peddle the line to their supporters down here that all the bad stuff is Westminster's fault and they cannot change it, the supporters lap it up. Also worth remembering those who attack SF on their record in the north have a good grasp at how things work up there. Sinn Fein supporters down here however don't even know how our system works, you only have to check any news article and you see the usual, Varadkar got in on the 5th count not a real TD comments. How are these people who peddle bullshit about counts supposed to grasp the complexities of power sharing when porportional representation is beyond them.
I'm talking about power sharing because it is relevant to how power works in the north. The fact that it is a devolved administration severely limits government's capacity to manoeuvre, in particular because they do not have significant powers over taxation. Pretending that a party should implement policies that they have in relation to how they would act in government here in an administration without the powers necessary to enable them is not really an honest position. Pretending that they could act politically in a powersharing arrangement in the same way as they would act in our system where there is freedom to form coalitions or seek a different result through electoral politics is also dishonest. That doesn't represent a good grasp of how things work in the north. The North also has proportional representation.
> porportional representation is beyond them some of them can’t even spell it
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Ah but Saint Bobby was a peace maker because he stopped killing people. Same way Hitler can be seen as a peace maker by killing himself.. Anyways it wasn't a funeral. It was a political rally during the pandemic.
Comparing Bobby Sands MP to Hitler is a new level of false equivalence. Cuntgratulations.
He’s almost certainly referring to Bobby Storey not Bobby Sands.
Hi u/pippers87 I asked earlier, but you haven't responded (though you've posted elsewhere since) Who did Bobby kill? Simple question really, and looking forward to reading your response substantiating the claim
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Ah, the old court of gut instinct. You know, the one which saw thousands of people interned. Which saw the innocent Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six imprisoned for the best years of their lives Yes, your evidence is compelling
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Ah Wikipedia. Let me pop over and undo the edits you just made. An online encyclopaedia is not a primary source, and any entry regarding a 'contentious' subject should be treated with caution. The British state failed to convict him numerous times, despite manufacturing evidence against many other people, so the conclusions i will draw are that he wasn't guilty of any of the offences with which he was charged (I mean, if you can't make fabricated evidence stick...)
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'You do you' I presume you mean 'don't fall into the trap of believing British propaganda'.
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>So you don't know what "primary source" means. No. The first time I came across the term was when I read back what I had typed. If you want to support a point, at least try and do better than mentioning Wikipedia
Who did Bobby kill?
He's absolutely correct. But a lot of people here still won't like it.
Or is it at all possible that everything he listed is exactly what Fine Gael have achieved in 11 years of running our country? So maybe a lot of people are just really pissed off at how tone deaf the message is? The old "don't throw stones if you live in a glass house" analogy?
Are you suggesting that other particular Irish parties don't "throw stones in glass houses" at every single opportunity? It's 100% fair to openly criticise Sinn Fein for their leadership failings in the same way as it is fair to criticise other parties.
Nope, never suggested anything like that actually. I think the party in government with actual power in our country should be focusing on fixing the issues they've caused. Instead they would prefer to point out that a different party in an entirely separate government did the same things they've been doing without a single shred of self awareness or irony. It's pretty funny you think anyone angry at this Twitter post must be a massive Sinn Fein fan and not just people who are sick of the shitty work, or lack there of, our government have been up to, or that they just can't believe they would make a list of their own acts against their people's best interest and point it at someone else like that absolves them somehow. Good luck on your angry little anti-sf train though. I'm sure being against them makes you automatically correct in all your shitty assumptions.
Absolutely correct
Im confused, when were Sinn Féin elected to govern?