Latest poll

Something of a downer for Labour on the day that’s in it. Tomorrow’s Red C / Sunday Business Post poll:

FG 31 (+1)
FF 28 (+5)
Lab 17 (-5)
SF 7 (-4)
Green 7 (+1)
Others 10 (+2)

Cowen doesn’t get his half mill

Given the seriousness of our economic situation, there was some speculation around City West on Saturday that the television audience for Cowen’s speech to the Soldiers (his fourth ‘State of the Nation,’ as it were) might break the 500,000 mark. In the event he pulled in 375,000.

That amounts to a decent 24.6% of the audience at that time. I suppose expecting the half mill was wishful thinking on a day when 1 million viewers had already watched a rugby match. Many of the viewers at home probably had their fill of TV for the day, while the pub audience would have moved on to a higher state of enlightenment by half past eight.

RTÉ also tell me that 88,000 watched Gerry Adams’ speech at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis the previous Saturday (10.9% of the audience). I reckon it’s time Sinn Féin move to the 8.30-9pm slot – not many are able for the 50 minute-long political speech these days.

Cowen’s audience was well above the 263,000 (16.6%) who watched Kenny’s speech in November (though that was a Fine Gael ‘national conference’ and not a fully-fledged Ard Fheis), and also way past the 246,000 (14.6%) who watched Gilmore’s address to the Labour faithful at a ’special delegate conference’ later that month.

Latest poll

The FF slump continues. Labour on the rise. In tomorrow’s Sunday Business Post:

FG 30% (-3)
FF 23% (-5)
LAB 22% (+8)
GRN 6% (-2)
SF 11% (+2)
Ind 8%

Via Irish Election

Dermot Ahern made a boo-boo

Or at least his speechwriter did.

From Gerry Adams’ Sinn Féin Ard Fheis address last weekend:

Woody Guthrie once wrote: ‘Some rob you with a six gun, some with a fountain pen’.

From Dermot Ahern’s speech to the Justice session of the FF Ard Fheis today:

That late great American folf singer woody Guthrie sang of how ’some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen.’

Poor.

Taking the scattergun approach

I don’t know why Sinn Féin always opt for the one hour TV slot for their leader’s Ard Fheis speech. It’s way too long for a television audience and who’s watching at that time on a Saturday anyway?

Ourselves alone in Ballsbridge

 

Envisioning Ireland's future at the RDS this afternoon

Only arrived here at the RDS at 12 noon but speakers have been busy calling for bankers to be jailed and Brian Goggin and Ulick McEvaddy’s houses to be “nationised”. It’s fair to say people are angry.

It’s shaping up to be an angry day in Dublin with an as yet undetermined number of people due to march through the city centre at 2 o’clock in an ICTU-organised protest. Expect quite a few SF delegates to head into town for that.

Haven’t had much time to look around the conference yet but the SF shop has some interesting merchandise that I must check out. One thing I have noticed so far is how delegates were not herded into the hall for the part of the session that went out live on RTÉ One. Fine Gael party organisers made sure all seats in the hall were filled during TV time at their conference in Wexford. There’s no shortage of SF delegates here today but the conference organisers are quite happy to let them roam about the canteen while seats lie empty inside. Of course, there won’t be an empty seat left for Gerry Adams’ presidential address at 5pm.

Now, time for a proper roam about the grounds of the Royal Dublin Society.

(And yes, I realise ‘ourselves alone’ is a mistranslation of Sinn Féin but it makes for a better headline.)