The run-up to an election is always the ultimate Rorschach test, during which time every camp is likely to predict the outcome based on how they view their own positioning. Sometimes (as was the case for bullish Trump supporters ahead of his victory), optimism is rewarded, whereas on other occasions, reality hits like a bucket of cold water to the face.
For Gript readers – the majority of whom I suspect view the upcoming election in generally the same manner as this writer – the danger is to assume that the rest of the country is aching for change just as so many of our own friends and family, our own social circles, are. However, while that is not necessarily so, the case for believing that some degree of dissatisfaction is simmering among the vast majority just received a decent boost.
The Irish Times paints the findings of its latest poll in an unusual light this morning, suggesting that they reveal a “nation seeking stability rather than sweeping change”. This, despite the fact that a significant minority (35 percent) say they’re hungry for “radical change,” while a slim majority of 53 percent say they’d welcome “moderate change”.
I don’t know about you, but 35 percent of the twelve hundred adults polled responding that they’d like “radical change” indicates the consensus upon which the country is governed is a little wobblier than commonly held. While it remains fair to say, off the back of that, that the majority of the country isn’t seeking a complete overhaul of governance, it must be acknowledged that those figures give political alternatives an awful lot to work with.
Because even the most Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil-friendly analysis can’t help but conclude that even “moderate change” likely doesn’t bode well for them, given their near-permanent, alternating presence in Government.
All of their talk about bringing a “New Energy” (as Fine Gael has been saying) to Government, or “Moving Forward. Together” (as Fianna Fáil’s been saying) would seem, at this early juncture, to have been received with a little less enthusiasm by those heading to the ballot on Friday than either party’s strategists and sloganists could, apparently, have anticipated.
I found more than a little humour in the fact that the results of this poll coincided with the release of ‘professional optimist’ Mark Henry’s analysis of which parties “are most focused on improving our well-being”. He came to his conclusions by searching for variants of the words “well-being” and “happiness” in the various manifestos.
What he found was that “the party that has taken the concept most to heart is Fine Gael with 32 mentions,” followed by FG’s coalition partner, the Green Party, and the Social Democrats in joint second place with 21 mentions each. Stodgy old Fianna Fáil came joint fourth with Labour, paying “lip service” to the concept with just 10 mentions each.
Meanwhile, he found that “well-being is all but ignored by Sinn Fein, People Before Profit, Aontú, and Independent Ireland which hardly reference it at all”.
What are we to make of the facts that, on the one hand, an overwhelming majority of people seem to want change of some form of another (and change from what, if not the parties that have dominated politics in recent memory – FG, FF and the Greens?), and that on the other hand, those same parties are the ones that talk most about “well-being” and “happiness”?
At least one conclusion we can draw is that we live in tricky times for incumbents, thanks to a number of factors – the cost of living, surging immigration and geopolitical stresses being at the forefront. Each of those aforementioned issues is causing considerable stress and anxiety to populations around the globe, and the perceived inability of ruling parties to manage them is to their detriment.
Elections held this year in the US, the UK, France, Belgium, Austria and Japan among others have seen support for those in power plummet (this according to ParlGov’s global research project), meaning that we would be going thoroughly against the grain – certainly the western grain – if we didn’t see support for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens fall come Friday.
No amount of talking about well-being, or happiness, or budget surpluses can mask the fact that we live in, what are for many people, times of existential anxiety.
This impression was only reinforced today by Minister Paschal Donohoe’s response to my colleague Ben Scallan’s questioning about why his party is speaking now about fiscal prudence, after releasing a manifesto pledging an extra €52 billion in spending, hot on the heels of the largest “giveaway budget” in the history of the State.
Towards the end of his response, he said he wished Ben could have joined him on an election canvass, so that he could stand in front of a pensioner, “who’s worried about their living, and worried about the cost of a bill” and tell the minister for public expenditure that what they’ve done is “give them a giveaway”.
All play on the emotions aside, you would have to conclude that, yes, Minister Donohoe, that’s exactly what your party has done. Despite the continuous budgetary surpluses, so quickly referenced at press conferences, people are struggling as never before in recent memory to afford to heat their homes and buy those houses in the first place.
There is every indication, and the Irish Times’ poll only confirms this, that the age of the pleasing slogan and virtuous signal is being brought to an end by contact with cold, hard reality – which, whether you’re of the opinion that they’re viable alternatives or not, is what competitor parties are choosing to discuss over and above “well-being” and “happiness”.
While the former age is passing elsewhere, time will tell whether it has yet to pass here.