Irish general election: 25 February 2011

[afleitch]

So the Titanic has a new captain; after it has sunk.

[afleitch]

The trouble with STV is that it's a good electoral system for electing witless morons who parade around (often less than honestly) as 'local champions' and get rewarded for it. Of course that happens under fptp as well.

Not always. In Scotland with the move away from FPTP council elections towards larger STV wards many of the 'witless morons' found that their base had been consumed within a much bigger area, they commanded less support and promptly got booted out.

[afleitch]

Fine Gael: +6
Fianna Fail: +1
Labour: 0
Green: -3
Sinn Fein: -12

[afleitch]

As an afternote, I have a 2009 Local Election (by Electoral Area) vote map to post. It's a big file so I need to get it into a decent format.

[afleitch]

Voters are more attune to the perception of the economy rather than the reality of it. If the world climbs out of the sh-tter in 2011/12/13 and people feel better it will benefit the coalition regardless of what if any progress has been made.