Guess who's coming to dinner?

There’s no row like a family row. And there’s no party that does rows better than FF. Right now it seems that there’ll be as much interest in who’s not on the ballot paper for FF as opposed to who they actually run. The reason why is that it will give a good insight as to how the FF ticket may work when the county goes to the polls in 2020.

Malcolm Byrne as Euro candidate seems to have the inside track with Michéal Martin. However Malcolm was not selected by FF cumann members to run. Lisa McDonald had that honour. That was until 2 weeks ago when Malcolm Byrne was added to the general election ticket. To make matters worse for Ms McDonald, Michael Sheehan from New Ross was added also by Arás De Valera. The upshot of it all is a right donnybrook, the likes of which the county hasn’t seen in years with finger pointing and the blame game in all directions.

To be fair to the FF candidates involved, there is a view that the party may have been better to have selected its Bye Election candidate and seen how that campaign panned out before they finalised their General Election ticket. It is clear that for FF the bye election doesn’t rate as well as the General Election. Needless to say the selection debacle will register in the minds of some voters and may damage the parties prospects of victory. The bye election candidate will surely be one of McDonald, Byrne or Sheehan. Whoever it will be is in an invidious position not of their own making.

Elsewhere another unusual candidate has been selected who while not expected to poll well will certainly bring her unique vigour  to the campaign. Melisssa O’Neill, is a former Sinn Fein councillor in Kilkenny. She will run on behalf of the Irish Freedom Party, a right wing pro Brexit party that is strongly connected to Nigel Farage. We may yet see Nigel canvas Gimont on a wet afternoon in November, that’s of course if the boats and planes are still flying post Brexit. Its not likely that the Freedom Party will poll more than 3 figures however the issues they campaign on, anti-refugee, anti vaccination may well feature during the campaign.

Labour will select George Lawlor on October 11^th while the word in SF is that the lads in Belfast will soon decide who’ll fly their flag.  We may well be in for another surprise when it comes to Sinn Fein.  However SF is known for its discipline and its unlikely that we’ll hear public recriminations that make headlines in the local papers. But there’s no row like a family row, but will it win enough votes to win a seat? Has that ploy ever worked before?

By the time the votes are cast and we all snuggle down to watch the Toy Show we’ll be a lot wiser as to the lie of the land. We go to the polls on Friday, November 29^th.