Role reversal

The most startling result of today's MRBI poll in the Irish Times is the breakdown by class. The class system used by polling companies has six categories

• A - higher professionals, management
• B - middle professionals
• C1 - clerical and lower administrative
• C2 - skilled manual labour
• D - semi and unskilled labour
• E - welfare and casual workers

Historically in Ireland, FG has been the party of the AB groups while Labour are meant to represent the views and causes of the DE groupings. However, today's poll shows Labour as the best supported party amongst AB and FG as the party of choice for DE.

I would guess that the DE move is from the traditional working class vote that was staunchly FF that are now fleeing the sinking ship. Seeing as Enda Kenny is most likely to be the next taoiseach the DE group don't want to be seen as aligned against his party.

Luckily the poll in the Farmer's Journal shows that it is business as usual in rural Ireland. In the RedC poll published during the week for the ploughing championships FF were down 21% to 25% and FG up 22% to 68% leaving a huge 7% to be divided between all the other parties and independents. Luckily for the left, the number of people in the farming community is small and diminishing.