Daniel Murray

And in particular, in that constituency, Sinn Féin are under pressure from both sides, from the right, from the likes of Gerry Hutch and others, and from the left, from the likes of Social Democrats who are in poll position, it seems.

Can I ask Daniel about that?

Yeah, no, I do think so.

And the government has one secret weapon at its disposal, which is the money that it has coming out of its ears at the moment.

So it's trying to use that and definitely deploy it.

And I

Budget talk gets earlier and earlier every year.

Well, it's arrived especially early this year, probably because the by-elections are coming up.

And yes, I do.

I think the same as we talk about this in terms of Sinn Féin a lot, but it's true of the especially true of the establishment parties that they are being squeezed from both sides.

And I think that the data, the polling data is starting to bear out the growth in that kind of reactionary right.

I mean, arguably the big shift in Ireland's politics over the last couple of years has been not the growth of the Social Democrats, which is kind of a left vote moving around parties, but the growth of Aintoo and Independent Ireland.

into an independent Ireland, up around 13% or 14% now.

And that's a significant chunk of the electorate that weren't voting that way.

In the aftermath of the financial crash, Ireland was somewhat unique in Europe in that our reactionary populism was a uniquely left phenomenon, whereas in other countries there was very much a right tint to it.

Whereas now what we're seeing maybe is the growth of a more reactionary populist right and it's finding a home with the electorate.

No, he doesn't.

And it's maybe sometimes an overlooked important element of politics here is the amount of money and that is available and maybe how it is managed to keep

the traditional parties buoyant and back into government.

And as you say, in the UK, he doesn't have a good story to tell there.