The polls are wrong, but here are my three sure election bets

WATCH my body language.

Oh no, you can’t, can you?

That’s the funny thing about the written word. I have to say what I believe, and you get to read it with a choice.

You can agree with it or disagree with it. In fact, you can keep it and then beat me over the head with it if I get things wrong over the next week or so.

One way or the other, though, you can only judge what you read. Thank goodness for that. You can’t form an opinion by watching me stare into the middle distance hoping for a bit of inspiration, or scratching my chin while I try to get the grammar right.

If you’re watching politicians on television, apparently, you don’t have to listen to what they say at all. You can allow some “expert” to tell you which of them is best by looking at a frozen image of the politician and pointing out a hand gesture. Give me a break. Of all the things that has insulted our intelligence since this campaign began, surely that Brendan O’Connor show on RTÉ last Saturday night was the worst. Imagine bringing on a “body language expert” to tell us we don’t need to think about who won the party leader debates. Their values don’t matter, their experience or their judgement doesn’t matter. It’s all about how they hold their chins.

I’ll come back to the body language thing in a minute — because if you take it seriously (in other words, if it’s not just for showbiz) it can help you to form judgements.

But let me tell you what matters more than the body language of politicians — and that’s the language of voters. I’ve spent the last week talking to voters, on their doorsteps, in different constituencies around the country — in Meath (east and west), in Tipperary, in Waterford, north and south of Dublin, in Wicklow, and in east Cork. On the basis of a lot of conversations, I’m ready to place a few small bets.

Now, placing bets on elections is something I very seldom do. Matter of fact, I’ve only ever placed two political bets in my life — in 1990, on the presidential election won by Mary Robinson, and in 1992. In the Robinson election I was offered 10/1 against her victory, and cleaned up. In 1993, I was offered 10/1 again that Labour wouldn’t break 30 seats, and again I cleaned up.

To be absolutely honest about it, there were other times when if I had placed bets I would have lost. I didn’t take up some of the bets on offer because I’m a timid gambler, and need to be really sure. I need hard evidence before I’ll take the risk.

And I’ve always been slow, in all the elections I’ve been involved in over the years, to second-guess the science of polling. By and large, the polls don’t get it wrong. That’s not a universal truth, but I generally need even more evidence before I’ll discount opinion polls.

Well, over the last week or so I’ve had the evidence of my own eyes and ears to go on, in long canvassing sessions at every conceivable type of front door. And the evidence is hard — tantamount, I’d say, almost to proof. On the basis of what I’ve heard on doorsteps around Ireland, I’m more than ready to place a bet on three different things.

In all three of them, I’m saying the polls are wrong. First, the polls this past weekend are suggesting the glimmer of a Fianna Fáil recovery. On doorstep after doorstep I’ve experienced implacable anger towards Fianna Fáil, a deep-seated and bitter feeling of betrayal. If anything, that feeling is more prevalent among people who will readily enough admit that they voted for Fianna Fáil in the past couple of elections. If anything, the hostility is getting stronger as the election goes on.

Secondly, Fine Gael are doing well — there’s no denying that. But people shy away from the notion of a single-party government almost as much as they do from the idea of Fianna Fáil returning to government.

They are genuinely scared that if one party gets in on their own, arrogance won’t be long returning, and the possibility of reform will disappear for ever.

People really do want checks and balances built in to government. There is a strong feeling that yes, there has to be toughness in economic management. But there has to be fairness too, and compassion for people who can’t make it on their own. Nobody I met believes that you can get compassion by giving one party an overall majority.

Thirdly — I’d be more confident about this than anything else — reports of the Labour Party’s demise are hugely exaggerated. Over the last few days, I canvassed in seven constituencies. Unless people told me lies in the course of long and often passionate doorstep conversations, Labour will make gains in four of those seven, and are in with a really good shout in a fifth. As a result, the party will go very close to doubling its seats next Friday.

Just go back to that body language thing again for a minute.

Someone who really understands this subject is the person whose name and content grace this little corner of the newspaper every Monday.

SHE sometimes quotes a leading American practitioner called Stan Walters as saying that you can’t judge the significance of body language in a pressurised situation (like an interrogation or a TV debate) unless you know the normal body language of the person. If they behave differently on TV, that’s interesting. But significant? Apart from anything else, the language may be influenced by nerves. And if you’re trying to persuade people you could run the country, you bloody well should be nervous.

And secondly, she tells a story about Gerry Spence, a great American trial lawyer, who did a body language course to refine his capacity to work a jury. On one case, up at the back of the jury box was a great big guy in dungarees, his arms folded. Spence had been warned: folded arms mean the guy is closed to what you’re saying. So he did his damndest over three days to convince that guy. No go. Arms stayed folded. The jury eventually went to consider their verdict, leaving Spence convinced he’d failed with at least one of them. But then the jury came back, and found in favour of his client. When the trial was over, he sought out the guy with the folded arms (you can do that in the States) and asked him for an explanation. “You kept your arms folded,” he said, “and that body language means I wasn’t getting through to you.” “No sir,” said the juryman. “I’ve got a big belly, and a man’s gotta put his arms someplace.”

The people of Ireland gotta put their arms someplace too. But they sure ain’t putting their arms around Fianna Fáil, and they’re a long way from putting their arms around a single-party government. With four days to go still, there’s everything to play for in this history-making election.