That's a very bold assertion to make on the BBC.

That's an extraordinary framing. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's vote from 2020 remains more or less than same despite five years of incumbency. SF's goes down by 25 per cent, an extraordinary situation for the main opposition party and yet it is FF and FG who are having a bad day. Am I missing something here?

By any objective standard, no one is looking at this and saying "well it may or may not be bad for SF but it is very bad for Gov parties".

As was clear last night, that BBC assertion is the wrong way round. As I explain here, in 1st preference votes it's clearly bad for @sinnfeinireland but less clearly so for @fiannafailparty & @FineGael who, remarkably for incumbents, have barely fallen:

Does he do the same about the UUP, when they don't get what they got in the 90s?

Carruthers is a balloon- yesterdays journalism. He needs to go back to his other career- acting. He cant be any worse at it than he is at this.

He's not a balloon. He's a senior journalist and a sharp operator. Which is why this clip is noteworthy.

Way off the mark there - it’s FFs day

A tad sensationalist indeed.

I think if you talk about start of the campaign to now it isn't an unreasonable thing to say.

They went up one point from the start of the campaign, and dropped 20pc. That's a disaster for them. Saying "ah but it's great because but it could have been worse", is not serious analysis.