Rabbitte's wriggle room

Today's Irish Independent leads with "Rabbitte leaves door open for Ahern pact".  The Labour leader has given an interview with the paper and the spin is that the party "has left the door open for a possible coalition with Fianna Fail if its pre-election pact with Fine Gael fails to win the support of voters". 

Pressed repeatedly on the issue, Mr Rabbitte acknowledged he may have to rethink his strategy if the only likely alternative is to call a second election. "Of course I will take into account the national interest as Labour has always done," he said.

Fionnan Sheahan interprets this to mean that fears about Sinn Féin holding the balance of power could give Mr Rabbitte a get-out clause if he ultimately decides to go into government with Fianna Fail.  That option would be the last thing Rabbitte would want to take but as he accepts the fact that

...a question was being raised because Labour had gone into government with Fianna Fail in 1992. Journalists "who tend to look around corners would like to have a very clear quote from me that they would envisage using after the election", he said. "I think nobody ever put the question to Dick Spring in 1992 and I think that journalists developed a new conventional wisdom after that, which is that they would ask these questions interminably in the future."

Pat Rabbitte is banking on this scenario not arising after the next election and believes that there is "still a lot of work needed to convince the public that they would have a choice at the next election".  Rabbitte is a realist and knows that the question of entering government with FF will simply not go away.  I believe that it is sensible to deal with this question now and the only reasonable way is to invoke the national interest.  He is not saying never because you can't anticipate every possible outcome but the voters should accept the fact that Rabbitte is lead by his conviction that putting FF out of office would benefit the country.   It's up to Rabbitte and his party to mount a credible and convincing campaign to win enough votes so as to avoid having to propose entry into government with FF at a post election conference.  Unfortunately it also depends on Fine Gael achieving greater levels of credibility than heretofore. 

Comments

[Philip]

Of course it completely overshadowed Labour's proposals for child care.
The same non-arguments were used to bury the excellent Labour health proposals at the last election.