"The gloves are off for electoral scrap" announced Pat Leahy's column in Yesterday's Sunday Business Post. As I read through the article it seemed like the usual horse race coverage of Irish politics, who's up, who's down, what the polls are saying and speculation about the next election. The fractious, bad tempered nature of Dáil exchanges was highlighted and there was the quoted insider speculation that the next election would be negative and dirty. So far so unremarkable.
The fact that Fianna Fáil would try and drive a wedge between Fine Gael and Labour would surprise nobody. Leahy points out two indisputable facts: the government is very unpopular; the public are not convinced of the alternative combinations. The biggest task for the opposition is to construct and defend an alternative plan for government and here Leahy is right on the money. His last two 'grafs are worth quoting in full:
The increasing rancour in Irish politics is perhaps reflective of the lack of ideological space between the large parties, and the remarkably broad policy consensus in this country. Labour promises not to raise taxes; the PDs insist they 'care' just as much as anyone else.
When the policies of one possible government combination are not all that different in substance to the alternative, politics concentrates on style and personality to create the conflict. "You can't trust them" versus "it's time for change"-expect the temperature to go nowhere but up.
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