Less than 24 hours after yesterday’s entry “We, the People” was written, all seems changed. The morning news cycle is dominated by the headline in the Irish Independent that “Rabbitte leaves door open for Ahern pact“. Now, there may not be as much to the story as the headline makes out, as it wasn’t until he had been “pressed repeatedly on the issue” that Rabbittee acknowledged that he “may” (not would) have to “rethink his strategy if the only likely alternative is to call a second election”.

This seems a terribly grudging concession to incessant questioning.…

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On the ‘This Week‘ show, on RTE Radio 1 this afternoon, Pat Rabbittee (Leader of Ireland’s Labour Party) artfully danced around presenter Gerald Barry’s questioning about whether Labour will go into coalition with Fianna Fáil after the next general election, expected in early summer. Rabbittee: ‘it won’t arise’; Barry: ‘but if it does?’; Rabbitte: ‘I want Fianna Fáil out’; Barry: ‘but what if?’. And so it goes; and so it went (the full interview is here).

Whatever about Rabbitte’s position now, in my view, if the numbers after the next election are such that the only possible government is a coalition of Fianna Fáil and Labour, then, after the election and the weeks of horsetrading that generate that potential coalition and its programme for goverment, there must be another election, to allow us, the people, to give our imprimatur (or not) to it. …

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