‘Yes we can’ as Labour goes it alone

BARACK OBAMA is on the way to the White House and left-wing political and economic thinking is suddenly back in vogue — and the timing couldn’t be better for Labour.

Put bluntly, the party has been an irrelevance at national level for over a decade. In 1997, Labour were turfed out of government. They could then only sit back and watch as Fianna Fáil and the PDs formed a long-lasting coalition that brought right-wing economic ideology into the heart of Government Buildings.

But the wheels have come off the tracks for the PDs, who will shortly be no more, their members having voted to wind up the party. The wheels are coming off the tracks for Fianna Fáil and Brian Cowen too, the party now down to a historic low in the polls. The recession has brought the economy, the Government — and perhaps that right-wing ideology — to its knees.