Fine Gael’s surge in popularity adds new edge to struggle for power

WITH Fine Gael soaring to 38% in the polls — the kind of territory that would put it in tantalising reach of an overall majority — the election campaign has taken on a new edge.

Ordinarily in a campaign, the main opposition parties would be heavily focused on hammering away at the outgoing government.

There’s little need to do that in this campaign, however, as Fianna Fáil are on the floor and unlikely to rebound.

Hence, Fine Gael and Labour are fighting each other for dominance. And with Fine Gael running a slick campaign and building a massive lead, Labour has been forced to go on the attack in a bid to narrow the gap.

Labour’s fear is not so much about becoming the junior partner in the next government. They already know that’s as much as they can expect. Their fear is not featuring in the government at all.

As recently as Christmas, it would have been unthinkable in Labour circles that they would miss out on power. But the gap between the party and Fine Gael has widened so much that this is now a possibility.

Were Fine Gael to maintain its lead and have the perfect election, it would be capable of forming a single-party government and leaving Labour on the sidelines.

So Labour has gone negative, and aggressively so.

It has published a spate of newspaper ads in recent days in which it claims Fine Gael will slash child benefit, hike motor tax and VAT and introduce a water tax.

Labour’s accusation is that Fine Gael plans a whole raft of additional stealth taxes and charges that it is hiding from voters.

Fine Gael has shot back, accusing Labour of desperation and suggesting the party’s own plans would result in €1,300-plus of additional taxes for every household.

The reality, of course, is that both parties are going to hit the majority of households, families and individuals with more stealth taxes and charges.

How could they not? Both parties are committed to taxing and cutting over the next few years in order to reduce the deficit to 3% of gross domestic product in line with EU requirements.

However, they are proposing to do it in very different ways — and this is the nub of the current argument.

Fine Gael wants to do it by 2014, saying €9bn of extra taxes and cuts would be required to achieve it. The party argues this would put the public finances back on a stable footing, restore confidence and reducing borrowing.

Labour wants to keep the adjustment to €7bn by 2014, and extend the deficit reduction deadline to 2016. This would mean the pain is prolonged but, the party argues, would also prevent a situation whereby too much is taken out of the economy too quickly.

The two parties also differ on the ratio of spending cuts to new taxes. In a nutshell, Fine Gael would cut more services and tax less; Labour would tax more and cut less services.

Judging from the polls and the progress of this campaign so far, it seems the Fine Gael model is swaying the public.

This is hardly surprising given that most workers are deeply fed up with the notion of more taxes of any sort, stealth or otherwise, having seen their pay packets whacked by the introduction of the universal social charge last month.

So the Fine Gael proposal of cutting more in order to tax less seems to be winning favour. And the proof of this is not merely in the opinion polls, but in Labour’s response to those polls.

That Labour has felt the need to try and rip Fine Gael’s policies apart through adverts shows its concern.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore denies the adverts are a sign of desperation. But they certainly look like it.

The question now is whether Labour has anything left in its locker. If not — and one suspects there are already internal mutterings of discontent about the campaign the party has run — it will have to hope that Fine Gael’s campaign either implodes or is damaged by external events.

It’s hard to see either such eventuality right now, with just a week left to polling day. But of course, campaigns often produce bombshells. And as the old cliche goes, a week is a long time in politics…