Electoral tide goes out for Labour

The pounding inflicted on Labour by an angry electorate was of such shock and awe proportions it even forced senior figures out of the bunker of victimhood they have locked themselves in for the past two years.

This downbeat world view was best exemplified by Education Minister Ruairi Quinn when he whined last week that Labour took 19% of the vote at the last general election, but 81% of the blame for what came after.

Labour has tried to have it all ways since going into power. When it wants to claim credit for something it insists it is part of a “national government” of the two biggest parties, when it is embarrassed by something, suddenly it bleats it is the junior partner and cannot be held responsible.

Ministers also failed to understand the betrayal felt by voters as they accuse the electorate of imaging the Labour government of their dreams, not the often shabby compromises of coalition.

But it was the promise they broke to act as a brake on the excesses of Fine Gael in power that is the reason voters have deserted them in such numbers.

The electorate did buy into the Every Little Hurts campaign which specifically pledged six things they would stop Enda Kenny forcing through if they shared office with him.

The horrors they would stop the Blueshirts inflicting ranged from cuts in child benefit to a price hike for a bottle of wine.

All of them came to pass anyway, well, all apart from one: Labour promised that without its strength in Cabinet, FG would impose an average water charge of €238 — with Labour on board it was actually higher at €240.

Labour has also had some notable successes in Government, but as achievements like restoring the cut in the minimum wage are seen as merely bringing things back to basic standards of decency, and preventing cuts in “core” welfare payments go unnoticed, so the party has received scant praise for them.

The collapse to 7% of the national vote, the massacre of councillors, and the demise of all its Euro seats has shattered Eamon Gilmore’s authority, but regime change is a difficult Rubicon for the parliamentary party to cross.

But despite Mr Gilmore’s insistence his leadership was “not up for question”, Joan Burton left the door open to a heave, stating: “I’m not going to call anything like that until we have all of the results in.”

And whatever Mr Gilmore’s assertions, Clare TD Michael McNamara insisted his leadership must now come under discussion.

But even if Ms Burton gets Mr Gilmore’s head, lifting his crown is another matter, as despite being the only personality politician in the party, she is not popular with a large swathe of TDs, and any toppling of the leader may see Brendan Howlin or Alex White emerge as self-styled unity candidates.

Regicide — the killing of a king — may not be the right route for a panicked Labour Party anyway, as the only logical outcome of a change at the top at this stage of the political game would be to pull out of Government. Labour has made too many compromises, U-turns, mistakes, and amateur hour media miscalculations to risk doing that now, and must hope an upsurge in the economic tide over the next two years lifts all boats, including their own badly holed vessel.

Pat Rabbitte said they had taken tough decisions because the country was a shipwreck when they came to power — whatever the truth, it is Labour that is now crashing on the electoral rocks.

The hard reality is that Labour has nothing left to lose by staying in Government, except, of course, the next general election — and they will lose that on an even heavier scale if they quit the Coalition now.

For more in depth updates and analysis on the fallout from this year's election and access to our comprehensive results database visit our special Election 2014 section.