Time for Rabbitte to listen to Mama

IF YOU haven’t heard of Portia Simpson-Miller, that’s your loss. She was elected this week as the first female prime minister of Jamaica.

She had four things going for her. She was a woman. She came from the barrios and had huge appeal to Jamaica’s vast underclass. She promised fresh new ideas and reform. And she had the best political slogan ever, ever: “Come to Mama.”

For Pat Rabbitte, three of those four things will be tragically foreclosed to him when he sets out his wares at the Labour Party conference which opens tonight in Dublin.