Labour may be looking the wrong way for a route back to power

THIS week it might be timely to remember the dangers of drawing far-fetched conclusions from mid-term election results.

In the aftermath of last summer's local and European elections there was much breathless speculation about how those results made real the prospects of a Fine Gael/Labour/Green alternative to the current FF/PD coalition after the next Dáil election.

The dual polling day in June 2004 was a good day out for Fine Gael and Labour and was a very bad day out for the two government parties.