Columnist in denial about strategy failure
Your columnist’s assertion that Pat Rabbitte’s original calculations were ‘correct’ has no basis in fact. We were told after the 2002 election that a strategy that aligned us to Fine Gael would win us seats. It did not — hence Pat Rabbitte’s disappointment. Rather it delivered additional seats to Fine Gael, as it had previously in 1997.
Fergus Finlay’s denial of this simple fact is strange. His view contradicts his own experience between 1987 and 1992 when Labour successfully pursued an independent strategy.