General Election 2011 - A stable government is essential

THERE are just four days left in the most extraordinary election campaign in our modern history.

Opinion polls have never been more unambiguous. The core issue has never been as clear and not even the most disconnected candidates have been able to offer anything other than several years of dispiriting but unavoidable belt tightening.

If the polls are right, and there is no reason to imagine that they are not, Enda Kenny will be Taoiseach in little over a week. Though he, and this generation of Fine Gael politicians, will have realised a lifetime’s ambition he will, in the short term at least, face challenges more to do with survival than the implementation of any grand vision. Our IMF paymasters will see to that.