Today will decide whether or not Government is dead in the water

TODAY’S the day. We’ll discover if the Government has a chance of making history, and of becoming the first coalition in our history to be re-elected. Today’s Budget will be the first of two tests.

The signs aren’t great. The by-elections at the weekend were a loud and passionate cry from an angry people. The results reflected no hope, no confidence in the future. Never mind, for the moment, what happened to other candidates — the two government parties were wiped out.

Fine Gael and Labour got a miserable vote in one constituency — Dublin South West — where they had held three seats out of five after the general election in 2011, and in another — Roscommon South Leitrim — where they held two seats out of three. In neither constituency would they come within an ass’s roar of a seat on last weekend’s figures.