Water issue is a symptom of reform needed in wider body politic

AS NIGHT was closing in on the RDS last Saturday, with the ballot papers beginning to curl towards dog-eared, a Labour party canvasser sat down for a cup of coffee, writes Michael Clifford.

He was philosophical about the shock that had been delivered his party. Reflecting on the campaign, he felt one doorstep encounter summed much of it up.

A middle-aged woman opened the door and listened patiently to the candidate’s pitch. “She just kept her head down, listening and then she looked up and said, ‘we’d just like things to be the way they were’,“ the canvasser relayed.