It’s Cowen’s election to fight and lose

POLLS come and go, and often tend to show divergent results.

For that reason, a political party doing badly in one poll can dismiss the finding by pointing to a better result in another.

But Fianna Fáil now finds itself in a situation where polls carried out by different companies are saying precisely the same thing. The party’s support levels are down to record lows, and there is very little time left to do something about it.