Eamon feels chill as political storm escalates
The political season changes with such rapidity: the Easter heatwave that greeted the new government was already a dried-up memory by the arrival of the luke-warm summer, and now the leaves along the swaying tree-lined drive up to the sumptuous Mount Wolseley Hotel where Labour is holding its pre-parliamentary term gathering are already dropping — but not as fast as the party is in the polls.
The sudden plunge to a lowly 12% and a miserable fourth place in the latest survey brings with it a sharp September chill and memories of how the party was all but left for dead after its last torrid embrace with power at the hands of Albert Reynolds and John Bruton.
