GERRY HOWLIN: ‘Budget 2013 is not the darkest hour before the dawn... it is the beginning of the end’
Yesterday’s budget only underlines the party’s reputational decline. Behind a beleaguered party is the historic shattering of opportunity for the broader left and what it stands for. In eviscerating the State again and retarding its capacity to architect a different sort of society, Budget 2013 is another step on a longer march. The destination is clear. For at least a decade, and possibly a generation, the means of delivering any semblance of a social democratic society are gone.
Budget 2013 is not the darkest hour before the dawn as Eamon Gilmore promised his backbenchers; it is the beginning of the end. Labour is besieged by public protest and unfavourable polls without, and undermined by defections and division within. The party, and possibly its leader, are irretrievably holed below the water line.
