Bring on 2014!

Can't wait to see who will be leaders come 2014. Somehow, I have afeeling EG & EK will be nowhere to be seen - only hope that PR is gone with EG. Give Labour back to Labourites I say!

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/time-to-kiss-the-old-guard-goodbye-and-confess-damage-done-29165166.html

Time to kiss the old guard goodbye and confess damage done

Securing a cabinet reshuffle is Labour's only chance of forgiveness, writes John Drennan

31 March 2013
If choice is the essence of any functioning democracy then [COLOR=#009900 !important]Irish[/COLOR] politics is in trouble. Last week in Meath East the voters' pick consisted of a Fianna Fail [COLOR=#009900 !important]party[/COLOR] that landed them in the zombie existence most currently experienced, a Fine Gael and Labour Coalition that promised and failed to chart a convincing escape from this half-life or a Sinn Fein/independent option that would land them in an even bigger mess.

Unsurprisingly, the response of most of the electorate was to stay at home.
Ironically, as the Captains and the Kings got the hell out of Meath, well, until 2014 at least, though Fine Gael won the election the real story was all about Labour.
In truth, the story had been about Labour once they picked a cappuccino-selling, metropolitan- sounding, open-necked, pink-shirted, Hot Press-loving Social Democrat Lite, with concerns about the advancement of gay marriage.
Of course, we got few thanks for informing Labour TDs, who fretted over their chances of coming in ahead of Sinn Fein, that in our view they would do well to beat the Workers Party guy.
At least the party were spared the exquisite horror of being run over by their former WP 'friends', but that was as good as it got.
And whatever about the result, the very fact that the Alex White wing of Labour thought open-necked pink-shirted man might work, should be the catalyst for further tremors amid the uneasy Labour posteriors.
Meanwhile, in a double irony for the Coalition, while FG won, the party that will be happiest with the result will be their civil war FF cousins.
FF under Micheal Martin is like a former undefeated boxing champion, who, having been brutally knocked out, is trying to channel a return via a series of none-too-threatening bouts before taking on the top contenders again.
And while it has secured a few victories on the political undercard, the party is still cunning enough to know its recovery is not yet sufficiently strong to be scrutinised too closely.
Happily, by coming close, but not too close please, FF has solidified its resemblance to that scamp of a dog that having stolen the Sunday joint of bacon reappears hours later wagging its tail sheepishly as it pleads to be let back in. The tail will be wagging a bit more vigorously after the muted performance of Sinn Fein.

Mr Gilmore may be in such a weakened state that Mary Lou McDonald can issue pious lectures about how "the Labour party haven't just damaged themselves, they've damaged public confidence in politics".
However, the electorate still decided the roguish but doe-eyed FF mutt was still more attractive than the still comparatively recently muzzled pit bull terriers of Sinn Fein.
Ultimately, the real story was Labour and how much the electorate would snarl at it.
And when it came to Meath East, before the tallies – let alone the result – came in, Labour TDs were fretting over how the former Democratic Left duo of Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte, might reduce Labour's Dail representation to the size of the party they left.
In fact, a Labour Party that is at the mercy of the increasingly equivocal fates is being too optimistic for should they start to experience a Biffo-style free-fall there is no bottom to the collapse until they start to inhabit the same area of the political barrel as those Green/PD political ghosts.
The state of their Labour Coalition partners goes a long way towards explaining why the smarter elements of FG greeted their Meath East victory with such nervous circumspection.
Even prior to last week there were straws in the wind that Labour was beginning to fret a great deal – it's certainly not business as usual when Labour start using phraseology such as crass, cack-handed, macho, a car crash a week, gun-shy and chaos to describe their FG 'partners'.
The sense that the Labour gaffers are windy was intensified by the sight of a pair of clammy hands reaching out to embrace Joan Burton when ever egotistical Enda tried to put the most popular government minister in her box.
However, though a great chill is developing between FG and the Labour canary in the coalmine, ultimately Labour themselves are responsible for their wretched state.
Meath East represents the cruel denouement of a disastrous election campaign in 2011 and the subsequent cabinet negotiations.
When it comes to the latter, had Mr Gilmore insisted on six cabinet seats for Labour the Government might have taken a different turn.
But a Labour leader, who was visibly shaken by a campaign whose signature tune consisted of limp 'Gilmore for Taoiseach' posters flapping in the mud, blinked first.
The template of Mr Gilmore being, when it comes to the marriage of Enda and Eamon the submissive one, had been set.
Oddly enough Mr Gilmore is not the only one either, for there is something strangely submissive in Pat Rabbitte's apparent belief that when it comes to a government, where FG is doing a marvellous job Labour has been unfairly 'singled out' by the electorate.
It is a tempting theory, but it is also one which is not entirely accurate for Labour is, like many other victims, colluding in their own fate.
On Thursday, just like FF under Mr Cowen, all the talk from Labour was about fripperies such as "communications". In fact, the real problem Labour faces is the absence of the sort of narrative that constitutes the foundations of any successful political party. They do have a narrative, but given that this consists of the single-minded snarl of 'Ah Labour, the fellows who broke all your promises' it is hardly one they would want.
To date, Labour's response to this pure certainty has consisted of the claim that, like the heroine in some Thirties melodrama who bleats 'stop you beast' at some malevolent villain ripping at her bodice, they have at least managed to act as a bromide on the worst impulses of FG
However, if that is the best Labour can come up with, few will blame the electorate of Meath East for putting on the black cap. Modest ineffectuality will never sweep the voters off their feet. A scarified Labour is, in the wake of Meath East, busily trying to create a different story, but talk about renegotiating the Programme for Government won't work as the electorate will put it into the 'more words and bullsh*t' folder.
However, surprisingly there may still be an escape map for poor Labour.
But, if that is to happen it needs to abandon the worldly pragmatism of Pat Rabbitte, which inspires such knowing chuckles in Doheny & Nesbitts, and engage in a highly public reprise of the journey of the sorrows that was engaged on too belatedly by FF.
Labour needs to kiss the rod of public repentance, axe the cabinet old guard and engage in a process of acknowledgement, confession and recognition of the damage done by their broken promises.
The process of repentance need not be all bad either. It might even begin with the pleasure of finally putting some manners on their colonial FG over-seers.
The Taoiseach may have stated, with a rare level of clarity, that there would be no cabinet reshuffle.
But, while cabinet reshuffles are the political equivalent of cosmetic surgery, for once it may genuinely be required; given the real damage being done to the Government by the terrible troika of Shatter, not-so-cute old Phil and James Reilly.
FG may be secretly smirking over the irony where, despite the Fine Gael status of all three, Labour is the party that is suffering the collateral damage.
That, however, may not last if Gilmore realises that demanding and securing a cabinet reshuffle represents a first step away from his self-created status as a politician in an isolation chamber who is in office but not in power.
And if Enda is not minded to provide his Tanaiste with a lift out of the tar-pit; the Taoiseach should consider how well his objective of reaching the safe harbour of 2016 will fare if Labour loses a clatter of MEP and council seats in 2014.