`All is changed, changed utterly. . ." says the leaflet from Democratic Left. And indeed it is. Surprisingly, though, the quotation from W.B. Yeats is not being used in relation to the ongoing merger talks with Labour. Under the heading "New Century Socialism: vision, values and relevance", the DL Candid Coffee Circle will meet again tomorrow in the trendy Harbourmaster bar in the International Financial Services Centre, Dublin, that hotbed of capitalism, to discuss "Whither Irish politics after the referendums?".
Speakers will include Prof Paul Bew from Queens, Belfast; Dr John McManus, the DL councillor married to Liz McManus; and one Fergus Finlay, the former Labour guru and right-hand man to former leader Dick Spring. Is the deal just a formality at this stage? Is a coffee circle a bourgeois forum, or what?