Analysis: Tánaiste comes out swinging after polls setback

The atmosphere in Labour’s election headquarters yesterday afternoon was understandably subdued.

A series of bruising opinion polls had knocked staff morale sideways and a sense of trepidation about this morning's Irish Times survey had taken hold.

But if Tánaiste Joan Burton was shaken, she did not show it.

Having discussed strategy with key advisers in a glass-walled office, the party leader came out swinging, throwing political stones at opponents and finally moving to put space between Labour and Fine Gael on tax and wider economic issues.

She also warned about the potential financial cost to the State of striking constituency deals with individual Independent TDs.

Burton declined to engage directly with questions about the party’s slumping poll results.

Party apparatchiks insist their constituency polling and reaction to Labour representatives on the doorstep is very much out of sync with media polls.

They are doing their best to emphasise the margin of error territory movements involved in national polls and adopt an “it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” attitude.

Strategists described as an "outlier" the Behaviour & Attitudes survey commissioned for the Sunday Times, which showed a dramatic four percentage point drop to 4 per cent for Labour.

Crucial days

The remaining days of the campaign will be crucial for Labour and Burton in particular. She needs to put in a strong performance in the final live television debate on Tuesday night.

Towards the end of last week, Burton referred to Ginger Rogers’s famous protestation that she did everything her dancing partner Fred Astaire did.

“She just did it backwards and in high heels. There’s a touch of that about women involved in politics,” Burton said.

Some extremely nimble footwork will be required by Burton if she is to overcome the impression, given to the public by downwards trends in polls, that Labour is a dwindling political force.

The danger for the party is that Burton herself has become something of a lightning rod for aggrieved voters.

Meanwhile, there is a growing sense that Fine Gael could begin to fear it has fastened itself to Labour’s dying animal.

Nothing will be said publicly about a departure from the strategy of pushing for the re-election of the coalition with Labour, but the option of a post-election arrangement with Fianna Fáil is certainly on the minds of some key Fine Gael figures.

Tax offering

At Labour’s event in the Bloodstone building in the Dublin docklands yesterday, Burton insisted her party’s tax offering is “very different” from coalition partners Fine Gael.

“Remember, before I became Tánaiste, the Taoiseach and Fine Gael’s focus was on lowering the top rate of income tax,” she said.

Ms Burton said after she became Tánaiste in July 2014 she persuaded Fine Gael to “switch policies” and to focus on the USC. “And in fairness to them after discussion they agreed that and it’s the right thing to do.”

She said there were also “significant areas of difference” in terms of economic approach between Labour and Fine Gael, in areas such as public-sector pensions.

There is a sense in the party that key manifesto differences have gotten lost in the hustle and bustle of the campaign.

Ms Burton said only Labour would treat high earners fairly, while Sinn Féin would “nail them to the wall” and Fianna Fáil would give them relief that they did not need.

Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats were offering a “large fat zero” to low- and middle-income workers, she insisted.

She insisted lots of people had not made up their minds yet as to how they would vote on Friday.