Fear of Fine Gael a key election card for Labour

Labour, which halted a Fine Gael overall majority at the last election by scaring voters with negative campaigning and attack advertisements, may have to repeat its 2011 trick next year.

While we are unlikely to see a sequel to the now infamous Tesco "every little hurts" advert, the junior Coalition party knows one of its campaign hands must be scaring voters, such as public sector workers, about a Fine Gael government without Labour.

Languishing at about 7 per cent in opinion polls, it may have no other option.

Current trends show Fine Gael will lead the next government. With that in mind, Labour wants one of the key campaign questions to be about who Fine Gael will share power with. The argument goes since nobody will share power with Sinn Féin, and with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin ruling out an alliance with Fine Gael, Labour is the only other party offering itself for government.

It is likely the natural conservatism of Irish voters will see a late swing back to the Government, and senior strategists in Fine Gael and Labour have cited the 2007 general election, when a late surge delivered a third term for Fianna Fáil and Bertie Ahern.

However, voters looking for continuity did not reward Mr Ahern’s Progressive Democrats coalition partners, who were all but wiped out. The task for Labour is to take its share of the late swing if it is to avoid a PD-style meltdown. The swing back to Fine Gael, which is hovering at about the 30 per cent mark in the polls, is already under way.