Sir, - It seems that the attempts by Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats to grab the centre of the political stage are hitting home, judging by the responses of the Rainbow Coalition. The almost hysterical reaction by the Labour Party and Democratic Left to any mention by the PDs in particular of "the working classes" or "the ordinary man or woman" is extraordinary. Perhaps Labour and DL should remember how it felt when they were hit in the past with the scare tactics of "red in the bed" or "Communist"! Now it seems they feel it reasonable to smear other politicians with outmoded ideological labels.
Over the past decade there has been a constant drive by certain party strategists to create a Left versus Right divide in Irish political life. Why? Is it because it makes it seem more modern or European? Surely we in Ireland have had enough of divisions without creating another. In any event it seems to me that Irish politics is trying to move towards this model of Left Right just when the rest of the world is moving away from such outmoded perspectives. I find it abhorrent to hear the PDs and DL mutually exclude each other. Surely it's we the voters who should decide what policies we want and therefore whom we want.
I have worked and travelled in Africa, Asia and South America where the politics of Left and Right really mean something and where very often such labels are a matter of life and death. I don't believe that there are real left wing or right wing politicians in Ireland because we haven't had the socio political framework to produce such divisions within Irish society as a whole. Irish people are not ideologists so I appeal to politicians to stop trying to create divisions where none exist and for no societal gain.
Glenvara Pk,
Dublin 16