A chara, – I am surprised at Enda O'Doherty's inaccuracy in his otherwise pretty succinct analysis of the current travails of the Labour Party ("What needs to be done to save the Labour Party", Opinion & Analysis, March 2nd). Your contributor states that, "At no election between 1969 and 2016 did it win fewer than 15 seats".
I joined the party shortly after the exception to that statement in 1987, when Labour won 12 seats on its worst result in history, that is before the recent general election. Due to the vagaries of the PR system and the lack of alternatives on the left at the time, Labour won those 12 seats with just 6.4 per cent of the vote. By contrast, we won only seven seats in 2016 with 6.6 per cent, widely and inaccurately reported at the time as our “worst-ever result”.
As for Harry McGee's contention ("A party in need of renewal", Analysis, February 10th) that the next leader's job will be to halt our slide into oblivion, we've heard it before. Within five years of 1987, we had elected the first non-Fianna Fáil Uachtarán na hÉireann in Mary Robinson and had built into a real political force. Let's hope Messrs Kelly and Ó Ríordáin will be aiming equally high. – Is mise,
SEÁN Ó hARGÁIN,
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Kilkenny.