Election may take the air out of any Burton bounce

Nothing like a bit of alliteration for the headline writers! When the latest Sunday Times opinion poll was published at the weekend, the surge in support for the Labour Party was unsurprisingly shorthanded to the Burton Bounce.

Sure, it was a good result for Labour. The party doubled its support from seven per cent in the local elections to 14 per cent, the first time its support has crept into double figures in almost two years.

And the factors were easy when it came to attribution. Joan Burton was elected leader not a wet week before. The upswing could be put down almost wholly to her influence on the party.

I don’t want to rain on Labour’s parades but the unfortunate thing is that history is against it pulling any rabbits from the hat at the next general election. No matter how good Labour does over the next 198 months; no matter how well the economy recovers, it’s going to be an uphill struggle.

I wrote a piece during the leadership campaign that expressed pessimism about a Labour recovery and predicted the party’s seats might fall into single figures after the election (from a record 37 in 2011).

A very senior backroom figure texted me saying that it was its belief that Labour could very well be ‘regrouping’ (ie licking its wounds) in the bosom of government after the next election rather than on the chilly backbenches.

According to this person, the conventional wisdom at this moment doesn’t make it an option but a lot can change in two years.

Pointing out that coalition with Labour was also Fine Gael’s preferred option by a long shot, the person said if Fine Gael got 60 seats and Labour got low twenties it would not be impossible, particularly with a “Burton Bounce” (I checked last night, these were the actual words the person used so it’s not only journalists who have a grá for alliteration).

Another argument advanced by the Labour side is that there are downside risks for Sinn Fein in adopting its holier-than-thou and we are ideologically pure stance. If it stays out of government in 2016, it might suffer the same fate as the Grillo movement in Italy, say the Labourites.

Well, there’s eating and drinking in all that. There’s no doubt that Joan Burton has given Labour a bounce since becoming leader and will give the party an energy and ‘tempo’ that had maybe flagged under Eamon Gilmore in recent months.

But one opinion poll does not an election make. And her big challenge will be sustaining that bounce – without allowing it to falter appreciably – between now and 2016.

Labour’s cause will be helped by an improving economy and some new faces. Having said that not all her choices at senior level are exceptionally inspiring and I think it is in the junior ranks that we may see some exciting ideas and initiatives (as well as in from the ambitious deputy leader Alan Kelly).

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.