It appeared Labour was taking the weekend's opinion poll very badly.
Their annual think-in didn’t sound like it was going too well either.
As the opening session concluded behind closed doors in Wexford yesterday afternoon, handlers solemnly announced that a decision had been taken to shoot the entire parliamentary party in the stairwell of Whites Hotel.
No exceptions.
The younger parliamentarians trotted obediently down to the landing and nestled in the generous curve of the steel banisters. Plenty of room for most of them – the rest of the TDs and senators would have to bunch up on the steps at either side.
Joan Burton went down to stand in front of her troops, smiling bravely. Brendan Howlin skipped lightly behind her.
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform had gone all giddy at the prospect of playing host in his home town to his colleagues and attendant media, giggling loudly and bellowing “welcome to the sunny southeast” at anything that moved.
Meanwhile, three former leaders were expected to join Joan at the banisters, but you could see they weren’t too keen on being shot at repeatedly from the balcony above. Ruairí Quinn padded down first, stoically taking up position at the lower end of the steps.
Pat Rabbitte went next, looking thoroughly fed up, throwing his eyes up to heaven and making funny faces. Like a teenager dragged by the ear to a family gathering, then forced to endure the mortification of a group hug with his clucking aunties.
And where was Eamon Gilmore? Joan shot him once. Wasn’t that enough?
The recently dethroned leader of the Labour Party didn’t make the opening pleasantries at Tánaiste Joan Burton’s first think-in. Some thought Eamon might have decided to stay on in China (he was on a fact-finding visit there recently, but he turned up later in the afternoon to take his place before the firing squad).
Simper please
With everyone in position, the photographers and camera crews got to work as the politicians (including a couple of byelection candidates) simpered into the lenses above and tried not to look embarrassed.
Full marks to Labour for the cheesiest family photo of this year’s round of think-ins.
“When you shoot people from above, it tends to eliminate double chins” explained one the photographers. “And they are standing in front of the windows, which means they will be backlit, making their faces look less wrinkly.”
It’ll make a nice picture, so, for the election literature: Labour’s A-team looking up to the heavens, watching the gap widen as the opinion poll results for their Coalition partner rise higher.
Those politicians on the lower steps looked a little dismayed. “We’re going down. We’re f****d,” shouted one of them, only half joking.
Back at the upper end of the staircase, on the outer fringe of the parliamentary party, stood Grumpy Pat, Labour’s answer to that endearing internet sensation, Grumpy Cat.
Rabbitte was the most watched and the most photographed party member in Wexford yesterday. Having come from the Enda and Leo show in Cork last week, it was hoped that Pat, who is still smarting from the loss of his Cabinet job, might make things similarly difficult for his boss during their think-in.
“Will you be causing trouble, Pat?” we asked, hopefully.
“That sort of behaviour is alien to me,” he sniffed, pretending to be taken aback at the very notion. We have high hopes for him in the future.
As for Eamon Gilmore, there doesn't seem much chance of him rocking the boat. He looked more relaxed and happy yesterday than we've seen in a long time. The only person laughing more was the overexcited Brendan Howlin, who must have overdosed on sweets and fizzy drinks or something.
Meanwhile, Westmeath's Willie Penrose was bearing up under the near-intolerable strain of having to sit through the two-day pre-parliamentary session. He thinks these events a waste of time. Or, as he put it on Morning Ireland yesterday, they're "playacting before the real game begins".
Of course, he’s right.
But at least it gave Joan a chance to follow Enda with another message of hope, jobs and recovery, although she was at pains to point out that it will take more than one or two budgets to get the economy back on an even keel.
It’s good, though, that we are breeding like rabbits in Ireland. In terms of swelling the national coffers in the future, Burton happily noted our “positive demographic pressures”. In fact, she said, “this is very positive because we have a large population of children that the Germans, I’d say, must be intensely envious of us for”.
The Tánaiste echoed what the Taoiseach had to say last week about voters choosing the right political party to manage the economy, taking the chance to deliver some swipes at Sinn Féin. However, Joan chose to leave out this zinger of a paragraph from her written script: “The Sinn Féin view of the world – from either the business class section of the aeroplane or from a private hospital in America – is very different from the lives of most ordinary people.”
Election amnesia?
As with their Coalition partners last week, Labour did its best not to give the impression that the general election is uppermost in all their minds.
Oh no. The think-in is about pondering the future direction of the country as viewed from the “re-established platform of stability” built by the Government. And, most importantly, it about what’s going to be in the Budget next month.
Joan is already giving away some of the details with her top-up payments for people on social welfare returning to work. We suspect Enda won’t treat her to the sort of “smackdown” he delivered to Leo when he broke the budget embargo.
Election? What General Election? Here’s Brendan, addressing his colleagues in the hall: “The big task, I suppose, over the next few weeks, [that] everybody around this table will be involved in is the formation of the next government . . .”
Guffaws from the hacks and smirks from the parliamentary party.
The minister quickly corrected himself: “. . . formation of the next budget.”
Yeah. Right.
But, just in case, you have a lovely group photograph, shot on the stairwell, for the manifesto launch.
