On Thursday night last the new Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, did the honours at the launch of a book entitled Government Priorities For The Next Five Years, a collection of papers delivered at the McGill Summer School in Donegal last July, writes Noel Whelan
Commenting on remarks I had made in the publication about how one of Labour's enduring difficulties after the election was that so many of its TDs were in their 50s who still jealously guarded their one-man or one-woman fiefdoms, Gilmore joked that he had no objection to the Labour Party's difficulties being talked up at this stage in the electoral cycle.
He added that this would set a lower base, and would mean that in four years' time, when it really mattered in the lead into the next election, we commentators would all be taking about how much the Labour Party had improved.
Gilmore must have been disappointed, therefore, a few hours later when he heard the results of yesterday's TNS mrbi poll since it showed a dramatic five-point improvement for the Labour Party.
Of course, any increase in support is to be welcomed, but getting an early bounce will not necessarily make Gilmore's task any easier as he prepares for his first party conference in Wexford this month.
The rise may give comfort to those in Labour who are reluctant to recognise the true nature of their dilemma or the scale of reorganisation and repositioning required.
Gilmore knows only too well that the Labour Party experienced a similar bounce in the months after Pat Rabbitte became leader in 2002, only for it to dissipate over the term of the Dáil and for the party to find itself stuck again at 10 per cent in the actual election last May.
Among other things, this year election's clarified that mrbi is still the best at conducting political polls in this country.
The company took some heat over recent years for the statistical adjustments it applied to its raw poll data to counteract overstatements in support for Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil complained in the lead into the general election that this meant that TNS mrbi polls this spring were dramatically understating the party's actual support.
TNS mrbi were vindicated, however, by the performance of its polls during the election. Its last poll published on the Monday before polling put Fianna Fáil at 41 per cent, just half a percentage point below the vote which the party actually achieved in the election days later.
Yesterday's was the company's first published poll since the election, and it reveals some significant shifts. There is every reason to believe it is accurate.
Fianna Fáil's support is down and down very significantly. It would be a mistake, however, to read this poll as foreshadowing electoral disaster for the party in the local elections and European elections due in 20 months' time or even in the next general election. A similar opinion poll published at almost precisely the same point in the electoral cycle in 2002 showed an even sharper decline in Fianna Fáil's vote share, in Bertie Ahern's approval rating and in government satisfaction levels. Even though the party took a drubbing in the subsequent local and European elections, the general election played out differently.
Isolating the factors which caused or contributed to the drop in Fianna Fáil's support is problematic. Even though it is now just six months since the election much has happened in that time. Three of the parties have new leaders and a fourth has reverted to a previous leader, albeit temporarily.
Among the political happenings which have received significant coverage since the election were the results of the election itself, the putting together of a government which included two Green Party Ministers, the Shannon controversy and Ahern's visit to the Mahon tribunal.
The last few months have also seen much talk of economic uncertainty and of the need for a more stringent budget next month.
It is likely, however, that it was two more recent stories which have penetrated into the wider public consciousness which contributed most to the decline in Fianna Fáil's support - the large pay increases to senior politicians and the purported clampdown on holders of provisional driving licences.
The coincidence of these two stories last week meant that when the fieldwork for this poll was done last Monday and Tuesday, these were the issues most on the public minds.
The most curious thing about the details of the poll published yesterday was the inclusion of Brian Cowen in the questions about levels of satisfaction with party leaders.
I can recall no other occasion when a person other than a party leader has been included in this line-up.
But even allowing for the fact that Cowen is Tánaiste and for the fact that Ahern has announced he will step down before the next election and has expressed a preference for Cowen to succeed him, the inclusion of Cowen in this question is most peculiar.
The publication of poll figures showing a deputy leader as being more popular than a leader is inevitably unsettling within any parliamentary party. Those closest to Ahern - who will already see themselves as having grounds to suspect this newspaper's attitude to their hero - could be forgiven for seeing yesterday's publication of Cowen's satisfaction ratings as mischievous and as a further attempt to undermine the Taoiseach.
One suspects, for example, if voters were asked for their view of Richard Bruton alongside their view of Enda Kenny that the Fine Gael deputy leader would out-poll his leader, a result which if published in banner headlines would have a similarly unsettling impact within Fine Gael.
At this early stage in the electoral cycle this poll is unlikely to have much long-term effect except perhaps within Fianna Fáil.