The next twelve hours are the most crucial in our country’s destiny. Will a band of the Labour Party’s elite decide that they have an obligation to enter government even if they have little chance of implementing Labour Party policy, that they must sacrifice the policies they fought so hard to place before the people so that they can be toasted and complimented in the broadsheets of the enemy and stand a better chance to earn for themselves big fat pay cheques and pensions multiple times the amount of most people’s salaries?

Or will they have the maturity to defer minor reward now for a chance to become the lead opposition party, to provide some credible and effective counterweight to the next round of so called “pro-market” devastation about to be unleashed on us as a people and a nation? Will they have the patience to defer taking office until a time when they can wield real power to effect positive change?

All I can do as I wait to find out the answer is get ready to cook my children’s meals, spend some moments contemplating the movements of the sycamore’s branches against the sky outside my window, ruminate on the newspaper article of a friend and read the poems by Walcott and some translations by Heaney and Armitage I've set aside for today – the sort of activities, the sort of life I hope I can continue with in the future whatever the outcome.

Three Fine Gael Policies Which Must Go

Three Fine Gael Policies Which Must Go if Labour goes into Government

1) Student Graduate Tax of €12,000

This is a great way of making sure talented graduates leave our shores and never return, especially if they're from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and are already lumbered with student loans.

2) Privatisation of State-owned utilities, particularly the ESB and Bord Gais.

These companies are making profits which contribute to our healthcare and education costs. Any monies raised from a sell-off would be quickly spent and decades of future profit lost only to enhance the coffers of the already rich and please the ideological itchings of right-wing loons like Leo Varadker.

3) Abolition of Employer social insurance payments.

Fine Gael claim this will make it easier for small firms to hire more staff, but most small firms aren't paying enough in employer social insurance to make up another living wage, so it can't help in this way. Instead it will just lead to an increase in the tax burden of the employee as the government strives to make up the shortfall somehow.

If Labour lets any of these madcap free-market ideological policies get into the programme for government they will lose all credibility and slip to fifth place behind Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein at the next election.

Of course these policies are so lunatic, one wonders if a Fine Gael strategist placed them in the party manifesto just so Labour could shoot them down in negotiations and make it seem like Labour gained something.

For idiocy to flourish it only takes those with half a brain cell to remain silent

I've always believed I would find it difficult to live in America, that in spite of being surrounded by many beautiful, kind people of my acquaintanceship there, not to mention American friends I could lay down my life for, I would be intolerably oppressed by that country's prevailing political consensus. Unfortunately such a mindless consensus is now building in my homeland. I can’t remain silent. I can no longer allow my political commitments to remain in a condition of activist abeyance. Nor can I elaborate on this at 3am when I must begin a 16 hour workday in four hours time. Anger at political developments is keeping me from sleep. I have a better chance to sleep having committed myself to starting this political blog which I shall develop in the coming days and weeks.