Sir, – I refer to Stephen Collins article in your November 21st issue concerning the forthcoming election where he states that there is a risk of instability if the Coalition fails to hit 70 seats.
He knows, as we all do, that Labour is stuck at 7 per cent in the polls despite its efforts unselfishly over the years to go into government to avoid that very fear – instability.
Yet the electorate has failed to give Labour credit for its statesmanship in taking this honourable stand time and time again.
Why is this? Could it be that like the Americans who, surveys show, all consider themselves middle class and that we Irish suffer the same delusion and so when we go into a polling booth and see the word “labour” we immediately think the term refers to an inferior species and all but a 7 per cent handful of us vote for almost anyone else?
I believe that the Labour party should investigate thoroughly why the electorate is so ungrateful to them and perhaps even consider a change of name to get the voting public away from any notion that they represent a band of semi-illiterates who no self-respecting middle-class person would vote for.
– Yours, etc,
PATRICK KELLEHER
Griffith Avenue,
Dublin 9.