SOON after he'd led the Conservatives to a record post-war victory in Harold Macmillan was asked if anything could now threaten the stability of his government.
He thought for a moment before replying with one word: "Events."
But the events which undermined his apparently unshakeable administration were different in every way from those responsible for the destruction of his predecessor, Anthony Eden.
It had taken an ill-fated international enterprise, the invasion of Suez in 1956, to undermine Eden. The even tenor of Macmillan's premiership was shipwrecked in bed.
The bed, you may need to be reminded, was shared by John Profumo, Christine Keeler and a man from the Soviet embassy called lvanov.
The moral is unchanged. Of course, public opinion is of huge importance: it's what gave Macmillan his mighty majority and led to the boast "You've never had it so good."
But allowance should always be made for the impact of events.
The clearest finding of the current series of Irish Times/MRBI polls shows an emphatic shift in public opinion, reflected in the steadily narrowing gap between the coalitions on offer.
The centre-right partnership of Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats still has a healthy lead of six to eight points over the centre-left coalition of Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left.
(The gap is six - 43-37 - if you ask which partnership is preferred; it's eight - 51-43 - if you tot up the separate scores for the parties).
But, even as this information was being analysed, we've had our own version of an event - an unforced error by a normally adroit performer, Mary Harney, to remind us of the uncertainty of politics.
Given her stumble - and the need to compare this week's poll results with a margin of 12 to 15 points for the centre-right three months ago, 20 points in early December - not one but several notes of caution are called for.
To begin, those who were already looking to the day when, not in an FF-PD government took office should revise their expectations.
Not only has the gap between the coalitions closed, the movement has been marked in areas where, by general consent, the election will be decided in Dublin and among the middle classes.
The contest, it's clear, will not turn out to be the foregone conclusion that many supporters of the centre-right parties had imagined.
But caution is also necessary among supporters of the centre left.
Those who favour Fine "Gael, Labour and Democratic Left should avoid falling for the notion that, once the lines on Jack Jones's graphs have begun to converge, they'll continue to do so until polling day.
The graphs of support for parties - and partnerships, centre-right versus centre-left have indeed been closing for several months and at a steady pace.
But some may still remember how, in 1977 - when polls were new and parties were less practised in their use - foolish assumptions about converging lines ended in tears.
What happened is described with wry humour in Stephen Collins's fine book The Cosgrave Legacy, published by the Blackwater Press.
The first poll of the election (nine days into the campaign) had ministers and party managers reeling. It showed FF with 59 per cent, so far ahead of the coalition that someone asked whether the election, once called, could be uncalled.
In the second poll, a week later, FF was down to a mere 51 per cent. And while Liam Cosgrave was sceptical - "Can you trust these things?" he inquired of Jim Dooge - others in Fine Gael and Labour fondly imagined that the gap between government and opposition would go on narrowing until polling day.
It didn't, and Jack Lynch rode home to a famous victory on the strength of his own reputation - Mr Cosgrave called him the most popular Irish leader since Daniel O'Connell - and a manifesto for which we've been paying since.
Neither politicians nor journalists should make excuses here: the manifesto wasn't adequately analysed or criticised, though many had doubts about its promises and what they might cost.
The political correspondents, of whom I was one, were convinced the coalition would wind hands down anyway. So, for that matter, were some senior members of FF.
George Colley told me on the night before the election that all the party could expect in return for its basket of offers was to keep the FG-Labour majority down to a respectable size.
IT has been said that the best thing the FF government of the 1970s could have done would have been to break those promises. And in a sense that's what Mary Harney was doing when she found herself up to her neck in trouble.
Her Morning Ireland interview defined the centre right/centre left contest as she sees it: the PDs committed to controlling public spending, lowering taxes and being tough con crime; Labour and DL with high public spending, high taxes and soft on crime
Then she turned to the temptation - to buy electoral support, took careful aim and shot herself in both feet.
The PDs, she insisted, did not favour the abolition of water charges - "And, indeed, if we were in government, we would have to revisit that particular subject, because I don't think the right decision was made.
In a sentence, she had left her spokesman, Bobby Molloy, adrift in a sea of denial and Fianna Fail, her would-be partners of the centre-right, in a stage of confusion.
When the issue of rural water charges first made headlines and campaigners angrily directed their fire at Brendan Howlin and the Labour Party, Bobby Molloy was there with the most vociferous of the farmers to complain about inequity
As Aine Lawlor pointed out subsequently on RTE, it was Mr Molloy who had plucked a figure of £23 million from the air.
Was Ms Harney now saying she'd reintroduce the charges, that they shouldn't have been abolished?
Not to put too fine a point on it, she was: "If they haven't been abolished (in government), I would not favour abolishing them, and even if they are abolished I think we should look at that again."
One FF candidate, Conor Lenihan, was openly critical. More senior representatives were more diplomatic: Mary O'Rourke was reported to have said that water charges were not on the party's agenda.
Noel Dempsey gave the same impression.
THERE will be time for other mishaps - and not, a few revelations in the coming weeks of party conferences, celebrations and electoral preparations.
The Green Party's conference is at present in progress.
When Labour meets next weekend, we may hear Dick Spring's views on a suggestion which, to date, has been tentatively made: that Labour may care to resume its partnership with FF if the chips fall that way.
Fine Gael will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the State before FF's ard-fheis is held on April 18th and 19th. And the conference season will end with DL a week later.
But first, and perhaps of greater significance than several of these occasions, the McCracken tribunal is due to sit again on Tuesday of next week and to hear witnesses a week later.
The tribunal is investigating the contributions to politicians made by Ben Dunne.