As the pencils are being sharpened in polling stations, my thoughts turn to a conversation I had with a soon-to-be Commerce graduate from UCD a few years back. We were sitting in the canteen before exams which were to be her finals, and my first round of postgrad exams. Both of us shedding the comfortable blanket of our college years and heading off into the big, bad, world, armed with a fresh education. A friend of mine is related to the Labour deputy leader, Liz McManus, and we were discussing her work in the opposition.

This sparked a question from the anonymous student:

“Why is she with an opposition party, though? I mean, what’s the point of an opposition party – isn’t everything grand?”

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