THE RIGHT wing element in the Labour Party is planning a major assault on the left's stronghold of power within the party through the Administration Council. At the Party conference this autumn, an attempt will be made to change the party constitution to change the membership of the AC and to limit its powers. There will also be a challenge to the chairmanship of Michael D. Higgins - Dick Spring will probably be the right's candidate.

Re-alignment of Forces

There are few who don't regard with some cynicism the defection of Michael O'Kennedy from his post as EEC Commissioner but his absence from Brussells will not be missed either by the Community or Ireland. It also offers the opportunity to appoint somebody to the job who has the capacity to make a genuine contribution to the EEC and to Irish interests.

The Gregory package represents the "liberation" of Charles Haughey from those forces of budgetary resstraint which were imposed on him in the second day of the election campaign by party colleagues alarmed at his perrformance at his first press conference.

Magill had commissioned a cover for this issue depicting Garret FitzGerald as a prostitute for having sold his party's soul in its quest for power over the week prior to the election of a Taoiseach - we were naturally constrained from printing this by the revelation of Haughey's astounding deal with Tony Gregory. By Vincent Browne

A HEADING in the last issue of Magill - "We Are Four Seats Ahead of Radio" - gave the impression that television coverage of the election count was faster than that of radio, The truth was the exact opposite, even to the extent that throughout most of the election count night Brian Farrell had earplugs into the radio broadcast.

Garret FitzGerald flew back to Cork last November following hIS summit meeting with the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in London. He attended a function in the Southern capital on Saturday evening and on Sunday November 8 he travelled to Kilkenny to a poverrty conference organised by the Council for Social Welfare. There he delivered a speech which was to set him apart from all other senior members of his own party and was, indeed, a departure from his own record as Leader Of the Opposition.

Charles Haughey's fate was sealed long before the votes were cast. It was Albert Reynolds who decided to remove his photograph from the newspaper advertisements and it was Reynolds who was the first to sense alarm at Haughey's headlong drive for power at that first wild press conference of the campaign on January 28.

How big a mess are we in?

Martin stepped in and Charlie stepped out ..... " creative accounting" Part 2.

By Vincent Browne