As a taster for what to expect, take a glance in the rear-view mirror to observe the defining spin from the last general election, and what it actually amounted to when the ballot boxes were opened.

Michael McDowell was the spinmeister of Election 2002. He and his party were languishing in opinion polls when he climbed his own pole of rectitude brandishing a poster with the legend 'Single Party Government, No Thanks'. It was a master stroke. The electorate was put on notice:

Don't let Fianna Fail govern on their own . . . they can't be trusted. Only the Progressive Democrats can keep those reprobates honest. The country's continuing prosperity is at stake.

McDowell then laid into Bertie Ahern, comparing him to the Romanian despot Ceaucescu in relation to the Bertie bowl. Ably assisted by Mary Harney, a politician who never tires of proclaiming her own integrity, McDowell executed a first-class PR exercise. The result was eight PD seats when two were on the cards.

Fast-forward a few months and the country has been saved from Fianna Fail.

A programme for government is agreed and functioning, but hey, why are those PD honchos gathered in a conspiratorial huddle?

As revealed in this newspaper last month, the leading parliamentarians and advisers in the PDs and Fine Gael were privy to negotiations aimed at merging the two parties in mid to late 2002. Fine Gael was at the lowest ebb in its history, the PDs were riding a wild wave of success. A merger made perfect sense for the future of both.

Harney was in on it. So was McDowell, and Liz O'Donnell. Having agreed to govern with Fianna Fail, these leading lights were now on course to stick it to Bertie if the talks succeeded.

The most likely outcome would have been the PDFine Gael entity going into opposition, leaving the country to the perils of single-party government.

The country, by McDowell's standards of a few months previously, would be in big trouble.

This double-cross on Fianna Fail and the electorate was being perpetrated by a party that thrives on the notion of its own integrity. The party that portrays its foundation as a response to Charlie Haughey's suspected corruption, when it was nothing of the sort. The party that demanded the head of Brian Lenihan in 1990 over something relatively innocuous that Lenihan may or may not have said when his cognitive powers may or may not have been compromised by lifesaving drugs.

This was the party that portrayed its presence in government as necessary to stifle Bertie Ahern's despotic tendencies. And here were their leading honchos, up to their oxters in deceit, running rings round the most devious, the most cunning.

The merger talks failed, and how our heroines must have hoped they would be consigned to the dusty vault of unreported history. When contacted last month, Harney's spokesman would only say that she did not "sanction" any such talks.

Pointedly, when invited to state whether she was denying that merger talks took place, he declined to do so. O'Donnell's response to the story was: "I have no specific memory, " and no, Liz has never appeared as a tribunal witness.

The week after it was reported, McDowell would only say to Newstalk 106's The Right Angle show that no senior organ in the party was involved in any talks. Of course it wasn't, the surreptitious nature of what they were involved in meant it had to be confined to a few key individuals who would sell it to the party afterwards. (Keep an ear out for a fresh line in spin the next time senior PD or Fine Gael personnel are asked about how they nearly merged in 2002. ) Meanwhile, McDowell is early out of the traps this time around. He has coined the phrase "slump coalition" for an alternative government led by his kindred spirits in Fine Gael.

He thunders against the dangers of not returning his own party to power. He does this, to his credit, with a straight face. Few among us would be able to muster that level of discipline.