LABOUR deserves better. It might well be an election slogan but, for now, it best describes relations between Pat Rabbitte's party and Fine Gael, its putative coalition partner. There may well be merit in a variation of the idea floated by Billy Timmins last week. Asking the army to knock a few rough edges off young offenders resonates with certain sections of the electorate. But as presented, the proposal was top-of-the-head stuff. 'Boot camp for bad boys' might generate a decent headline but the Thatcherite tough-on-crime stance plays poorly with Labour supporters.

Seeing Labour shudder at Fine Gael's stance also allows Fianna Fail to attack the credibility and cohesion of the alternative coalition. Cue last Wednesday: Billy Kelleher waltzed in with his "another week, another split" attack.

The challenge for Fine Gael and Labour is to preserve their individual identities as they present a joint approach to governing. It is never easy to get two separate parties to co-ordinate their respective agendas. But if Pat Rabbitte and Enda Kenny are serious about being taken seriously, then any individual policy proposals put forward by one party has to consider the sensitivities of the other. Earlier this year, Fine Gael floated the idea of drunk-tanks in A&Es.

Now it's boot camps. Neither proposal has been fully considered. Neither was 'Labour-proofed'.

Even a few decent opinion-poll results over the next few months will not distract from a public view that the alternative has a credibility problem. As a start, the two parties would do well over the next fortnight to agree their lines on income-tax cuts. Brian Cowen will spend 600m in 2006 on government top-up SSIA contributions. With the saving schemes ending in the coming months, this money will be freed up in 2007. In a nice financial twist, 600m is also the cost of a one-point reduction in both the top and the bottom rates of income tax (from 42% to 41%, and 20% to 19%). The economy may not need tax cuts . . . and fairness dictates increased tax credits . . . but rate reductions are all about politics.

Fianna Fail and the PDs insist they have no plans to 'buy' the next election with a spending splurge. They don't have to . . . tax cuts may well do the job for them. The opposition needs an agreed response on budget day. And Fine Gael needs to remember . . . Labour deserves better.

Teanga-lashed into action POLITICIANS, as we know, will do almost anything for a vote. Last weekend Fiona O'Malley received a tongue-lashing from a constituent over the absence of Irishlanguage content on her election literature.

The PD TD didn't leave the doorstep without a promise to prove her commitment to the native language. And so last Wednesday evening, during a private members' debate on housing, O'Malley made her maiden speech as gaeilge.

"Gabhaim buiochas le Pairti an Lucht Oibre as ucht an t-abhar seo a chur faoi bhraid na Dala, " she began.

The Dun Laoghaire deputy will be knocking on the complainant's door again shortly with a copy of her script and a promise for at least one more Irish-language outing in the Dail before the general election. Every vote counts.

Last Monday, EU ministers gathered in Cairo to discuss environmental matters.

Junior minister Batt O'Keeffe (LEFT) was the Irish government representative. Dick Roche . . . our Minister for the Environment . . . was otherwise engaged. Roche was in his Wicklow constituency at the official opening of the library in Blessington.

There's an election campaign underway.

Twenty "ve years a-sprouting THE Green Party starts its 25th anniversary celebrations this week with the publication of A Journey to Change, Dan Boyle's new book which includes interesting contributions from party grandees.

The faithful will meet for the book launch at the Central Hotel in Dublin city centre where, on 3 December 1981, a handful of environmentalists gathered with thoughts of a new political formation. Life is going to be interesting for the Greens at its quartercentury mark, especially with the not unrealistic prospect of government after the next general election.

The more regular sightings of previously open-shirted TDs sporting neck ties in the Dail chamber would suggest a new seriousness.

"We're now the party of ideas in Irish politics, " Boyle claimed last week as he discussed the party's pre-budget submission which showed that the Greens are no longer just a party of the environment.

Between book editing and featuring in Celebrity You're a Star, Boyle has had a busy 2006. The Cork South Central TD must be hoping for a lot more politics in the new year.