The media and the Big 5 parties have trailed this election as the most significant one in over twenty years. But what has really changed?

Workers Party candidates said consistently throughout the election campaign that the morning after polling day the big issues would remain, the cost of living, health, education, low pay and the environment. Nothing has changed that.

Beyond the rhetoric and the social media hype only the names on the doors have altered.

Thousands of working- class people voted in their droves for parties that do not, will not and cannot represent their interests.

Partly, that is because politics here has moved from a culture of representation and accountability to a big business circus replacing substance with glitz and glamour. That scenario has been re-enforced and replicated by sections of the media which treat politics here as a cross between a game show and a beauty contest.

The winners, once again, are the professional political classes, their media acolytes and the economic system they serve.

“The names on the doors have changed. Nothing else“.

The losers, once again, are working class people, public services, the young the old and the vulnerable. In that sense too, nothing has changed

The task of socialists, those on the left and other progressives is to present a coherent and class-based programme to challenge and counter the privatisation, low pay, zero hours and free market agenda of the big five parties.

It must remain our task to defend and to protect working class people,to speak out for their interests, to present and deliver the socialist alternative and to radically change this society and social system. That hasn’t change either.