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Sat 09 Sep 2000They're all making coalition eyes at blushing LabourIt's not all that long ago Padraig Flynn was describing single party government as a Fianna Fail "core value". And so indeed it was. Ever since the time Sean Lemass called the first coalition government in 1948 "a makeshift majority", down to Brian Cowen's "when in doubt, leave them out", Fianna Fail has always been lukewarm, if not hostile, to the very idea of coalition.Now at Kilkenny this week we had Bertie Ahern telling us that not just is Fianna Fail best at coalition politics, it practically invented the concept. Oh well, it was a nice try but there was more to it than taking a swipe at Fine Gael. What Bertie was saying, and what everybody in Irish politics knows, is that as things stand no party has a hope in hell of getting an overall majority in the next election; the price of power is coalition - and Fianna Fail has no intention of being short-changed when it comes to the time.