Pat Leahy: As the parties gear up for an election, they need to be sure that promises made will not come back to bite them

The end of the year is now in sight, and columns such as this will be full of assessments of the 12 months gone by. They will make excruciating reading for the coalition’s foot soldiers, its leaders and managers.

Rarely has a change in political fortunes been so neatly aligned with the calendar. Last year ended with the coalition having achieved its biggest declared goal: unencumbered exit from the humiliation of the bailout. ...