A stink is emanating from the Labour Party that cannot be solely explained as the putrefying of its smoked-salmon socialism. Although the present malodour can be traced to the same source.

Outwardly, everything is honky-dory-dory. Stroll along Ely Place and, I swear, you will hear the clink of champagne glasses being assembled in HQ for the celebration of the new leader's election. Diligent, serious, hard-working, doughty Eamon Gilmore, a sensible choice under normal circumstances. A man who has dedicated his life to the ideals of equality.

Why then do the bated festivities smell most foul? Because the sudden disappearance of all the other likely candidates for the job, leaving Gilmore poised on his own, exclusive launch pad, bears the disturbing fingerprints of a fait accompli. Labour -- or a bloc of it -- has pulled a fast one.

Proverbial

One minute, former deputy leader Brendan Howlin is contemplating his third-time-lucky call to greatness over a pensive weekend tramping the beaches of south Wexford. Next minute, he's gone: hugging his leas ceann comhairle's seat in the Dail with all the ardour of the proverbial last man on earth.

Gone too are the four women who initially strode across the commentators' columns as wise, feisty, articulate and experienced contenders to lead Labour into the future.

Two of them have departed the stage, and the other two are fighting for the crumbs of deputy-leadership, slipping obediently into the traditional supporting role of their gender, again. A most dispiriting show from a party that exists, in part, to eradicate stereotyping and second-class citizenry.

When Margaret Thatcher went and had voice lessons 30 years ago to deepen her decibels to a manly octave for the appeasement of the audience, the nonsense of it became apparent, as the Iron Lady's stomach for confrontation vied with Hannibal's.

Here we are in the next millennium, witnessing the elimination of one of our most impressive parliamentarians, Joan Burton, from the Labour leadership contest, because her colleagues fear her "whiny voice" will alienate voters.

Wimps

What shallow wimps have commandeered the Irish Left, who shrink from a female voice and whose idea of an insult is to liken one to "a menopausal Paris Hilton"? Is this what Labour has descended to? Clinging to the frivolity of style and barely concealing a pernicious prejudice, so as to avoid taking a radical action?

Someone once said that there is nothing in socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure. Labour's vintage parliamentary party has cleaned out the shop of Celtic Tiger temptations. It talks about little else in these days of shameful inequalities but its own quest for power. Such power obsession further diminishes its potency in Opposition because it suggests, in true survival-of-the-fittest philosophy, that only the winners matter.

This is the attitude that makes what has gone on behind the scenes for the past couple of weeks highly suspicious. When Pat Rabbitte suddenly called a media conference to announce his unexpected resignation one Thursday afternoon, it was remarkable that Eamon Gilmore was able to kick-start his election campaign that very day.

At the last parliamentary party meeting before his announcement, Rabbitte had given no hint that he was about to quit. He had talked avidly about the upcoming conference of the national executive and the party's away day before the resumption of the Dail for the autumn term. When his announcement dropped, it came out of the blue for most of his colleagues.

While Howlin and the other potential contenders scrambled to their positions, Eamon Gilmore had already started canvassing on the Thursday afternoon.

Speculation

It is entirely possible that, after years of working closely with his former Democratic Left colleague, Gilmore could have picked up the signal of Rabbitte's mindset by means of some sort of extra-sensory perception.

But the news, reported in this newspaper yesterday, that Rabbitte had informed Liz McManus two days beforehand, reopens the speculation that Gilmore's campaign was given an unfair head start.Rabbitte, Gilmore and McManus are three of the six former DL members among Labour's 20 TDs.

The immediate consequence of Eamon Gilmore's agreed election as leader is that the wider Labour movement has been denied the opportunity to reappraise itself. A debate, that could have proved very uncomfortable for the top brass, has been stifled.

That debate had been more urgently needed than even the selection of a new leader. Its denial will be to the detriment of society as whole, the party itself, and its leader, who is a good TD capable of winning a transparent, open contest.

The second, compounding effect will be that lingering suspicions about how the leadership race was pre-ordained will sow bitterness, resentfulness and discord.

It means that the much vaunted new chapter of Labour history which is about to be written shall begin in classic Behanesque style. With the split.