The Last Straw: I was alarmed to read in the Sunday Independent last weekend that Fianna Fáil has accused Labour of "sanctimonious postering in the Dáil". If the allegation is true - it's attributed to Willie O'Dea - it marks a very worrying development in the current election campaign. But Willie would hardly make this sort of thing up and, assuming he didn't, the news is not all that surprising.
Dáil aside, the extent of poster coverage in these elections must be unprecedented. There's hardly a lamppost in Dublin left uncovered by them, and more are going up every day. But until now, Leinster House had been off-limits. Personally, I would have thought the alleged manner in which Labour's election workers are deporting themselves there - sanctimonious or otherwise - is hardly the point. Surely the mere act of putting up posters in the Dáil is against the rules? Where was the superintendent when this was going on?
But you know, apart from the posters' sheer ubiquity, the other remarkable thing about this campaign is the extent to which image is dominant. There are hardly any slogans: it's all about pictures. And in this respect, Fianna Fáil could be accused of some pretty sanctimonious postering too. I'm thinking particularly of the ones featuring Royston Brady with a halo of stars around his head - a pictorial convention traditionally reserved for the Virgin Mary. Talk about a holier-than-thou attitude! Such slogans as do feature are not particularly thought-provoking. A typical example is Eoin Ryan's "Let's Get Goin' With Eoin", which was obviously chosen for its naïve, retro-chic, reminder-of-more-innocent-times vibe (either that, or somebody in his right mind thought it was just a good slogan. I prefer my explanation). And to be honest, nobody's complaining about the lack of content.
Information overload is already a big problem in Dublin. I'm still trying to work out what all the hieroglyphics relating to the inner and outer orbital routes mean. On top of these, the election campaign has coincided with new street signs warning of LUAS crossings ahead (promises, promises). So the absence of ideas in the election posters is probably dictated by concerns about driver safety.
Incidentally, the fact that the country has been turned into a portrait gallery only highlights the absence of Bertie Ahern's picture, compared with past elections, when it looked like he was the only candidate standing. To some extent, Enda Kenny has taken his place. Either that, or it's a male model chosen for his vague resemblance to the Fine Gael leader, because in those new billboards with his Euro candidates, such as the one where he's flanked by Avril Doyle and Mairéad McGuinness, he looks more like Cary Grant in a 1950s romantic comedy (which, plot-wise, would have some similarities with Fine Gael's campaign for two seats in Ireland East).
As for the Labour candidates, the most remarkable thing about their posters is that, unlike the head-and-shoulders favoured by other parties, they've gone for waist-up shots. This could be to show how thin their candidates are (although the two-storey-high depiction of Pat Rabbitte on the side of Liberty Hall would undermine this strategy). Or maybe they just spent a lot of money on the suits, and wanted to get as much of them into the pictures as possible.
Deciding how to vote is particularly hard in European elections. But the important thing is to vote. And speaking of sanctimonious behaviour, the decision to ban those TV ads of a breast-feeding baby - promoting the importance of exercising democratic choice in the EU elections - takes some beating. Having said that, I'm not sure breast-feeding is the right metaphor to represent engagement with subtle political ideas. After all, the baby in the picture has only two choices: left or right. And this may have defined political thought in Europe for 200 years after the French Revolution, but I think we've moved on from that now. The breast analogy leaves no place for, say, the European Liberal Democratic and Reformist Group, which in terms of right and left, is firmly in the middle. Is in any wonder Pat Cox no longer feels there's a place for him the European Parliament? Also - and the La Leche League will correct me if I'm wrong - whether a baby favours left or right doesn't make any real difference to his life. He gets the same thing anyway. Unfortunately, this is how a lot of people see politics, and we shouldn't be reinforcing the idea.
