Every day’s a poll day around the world and while the UK’s political poster boys and girls will go to the recycling centre tomorrow, others will pop up elsewhere.
If you’ve got election ennui, are sick of candidates smiling down on you.
And will be glad when it’s all over then spare a thought for our neighbours across the water in Ireland.
Tomorrow, July 4, will be my first British general election in nearly 20 years and one of the very few areas where the Brits score is in how clean their elections are.
No, the parties sling more dirt than an incontinent dog at a lamp post, it’s that they curtail the amount of posters they allow on them.
In my old stomping ground of Ireland very definitive rules surrounded the erection of posters at election times.
Only that was countered by the fact that with numerous candidates returned around constituencies.
As part of the proportional representation system the lamp posts creak with the number of posters.
Poster your sell-by date
So everybody breathes a sigh of relief when it is all over and they come down and you get your vistas in your cities, towns and villages back.
Posters and ties used to erect them need to come down within 7 days of the polling date.
Local councils will remove posters left up, and they can seek the costs of doing so back from the party or individual who put them up.
And after that, individuals or parties can be fined €150 for each poster that remains on display under the littering law.
Now you don’t have to be a political geek (guilty) to feel that you’re getting something a little bit extra.
If you visit a country when an election is going on.
And this year more people are voting in elections than at any time in history.
Votes through the years
Of course the ones closest to our hearts here are in the UK and the US.
I remember well becoming engaged in the process IN 1982 when our sleepy suburb of Glasgow Hillhead was invaded.
By the British media when SDP political heavyweight Roy Jenkins carpetbagged his way into town.
And saw off the challenge of a young Labour hopeful George Galloway (wonder what happened to him?)
I’ve picked up the vibe of numerous US Presidential elections from being in Boston.
When their darling Mike Dukakis was running against George HW Bush.
Through Barack Obama‘s procession to the White House.
And then being in Washington DC to see the nodding Hillary Clinton dolls in the shops.
And in North Virginia where Trump/Pence hoardings stood in every garden.
Trump, of course, is the great survivor of modern politics but it took me by surprise to see postering for Saddam Hussain in Jordan.
While I stood in the Voting Line in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape in South Africa at the time of their election.
Pick-up at the polls
Yes, every day’s a poll day around the world.
And so I’ll trot off to the polls tomorrow and if you’re a visitor to our country take it all in.
Because that poster that you see on the floor might not be the end for that candidate.
With the gentleman you see at the top here only going on to become Ireland’s leader, the Taoiseach.
Our old Greystones TD Simon Harris.
