Editorial: Local elections boost blood lust

Paul Brooks

ALL around the world there is movement against sports featuring gratuitous cruelty and bloodletting, from bullfighting to rodeo to bear baiting to fox hunting.

Some have been banned, some are on the soon-to-follow list, but there is one particularly vicious sport that lies too low for the protest radar to notice.

Local body elections! They are nasty, dangerous and a health hazard to those taking part -- and for those on the sidelines it is a hideously savage form of entertainment.

We, the voting public, stand beyond the white markings, screaming at the players and ignoring the ref, demanding death, or at least injury, and certainly humiliation.

Absorbed in total self-interest, we favour some and deride the others, bringing them down as far as can, until we turf them out on the street, broken and bruised, battered and bloodied. Then we expect them to pick themselves up and carry on as if nothing has happened, as if they hadn't just lost one of the most important contests of their lives.

Some, beaten beyond the bounds of resilience, never face the race again, never compete for the public vote, effectively electorally put down but not out of their misery. Some, evidently of sterner stuff, wait the required term and put themselves back up for election, ready to either take a beating or dish one out in the public ring.

Don't ever compare this with national politics, where only one can win. This is tag team terror, full-contact monstering of their opponents, dragging them behind their figurative chariots if victorious, being dragged if defeated.

And those who win? They spend the next three years terrified to speak lest they show a weakness, an armour chink ready to be exploited at the next opportunity, the next election.

For parliamentary candidates it's a job interview. For councils and health boards, it's gladiatorial hell. And we love it.