Get over your liberal prejudice or you’ll never understand Ireland

THERE is a new Labour Party candidate running in my local elections area and I have received two pieces of campaign literature from her.

When I received the first leaflet, sometime before Christmas, I was struck by how down-to-earth she looked. Her hair was scraggy and tossed and she was dressed in a casual jacket. It was refreshing in this age of political image-handling to see somebody who wasn't afraid to be themselves in their campaign photograph. The overall impression was of a tough, hardworking, but probably effective community activist. I was well disposed to giving her at least a high preference.

Then a few weeks ago, in the lead-in to the election itself, I got a second leaflet from her through my letterbox. I was stunned. The transformation was phenomenal. She has had a dramatic makeover. Her hairstyle and hair colour were completely different. She wore what looked like a fashionable business suit. Her whole look had been transformed and the transformation seemed designed to achieve one objective she now looked more middle-class. It was the later, overhauled photograph which was used on her election poster and I suspect it will be the one which appears on the ballot paper tomorrow.