Tear it down from the mast…

The issue of tearing down other party’s posters is one that regularly features at election time. The SDLP’s Declan O’Loan has already complained about republican harassment while trying to put up his party posters in North Antrim. I noticed some youngsters – about 12 years old or so – defacing a Sinn Féin Euro poster by writing “Heil Hitler!” and painting swastikas on it last night. Naturally, one deplores this kind of vandalism. (They came for the Sinn Féin posters but I was not a Sinn Féin poster…) Then again, was it vandalism or a statement by youthful, committed social democrats who recognised the neo-fascist elements in Sinn Féin’s politics and were alerting their community accordingly?