BEING a "frontline politician" has a different connotation in this part of the word. It's getting to the point where politicians will need hard hats, fire extinguishers and mace when they go out canvassing for our votes.
A Vote for the TUV is a vote for hate, sectarianism and anti-Catholicism. Jim is quite happy to live in the past he doesn't wish to move forward and is using this election to spread his hatred for change.
SDLP MP Claire Hanna is right when she says the current election campaign has become toxic. Of course toxic campaigns are something we have become very used to here, but there is a noticeable undercurrent this time around.
In the past, politicians ran the gauntlet of paramilitary attacks. Famously, Gerry Fitt pulled a gun on raiders, who forced their way into his home, but that was in 1976 - a different world. Ulster Unionist MP Robert Bradford was murdered, the UVF shot and killed Sinn Féin's Sheena Campbell, other politicians such as Nigel (deputy Dog) Dodds and Alex Maskey survived murder bids.
A Vote for the PUP is saying that you agree with the recent loyalist violence carried out and orchestrated by UVF terrorism during the anti-Protocol/anti- Good-Friday-Agreement rallies.
But this is different and clearly driven by paramilitary elements within the (PUL) loyalist community, most notably the ceasefire UVF.
It's a disturbing and blunt instrument campaign to intimidate those who don't share their view. It shows a lack of confidence in their own identity, their own ability to make their case and sell it to others. But rather than talk, loyalists circle the wagons and chuck stones at those on the outside.
In the greater scheme of things the theft of election posters isn't exactly the crime of the century, but what we're seeing aren't random acts of vandalism, it's an attempt to exclude an alternative view, a sort of book burning - what you don't know can't change your mind.
It's not a new tactic. In almost every election campaign since the inception of the state, hardline unionists and loyalists have reduced the fight to a single-issue campaign and they're doing it again, and it's the same weapons of choice - sectarianism and fear.
At the centre of it is the myth that the Brexit Sea Border threatens the North's constitutional position. Whatever Jeffrey Donaldson or Jim Allister say, anti-Protocol protests are fanning the flames. How else can you explain the disturbing and quite frankly chilling image of Doug Beattie with a noose around his neck?
The two young thugs caught in the act of taking down SDLP candidate Elsie Trainor's posters in south Belfast had their orders - take Elsie out of the fight, cancel her, make her disappear. Her bravery in chasing them down and filming them earned her a slap in the face and verbal abuse by calling her a "republican bastard".
In refusing to be intimidated, Elsie struck her own blow. She won't be pushed around and I hope the voters show a little of the same courage come polling day.
With many thanks to the: Sunday World and Richard Sullivan for the original opinion piece published in the Sunday World newspaper.
Follow this link to find out more on this story: NI election 2022: 41 poster incidents reported to the PSNI/RUC but how many reports were from the DUP, TUV and PUP?
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