An Irishman's Diary

I know I'm not the first person to suggest that the Taoiseach owes part of his success to the fact that he sounds like a character from a children's television show.

The point was brought home dramatically last week, however, when my son pointed at an election poster and - I swear to God - said he would be voting for "Bertie Ahern" in the coming poll. Being only seven years old, he is likely to be thwarted in this plan. But the point is that, until then, I had him firmly in the "don't know" bracket.

It's not just that the Taoiseach's first name resembles that of a TV character. It also resembles uncannily the sound that young children (and in my part of Dublin, many adults) make when they say the word "birthday". The subliminal association with presents and goody bags cannot be hurting Mr Ahern's popularity rating with the under-10s.

But the fact remains that he does sound like a children's TV character. More than that, his name starts with the letter "B", which is one of the easiest, and therefore first, sounds a baby makes. It is surely no coincidence that the world of children's entertainment is packed with characters and places of that initial, from Barney to Bart Simpson, via Balamory, Barbie, and Bear in the Big Blue House.

Of the characters just mentioned, Bertie perhaps most closely resembles the last one - and not just because his house has become an important part of the story-line. Like the Taoiseach, the Bear in the BBH also appears to be a single parent. At any rate, he shares his modest (but well-situated home) with a baby bear, and surrounds himself with a cast of other animals, including colourfully-named twin otters Pip and Pop.

Like a good constituency politician, he tends to his public's every need. This is best illustrated in the episode "Potty Time with Bear", in which he deploys music to overcome a child's fear of toilet training: "It's sometimes hard, but you can do it/ Relax and put your tushy to it/ You'll feel like a millionaire/ Pulling up your underwear." Bertie in the Red-Brick House stops short of providing this level of service to his voters. But only just, I'm told. His constituency operation is legendary.

The boundary between children's television shows and politics has been blurred of late with the planned Northern Ireland edition of Sesame Street, for which proposals from production companies are now being sought. This is not the first time the series has dabbled in the international sphere. A Middle Eastern version has featured Arab and Israeli muppets, and Kofi Annan is one of many real-life statespeople to have appeared alongside Elmo and Co. In any case, now that the DUP and Sinn Féin have adopted what Seamus Mallon calls "Sunningdale for slow learners", Sesame Street plans to underline the peace message for pre-schoolers.

Presumably the Irish version will still feature those staple characters Bert and Ernie. But if the real-life peace process is an example of life imitating art, it provides yet another example of why the Taoiseach's first name is so effective. You could argue about who the Ernie of the actual peace process is, with Tony and Ian-y the obvious contenders. Typically, though, there is no competition for the role of Bert.

The Sesame Street Bert has some interesting parallels with the Kildare Street one, as it happens. Both are intelligent and fundamentally serious characters, despite being considered somewhat comic by observers. Both have slightly eccentric passions: bottle-caps and pigeon-watching in one case (Bert), Bass and hanging baskets in the other (Bertie).

Crucially, both also revel in details that most people would find dull. For example, Sesame Street Bert is president of an association of people who love the letter "W"; while in one episode he is pictured reading and enjoying a book entitled "Boring Stories". Similarities with the Taoiseach will be obvious to anyone who has to sit through Dáil Questions regularly.

Sesame Street's Bert is considered lovable by others, even when he doesn't love them. And although there is no suggestion that Kildare Street's Bert is anything less than lovable, there is a similar phenomenon at work. People project their feelings on to the Taoiseach, particularly the feeling that they know him. This is a typical emotion among those whom he has met briefly (which is nearly everyone in Ireland), whereas it's a common admission by those who work with him and should know him that they do not.

Mr Ahern's key quality, both as a negotiator and a children's TV character, is that he is unthreatening: something that clearly stood to him during 10 years of talks on the North with people who did not take well to threats. Even so, if he had been christened "John" or "Enda", it is unlikely that he would be universally referred to by his first name, as he is.

The bad news for the Opposition parties is that if and when they get rid of him, his replacement is likely to be a man whose first name also starts with B. Brian is not that catchy, admittedly. But the really bad news is that his nickname starts with B too. If the Minister for Finance has any sense, he will soon adopt his less formal title by deed-poll, and fight all future elections as "Biffo".