Apologies..

Sorry I haven't posted anything in ages, work and life and other things have generally got in the way..!

Is anyone reading this involved with the party..? If so I would be interested if you could drop me a line to the email address shown below on the right - cheers.


Algernon

Kudos to the Daily Mail for..

.. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222769/Dishonest-Blair-Straw-accused-secret-plan-multicultural-UK.html

Sounds rather like something a particular political party has been saying for quite some time.

Funny how it has taken a certain appearance on Question Time for someone else to publicly say so too..!

Question Time..

The most talked about edition of Question Time has been and gone - yet the fuss and furore surrounding the inclusion of Nick Griffin shows no sign of abating.

To be fair, given the circumstances (i.e. the BBC/programme-producers threw him to the hounds by hand-picking the audience and encouraging those who were selected to speak to be as hostile as possible), I don't think he did too badly.

It is all very well for various commentators (e.g. Libby Purves in The Times, alongside every other media outlet going) to pan Nick Griffin's performance, but the simple fact was that for the most part he wasn't allowed to finish answering the questions put to him without being interrupted by either a panel member, David Dimbleby or the audience. If he had been allowed to speak, he would have come over a lot better - but then, that wouldn't have been what the programme producers wanted.

I cannot recall a previous edition of Question Time where successive members of the audience were allowed to take it in turns to launch into prepared attacks/diatribes on a panel member without admonishment of some form - but then, this was no ordinary Question Time.

The audience was the most ethnically diverse QT audience I can remember seeing - the producers even managed to find a Jewish child, complete with skull cap, to jump in with a Holocaust question..! Hurrah for the farcical pantomime the programme rapidly became.

Whilst it is all very well for the media/commentators to loudly proclaim that the programme 'revealed the BNP for the horrid organisation it really is', that isn't what happened -and isn't true. Nick Griffin was barely given an opportunity to speak without being interrupted or shouted over by the audience or the panel. What was revealed by the programme, though, is that even Jack Straw found himself unable to defend New Labour's track record on immigration..!

Whilst Bonnie Greer was only too keen to try to pick apart the BNP's version of 'what is British', all she really achieved was to show that she absolutely no understanding of why we want to defend what remains of the 'British' way of life and our cultural heritage. She does not even seem to appreciate why we perceive our way of life/heritage to be under attack - which seems ironic for the deputy director of the British Museum(!)

Happily, it seems a fair majority of observers take the view that the BBC/programme-producers skewed the show so as to allow the audience, panel and chairman to gang-up on Griffin - hence demonstrating what appears to be the institutional bias of the BBC and thereby presenting Griffin as a victim. Surprisingly, even the broadsheet newspapers have reported this view, which lends credence to the BNP's position that it has historically been the victim of media bias, hostile reporting, etc.

So, all in all, it does not seem the Question Time appearance has done the party any harm - whereas it has damaged the reputations of those who seek to supress it. In the circumstances it has been grossly unfair for those who have set out to criticise Griffin's performance to do so - he did the best any one could have done in the face of overwhelming hostility.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. It has been widely reported that 22% of people questioned following the programme in a YouGov poll said that they would 'seriously consider' voting BNP in future elections. However representative that may have been, it seems things are heading in the right direction..

BNP membership list leaked 'again'

"Oh no, not again" pretty much sums up my thoughts here. The party says the 'new' list (published on Wikileaks) is a forgery and that a lot of the information it contains is fictitious - but seems to concede that it contains details of some who have made enquiries about membership/the-party-in-general in the run up to the European elections.

The question has to be *how* has the additional information (assuming it is valid) been extracted from the party's records. I had thought that the party would have learnt any necessary security lessons the last time round and could manage to avoid further information falling into the public domain - but apparently not.

It pains me to say it, but I feel let down. The party needs to recognise (and act on the fact) that whilst a lot of people are willing to support it in whatever way they can, it needs to repay the favour by ensuring that their details remain secure.

I'm sure it's not as if the party takes data protection lightly, but if data is still escaping, something still isn't right and it needs to be fixed.

Slight u-turn..

Ah, okay - so it turns out funds *are* an issue and it seems (judging from the emails sent to supporters) the court case is going to be conceded and the party's constitution tweaked. Didn't see it coming - but, to be fair, massaging the membership rules wouldn't do any harm and it makes much more sense to have funds available to contest some general election seats, rather than waste them in trying to delay the inevitable in Court.

The party's current membership policy is too vulnerable to attack on the basis that the people permitted to join, i.e. those descended from 'British' stock (i.e. those whose views the party exists to represent) will most likely be white - which is all too open to being twisted round and positioned as 'whites only'. So, there we go.

Good to hear the BBC are to invite the BNP to take part in a Questiontime programme - long overdue. It has to be said, no matter what you think of his politics, Nick Griffin is a very credible public speaker and more than capable of giving any Labour/Conservative/Liberal cabinet member a run for their money - improved public profile and credibility should be assured.

The Guardian seems quite worried - here - and rightly so. The ludicrousness of Guardian-friendly views on immigration, social cohesion, migrant integration, etc, are due for a pasting..!

Hurray..!

Finally, the Equality & Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has commenced legal proceedings in respect of the BNP's membership policy..!

This can only be good news, as it will expose the sheer hypocrisy of the EHRC (i.e. there are sooo many other organisations they could have gone for, such as the Society of Black Lawyers, the Black Police Association, etc), it will bring huge levels of publicity for the BNP and there's a very good chance the EHRC will be unsuccessful - pretty much win-win, then.

As the EHRC action proceeds, the public will become increasingly educated as to what the BNP stands for and the chances are, that set against the hypocrisy and do-gooding-political-correctness that pervades the EHRC, they may even start to sympathise. This level of publicity would have cost huge amounts of money to buy-in - all this, for free..!

Okay, yes - legal fees will be involved, but the BNP has an army of supporters who will undoubtedly dig into their pockets to assist - and if the BNP successfully defends the action, the chances are that the EHRC will have to reimburse the BNP's costs anyway..!

Gerald Warner's piece here summarises things pretty well. All in all, this should make for an entertaining couple of months..!

Red White & Blue 2009

Predictably enough, the success of this year's event has resulted in an unsurprisingly low level of media coverage - (bar a couple of ugly mugs from the UAF managing to get their faces shown (hopefully for the last time) in the press).

In the absence of anything much else to write about, it seems the Guardian and the Independent have been left desperately scraping the barrel in search of something to say.

So, what we have today (or rather, yesterday) in the Guardian's editorial is the somewhat sweeping/provocative statement that 'the near million who voted for the British National Party in June's Euro-elections are certainly angry and no doubt racist [in some varying degree]..'.

Actually, no. Having a sense of pride in the traditions and culture of this country and accordingly wishing to ensure these are protected from the creeping erosion of multi-culturalism and political correctness does not make me a racist. The Guardian's editorial is just another example of lazily written, politically motivated drivel somehow finding its way into print.

According to Rachel Shields in the Independent, Red White and Blue 2009 'both fascinated and appalled in its apparent normality'. Uhm, 'apparent' normality..? Putting conceptual difficulties re normality to one side, something is either 'normal', or it isn't - what Rachel perhaps meant to say is that she was disappointed the event wasn't less normal.. - or put another way, that she didn't find a bunch of skin-headed blokes teaching others the art of regimented goose-stepping. That, after all, would have made a far better story.

I think it's time that people woke up a little and realised that it is hugely misleading to suggest that all BNP supporters/members are racist/fascist thugs - we are not.

Yet again, all Unite Against Facism and the others have managed to demonstrate this weekend is that they are incapable of conducting themselves in public and that they find it impossible to tolerate views other than their own.

Sooner or later, though, they will find that it is their views that come to be considered unpalatable/incongruous with the mainstream. Sooner or later the lunatic-left (or some religously motivated fanatic, perhaps?) will go too far - and the tide of public opinion will turn.

Fingers crossed this will be sooner than the UAF and other smug, self-righteous, 'self appointed guardians of left wing bollocks' believe.