Nick Griffin the mortgage broker? Just what precisely IS the BNP now?

What precisely is the BNP? Your guess is as good as ours but now it's rapidly becoming a money-grubbing national joke! First it was secondhand cars, then the fake church and union, then it was life insurance, swiftly followed by double-glazing and skip hire - though that's ignoring all the little bits and pieces on the way like the BNP's invisible though expensive bus and the radio station that never was - and now it has entered the (it hopes) lucrative mortgage market.

The British National Party, rapidly becoming the most financially-inept and patently desperate organisation in the known universe, has branched out into trying to flog you a mortgage for that dream home of yours - or rather to act as it planned to act with Albion Life - to sell you a mortgage via some other company and take a broker's fee for doing nothing except setting up a web site and finding the sucke - customers.

The BNP's new attempted rip-off, the quaintly-named Avocado (thick-skinned, slimy inside and with a heart of stone) Mortgages appears to be working through a company named David Boulton Mortgage Solutions who apparently have an office at 28 West Road, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, CF31 4HD.

Curiously, or perhaps not, this appears to be the same David Boulton of Financial Solutions Unlimited in Bridgend who was associated with the BNP's failed venture into life insurance, the laughably short-lived Albion Life. David Boulton appears to be a busy boy - he's also listed as David Boulton & J. Saunders (Mortgages), Victoria Chambers, 7 Dunraven Place, Bridgend, Vale Of Glamorgan, CF31 1JF, Tel: 01656 664006. Whether this is the same David Boulton is uncertain but it seems unlikely that a smallish place like Bridgend is awash with David Boultons, all involved in mortgages and/or financial advice.

Readers may recall that Albion Life made a very big thing of being involved with the British National Party, clearly hoping that supporters would sign up and leave their insurance to the party when they finally pegged it. Avocado though - obviously having learned a valuable lesson from its predecessor, doesn't mention the BNP at all, which might not actually be fraud as far as the law is concerned, but certainly seems like it.

Once again - following the process it used with Albion Life - the BNP tries to give the impression that it is Avocado who is doing all the work, when in fact it's the real broker, David Boulton (and possibly his business partners Craig Francis and Brian John Howcroft). In a section on the website headed 'Why Avocado?', the party/company gives us this incoherent nonsense;

'Avocado Mortgages can help power charge your finances, releasing equity tied up in your property or help get you on the first rung of the property ladder.

• To treat our customers fairly and with honesty and integrity in a courteous manner at all times.
• To offer our professional yet personal service to our customers in a speedy manner.
• To endeavour to recommend the most suitable lenders and products to satisfy customer needs, using the whole market place.
• To provide our customers with all the relevant information required during the process and to ensure that customers fully understand the information.
• To endeavour to make prompt contact with new clients to start our advice process as soon as possible, ensuring that the client is able to speak to an experienced advisor.'

Which rather gives the impression that it is Avocado doing the business and not someone else entirely.

David Boulton, or at least the David Boulton who was associated with Albion Life and is now associated with Avocado, doesn't seem to be too bothered about what the public thinks of his connections with the British National Party but one wonders about the building societies whose trademarks appear all over the Avocado site without, we suspect, a single permission being asked for, implied or granted. These include the following companies:

Cheltenham and Gloucester
Alliance and Leicester
Portman Building Society
Northern Rock
Abbey
Nationwide
Yorkshire Building Society
Scarborough Building Society
Norwich and Peterborough Building Society
Mutual Matters
Skipton Building Society

Well, we'll have to check that out with their head offices and see what they say. Feel free to find the Head Office address for each of them on the internet and complain with us...

But that's not all. Behind the Avocado Mortgages site, there is another one hiding away, also registered to Steve Blake, the registrant of the BNP site, Avocado, Albion Life, the Skip Hire Registry, the Christian Council of Britain and Brightahomes (double-glazing) - Avocado Finance. One wonders what plans are afoot for this fake company's future.

Quite what the BNP's next money-making venture will be who knows, but what's the betting it will be another one of Nick Griffin's rubbishy get rich quick schemes that'll not only fall at the first hurdle but end up costing the party a fortune, all paid for out of the membership money. Leadership challenges notwithstanding, you do have to wonder how long the membership will keep its patience with this simple-minded buffoon.

(Note: Thanks to Denise, who first spotted Avocado and passed the info along)