Showing posts with label Mirror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mirror. Show all posts

July 28, 2009

BNP leader extends sick pledge to capsize refugee boats

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Griffin talking crap again - and looking even more pig-like than usual
When I came face to face with BNP leader Nick Griffin on his first day at the European Parliament in Strasbourg I thought he might find urgent business elsewhere in the building.

After all, this was a rare occasion when he didn't have burly minders at his side to intimidate interviewers who dare ask awkward questions. And he would have been only too well aware of the Mirror's anti-BNP Hope not Hate campaign in the run-up to the European elections. But, in fairness to Griffin, he was only too happy to air his views on, for example, global warming ("a man-made myth").

I gave him an opportunity to back down on his comment that Europe should sink boats transporting illegal immigrants from the coast of North Africa.

"Do you regret making that statement?" I asked.

True to form Griffin replied that he only had one regret: that he did not extend his murderous scheme to vessels transporting refugees to those in the Adriatic and Atlantic. It was exactly the kind of nakedly racist response that makes it impossible to take seriously the BNP's claims to being proper politicial contenders.

I would bet that Griffin would not have considered Save The Children's recent report into the condition of youngsters trying to get from Libya into Italy. Had he done so he would notice that most of the children on the barely seaworthy boats being turned back from Europe have fled war in countries like Somalia and Eritrea.

As Fosca Nomis, spokesperson for Save the Children, said: "Many of the children on the boats from Libya had been forced to travel thousands of miles, often alone, to escape conflict and poverty in countries such as Somalia, Eritrea and Nigeria. In ten months we received over 2,000 children entitled to receive protection in Italy. They were often exhausted, hungry, severely dehydrated and terrified after the journey. Many children have recounted harrowing stories, of rape and of having to see dead family members thrown out of the boat.

"Many of the child migrants had been locked up in adult detention centres before boarding the boats for Italy, and we are afraid they may be returned there when they arrive in Libya. Conditions are notoriously bad. Human rights organisations have persistently reported allegations of torture and ill-treatment at the centres in a country which has not signed the Geneva Refugee Convention."

This is the kind of inconvenient truth that gets in the way of Griffin's deliberately controversial - but totally hollow - soundbites.

Mirror

June 21, 2009

BNP fan: Give Iron Cross to refugee-hater

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British National Party supporters cheered for one of their candidates to be awarded a Nazi military medal at a Euro election after-party.

A member of the crowd made the call after learning that Charlotte Lewis had travelled to Calais to lead a protest against the refugee camp there, taking placards reading "Britain's full up" and "Asylum seekers don't unpack, you're going back". The ex-jailbird was telling the meeting about her exploits when a supporter shouted she should be given an Iron Cross - strongly associated with the Nazis and an emblem of the German army during World War Two.

Undercover Sunday Mirror investigators infiltrated the event on Thursday night in the back room of a pub in Dagenham, East London.

London Assembly member and local councillor Richard Barnbrook appeared briefly at the event, billed as a celebration of the party's "success" in the Euro election where they won two seats. But the evening turned into nothing more than another opportunity for activists to express racist views. Bob Bailey, 43, a BNP councillor in Barking and Dagenham, gave two talks at the event, with Lewis - a candidate for Waddon, South London - giving a third.

Although the BNP, led by new Euro MP Nick Griffin, have tried to reinvent themselves as a serious political party, it soon became clear that many party members still harbour extremely offensive views. Lewis - who was jailed for six months in 2001 for making death threats against workers at a drugs company - made no effort to hide her contempt for immigrants.

Talking about her trip to Calais, she said: "The invaders are dangerous and they are not people we want in England or Europe or anywhere in the civilised world." She claimed they "swaggered" around Calais before recounting a story about her Afghan neighbour. She said: "The Afghan who lives in the flat above me... well, I say that, he hasn't been seen for two weeks, so I'm hoping him, Fatima and the brat have moved out." After a pause, and to raucous laughter, she added: "I don't think they could take any more of my penchant for playing heavy metal music at 1am. It's wishful thinking that they have gone back to Afghanistan, but it's more than likely they have been allocated one of numerous brand-new housing association flats in the area."

Lewis then described people who work in soup kitchens to provide food for refugees as "idiotic dim-witted liberals". It was after this that Bailey made his ridiculous pledge to give Lewis a medal if the BNP get into government.

Sipping a pint, he said: "Under the BNP people like Charlotte would get a medal... there is no doubt." Someone in the crowd then shouted out "the Iron Cross". The German medal is closely associated with the Nazis - Hitler reintroduced it and added a swastika.

Bailey then went into an antiMuslim rant. He said: "We do not need Islam in Europe and we do not need it in the UK. In London we know the stark realities of Islam more than anywhere else. They bomb buses, they bomb trains, they have created terror here."

Bnp spokesman Simon Darby said yesterday: "It was a joke. People in this country are famous for their sense of humour. We are quite open that we don't regard the mass importation of Afghans and replacement of the native population as a good thing."

Mirror

May 30, 2009

BNP boss Nick Griffin's racist rant against boxer Amir Khan

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Nick Griffin believes people like boxing star like Amir Khan should be encouraged to leave Britain.

His BNP party wants to create firm incentives for non-white Britons to leave their homeland, but he dismissed claims that Britain would lose talent. He said of Khan: "Perhaps we will lose one good boxer, but there are more important things."

Griffin spoke out at the launch of the party's manifesto in Manchester where he is their top candidate for a seat in the region for the European elections.

Yesterday the people of Oldham flocked to support the Mirror's Hope Not Hate bus. In 2001, race riots in Oldham shocked the country and the BNP see it as a fertile ground to spread hate and garner support.

Student Stephen Kennedy, 18, from Springhead, Oldham, remembers the race riots. He said: "There were burnt out cars in streets and it was a scary place to be. The BNP would just drag us back to those dark days."

Today the Daily Mirror bus is backstage at Stoke's Love Music Hate Racism Festival from 10am.

Mirror

May 08, 2009

Doctor Dicky blames Africa for swine flu

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Dear old Dicky Barnbrook. As drunken buffoons go he's not so bad, even if he is a racist twat, and, if nothing else, he gives us all a laugh every now and again. In fact, sometimes he excels even himself, taking idiocy to a whole new level. As he did yesterday.

The Mirror reports that Doctor Dicky has made it his business to investigate the origins of the current swine flu pandemic - no doubt using the well-equipped laboratories and highly-qualified medical personnel at the BNP's disposal - and has come to the conclusion that the illness could well originate from 'the countries of Africa', not Mexico as all other medical experts around the world have stated after examining all the evidence.

Consequently, pornmeister Dicky is calling for half-hour medicals on all foreigners who arrive in Britain and cough, sneeze or have a runny nose, and suggests that all schools should close for two weeks. Oh yes, and that all councils turn off their air-conditioning.

This is not the first time that Doctor Dicky has taken on the medical establishment. A couple of years ago, he claimed that his bout of tuberculosis, contracted on a visit to Turkey, was actually caused by immigrants, backing up this claim by stating that TB had been eradicated in the UK 'donkey's years ago'.

This insane (and completely untrue) claim was pooh-poohed by Paul Sommerfeld of the charity TB Alert, who pointed out that tuberculosis had more to do with poverty and living conditions than country of origin.

He said: 'It is clear TB is endemic to the UK...one of the biggest issues is the distinction between infection and active disease - many more people are infected than develop it because it is dealt with by their immune system. When their immune system is lowered they get the active disease - and that could be 50 years later. They could have actually become infected in the 40s or 50s when the disease was very, very common. The majority of recent immigrants who get TB tend to have been here upwards of two years. That suggests they did not have raging TB when they arrived but it is the conditions in Britain which led them to develop it. They could be living in poor, overcrowded conditions where their chances of catching TB are much higher. It is a disease of the poor rather than a disease of immigrants'.

There are two key facts that Dicky chose to ignore when attempting to attack immigrants for TB;
  • Tuberculosis was NEVER wiped out in Britain, despite doctors finding an antibiotics cure more than 50 years ago.
  • Cases here have NEVER fallen below 5,000 a year. Half of all TB diagnosed is in British people that were born in the UK.
Whether the Dicky and the BNP like it or not, swine flu appears to have originated in Mexico and its spread to other countries appears to have been via those returning from Mexico, not 'the countries of Africa'.

Which all goes to show that dumbass Dicky is perfect for the BNP - he'll never let the facts get in the way of passing the buck on to immigrants. Or as a spokesman for Searchlight put it; 'Only the BNP would try to hijack a global pandemic in an effort to promote their agenda of division and hate'.

April 24, 2008

Emmerdale cast backs Hope Not Hate campaign

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The Mirror's Hope not Hate bus celebrated St George's Day with the Emmerdale cast yesterday.

Lisa and Zak Dingle - played by Jane Cox and Steve Halliwell - welcomed the campaign on its final day in the North of England.

Jane said: "It's really important people realise we're in this together. We have to make this the best place for everybody. You can't go picking on people because of their race or religion or because they're a refugee. That's not the way forward."

Sammy Winward, who plays pregnant Katie Sudgen, agreed: "There are lots of tough communities where people have problems. But it's about how you deal with those problems. I believe in hope rather than hate."

James Baxter, young Jake Doland in the soap, and Chris Chittell, Eric Pollard, also broke off from filming in Leeds to support the campaign. "We all need to row in the same direction," said Chris, who has just run the London Marathon. James added: "We're all the same, no matter what you look like."

On its last day in Yorkshire, the Leeds Metropolitan university brass band joined our 1969 Bristol Lodekker bus in the city centre, playing to lunchtime shoppers. Today the bus arrives in the South East, spending its final week touring London, Essex and Kent. Travelling through different communities, visiting places from mosques to cathedrals, inner city estates to villages, its message is simple - a modern, diverse Britain is something we can be proud of.

The bus will visit the set of The Bill today as well as the stars of the Apprentice. Tomorrow the campaign meets the cast of Dancing on Ice. To watch the journey as a series of three-minute films, go to www.mirror.co.uk/hopenothate

Daily Mirror

April 02, 2007

Hope not hate Update: Stop the race hate

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The Sugababes on the bus of hope

The Sugababes broke away from their sell-out tour at the weekend to back the Daily Mirror Hope not Hate anti-racism bus campaign. The night before performing at Coleen McLoughlin's 21st birthday party in Cheshire the girls boarded the bus backstage at Birmingham's NEC.

Amelle Berrabah, the newest member of the group, said: "We were all always brought up by our parents not to judge people by their religion or the colour of their skin."

As a mixed-race band the girls are a great example of a modern multi-cultural Britain. Keisha Buchanan added: "To discriminate against someone because of the colour of their skin is completely unacceptable. There's enough hate in this world."

The bus was in the Midlands and the Potteries all weekend, visiting the NEC, Birmingham City Centre, Dudley and Stoke-on-Trent on its journey from London to Glasgow. Yesterday a special Hope not Hate action day was held at West Bromwich African-Caribbean Centre with food stalls, steel bands and a guest appearance by singer-song-writer Billy Bragg.

Local boys UB40 also lent their support to the campaign. The band, formed in Moseley, in 1978, still have the original eight-man line-up. They were one of Britain's first multi-cultural bands and represent a wide ethnic mix - Yemeni, Welsh, Scottish, West Indian and Irish. UB40 vocalist Astro said: "I've experienced racism - more so when I was a teenager. You kind of expected it."

But he warned: "In some respects it's better these days but years ago everyone used to mix in together, which was good. Nowadays everyone has become insular. Jamaicans won't go out of Jamaican areas, Asians are sticking with the Asians. There are no-go areas now. From that respect it's got worse and it worries me."

Mirror

...and from Ros Wynne-Jones' blog

On to Stoke...

Saturday morning - it turns out there's no more racism in Britain and we can all go home!!!Oh, April Fool...

The bus went to Stoke today for a children's fun day. I spent most of the day hiding from oversize vehicles, planning for next week, answering emails and getting some washing done.

Two things:

1) who should I see in the lift at the hotel but two freshly scrubbed Sugababes in fluffy dressing gowns, showercaps and no makeup, on the way up from the spa downstairs.... (We stayed posh on Saturday to cheer ourselves up). "How embarrassing," mutters Keisha, hiding behind her hands. In flat spa slippers, the Babes are miniscule. They were still nice enough to wish us well with the bus though... And they were getting ready for Colleen McLoughlin's 21st birthday bash. Now that's going to be a party - like three series of Footballers' Wives rolled into one episode of Shameless as photographed by Hello...

2) On Friday night we had a bus night out in West Bromwich. Nick Lowles, the man without whom this trip would never have happened, had told us about a fantastic Sikh pub on the high street. None of us had ever been to a Sikh pub, and in the interests of exploring Britain's cultural diversity (and scoring a couple of pints of Guinness) it was an irresistable proposition...

We got there late (we get everywhere late) and the pub looked a bit dodgy from the outside, but inside it was rocking with Guinness-soaked Sikhs on a Friday night out. Better still, there was a hatch at the back where you could order every type of curry, kind of like Christmas and birthday rolled into one....

Hero of the day: Chefs at the back of the Sportsman pub in West Bromwich

Observation of the day: You think people are different and then you go into a Sikh pub and you find everyone's the same.

Quote of the day: "The biggest arsehole in two shoes..." (Another Forest of Deanism from Tony the driver)

Smell of the day: Freshly scrubbed Sugababe..

Tune of the day: Anything by Robbie Williams (not current album), as the bus visited his home pub, the Red Lion, in Stoke...

Mirror

Hope not Hate update: Day eight

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This weekend was always going to be some of our important days of the campaign. Across the country activists were distributing anti-BNP literature. From Bradford to Luton, Burnley to Lincoln, hundreds of people were out.

Arguably the two biggest challenges we face in the forthcoming elections are in Sandwell and Stoke-on-Trent, where the BNP averaged 33% and 30% of the votes in the seats they contested in 2006. It was because of days of actions in these two areas that the Hope not Hate bus has taken a less than direct route from London to Scotland. Having travelled up to Sheffield and then across to Manchester and Liverpool we then headed back south to the West Midlands.

It almost got worse. The Dancing on Ice stars were supposed to join the bus in Birmingham but for reasons beyond our control this was not possible. An alternative date was given for the Saturday. So, as we left Birmingham on the Friday night we thought the plan was to go to Stoke-on-Trent and then head back south to Birmingham and then Sandwell before continuing the journey north. This plan was certainly testing the patience of our normally relaxed and accommodating driver. Fortunately another cancellation from the Dancing on Ice stars meant we reverted to our orginial plan which was to spend a day in Stoke-on-Trent.

A changeover of Mirror photographer and Ros having a day off meant that it was a slightly depleted team that headed off that morning. Our first stop was to Stoke City's Britannia Stadium where we met former Stoke player Terry Conway and Irish author Don Mullin. The pair had been drawn together by the legendary Gordon Banks. Terry was part of the 1972 FA Cup winning team alongside Banks, while Don is just written a biography of the man he describes as his hero.

Back onto the A50 we headed into Coalville, a former mining area which has fallen on hard times in recent years. We were later to learn that the area once had the nickname of the 'United Nations' due to the workers who moved into the area to work down the pits from across Britain and Eastern Europe. Anyway, today we were attending a Hope not Hate anti-racist fun day organised by the local Kids Zone project. Over 200 children and young people attended at some stage during the day. They were treated to a host of great activities, from a DJ school to a rodeo, face painting to a steel band.

A couple of miles away more serious activity was taking place. Almost 100 people came out for the Stoke-on-Trent day of action organised by local anti-BNP group NorSCARF and Searchlight. Over 10,000 copies of the Searchlight newspaper were distributed during the day, with most of the work concentrating on the BNP heartland in Stoke South. The day was rounded off by a performance a steel band and Billy Bragg, who had generously given his weekend to the campaign.

Stoke-on-Trent has been a major BNP target for several years and campaigning against them has taken its toll on many activitists during that period. However, the success of today has given new and seasoned campaigners a renewed lease of energy which they are determined to make the most of over the next few weeks.

The Watson household in West Bromwich East provided the evening's entertainment, which given the excesses of much of the tour was a welcome respite.

Hope not Hate

March 30, 2007

Hope not Hate blog: Football healing Oldham's divisions

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What a privilege to see Manchester in sunshine! A really beautiful day - great washes of sun across a bright blue sky as we headed up to the Oldham Athletic stadium at Boundary Park early this morning.

We were met by dozens of kids from a local primary school who are taking part in a special Football in the Community project and took a stadium tour with them.

Oldham's problems with racial tensions have been well covered and don't need re-hashing here, but these were a group of children from all different ethnic backgrounds, and the guy running the project, James Mwale, explained that football was a brilliant way to get different messages across.

If kids play together in teams they tend to stop noticing each others' skin colour, and once they get to know young people from other backgrounds they realise what they have in common. It challenges their ideas (or more importantly their parents' ideas). Their school is in an area where substantial numbers of votes go to the BNP in local elections which is why this work is so important. A couple of the kids said they had experienced racist bullying, but said the project was helping them to integrate with the other kids.

Anyway, the kids loved the stadium tour, and even the Man City and United supporters enjoyed meeting Oldham Athletic Centreback Neil Trottman - an FA cup goalscorer no less...!

It was fascinating to see what a football club looks like behind the scenes, the kitchens and TV rooms and a faint whiff of Eighties' aftershave lingering in the air.

After Oldham I wanted to go to Bernard Manning's Embassy Club with the loudhailer, but we were short of time and had to get right across Manchester to Salford by 11.45 to meet champion boxer and Olympic silver medallist Amir Khan at the gym he trains at. It was a much bigger gym than yesterday's and the air was thick with fresh sweat, deep heat and adrenaline. There's something good about boxing gyms though, and I think it's the contrast to posey sort of London healthclubs, which are all lycra bodysuits, blonde wood and hairdryers. These were men and women in ordinary unfancy kit sweating their guts out on battered equipment.

Amir's workout was phenomenal: the skipping alone deserved an Olympic medal. His concentration was absolute and his feet seemed to bounce in perfect time like a metronome. He has an amazing manner about him, a very direct honesty. He leapt up into the driver's cab of the bus and signed our Hope not Hate flag and spoke brilliantly to our film crew about why racism made no sense. Even racists must have cheered when he won that silver medal. He's a one-man pint-sized retort to bigotry.

After Amir, we screeched off (well crawled) to Granada Studios, home of Coronation Street, where the bus was honoured to receive such luminaries as Hayley Cropper (Julie Hesmondhalgh), Kelly Crabtree (Tupele Dorgu) and Jerrry Morton (Michael Starke, or, frankly, Sinbad), household favourites one and all.

Each person spoke movingly and articulately about racism, about standing up for what you believe is right. As Tony the driver said: "Who needs a script if you can talk like that?"

Brilliant end to a top day out - thank you Manchester!

Hero of the day: Amir Khan. Beautiful boy, beautiful soul, astonishing ambassador for Britain.

Observation of the day: Among anti-racists it seems the rule is that every third man must have a beard.

Beard of the day: We're not sure if it was a beard or a cat.

Revelation of the day: The Corrie stars.... soapstars should get on their soapbox more often instead of those endless bloody clipshows of the world's 7,000 worst cop shows....

Smell of the day: Deep heat at Amir Khan's gym in Salford. It was as if the walls were drenched in it.

Tune of the day: Theme from Corrie... altogether now... "duuuh, duh, duh, duh-duh, duuuuur..."

Mirror

March 26, 2007

Hope not Hate blog update

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The Daily Mirror Hope Not Hate bus launched today, kicking off our campaign aimed at spreading goodwill ahead of the May elections, on a journey from London to Glasgow that will cover 1600 miles and many different communities in the UK.

It was a bright cold day, and the bus was unmissable, parked up on a South London pavement by the market at Merton Abbey Mills. It had arrived from Wales that morning and it was the first time we had seen it in its red and yellow livery and experienced the reactions it gets. Lots of thumbs ups, waves and cheers, people at bus stops looking a bit puzzled because they're expecting the 38 not the Hope not Hate. The very occasional v-sign from people who don't like the idea of hope (what kind of person hates hope?).

We'll be spending 15 days on the bus in total, travelling from London to Glasgow in a strange curly scribble of a route that takes in all the communities who wanted to organise something for our fortnight celebrating the diverse and tolerant country in which we live. Our itinerary is still quite sketchy at this stage, but the route takes in Dagenham & Thurrock, Northampton & Leicester, Nottingham & Lincoln and Sheffield before we even get to Tuesday.

We're all really looking forward to visiting the different communities along the way. The celebrity support we've had so far has been overwhelming, but it's the real people we want to see. There's so much planned - from colliery brass bands to Welsh male voice choirs to school events and food festivals - that will be a real privilege to see.

It's not often you get the chance to take a journey like this, especially not on a 1964 Leyland Titan double decker. We realised today that it's going to be very cold, as there's no heating on the bus, and very slow (top speed 38mph and that's downhill with a favourable wind), and the bus lurches like a drunk on the top deck. But it's also going to be a fascinating insight into what makes up modern Britain.

We were all shocked today by the reaction of the BNP to the trip, which is aimed at nothing more earth-shattering or radical than celebrating the diverse country we all live in and see outside our windows and on our televisions every day.

There were quite a few phonecalls yesterday when a special eight page supplement launched the campaign, making offensive - and frankly factually wrong - comments about non-white communities and complaining about the "evil" Nelson Mandela.

Then today the BNP's official website took issue with our campaign and a piece I wrote for the supplement: "Clearly the writer has never stepped out of his or her ivory tower into the ghettos of Tower Hamlets, the killing fields of south London where various tribes of African descent are wagging (sic) war with one another, the no go areas for native Britons in Birmingham, Peterborough and Glasgow."

The thing is, I live in the 'Killing Fields' of South London and I love where I live. Part of the reason I love my street is that it is filled with different vibrant cultures. And I am far more concerned by what I've read on the BNP website today than by any of my neighbours.

I've also reported many times from the scene of all kinds of gun deaths and urban tragedies across Britain, and I can tell you that poverty is the defining factor here, not race. Poverty afflicts immigrant communities and white communities the same, and its presence is writ large over every gun death and knife death and drug death I've seen in the UK. Clapham North where a 15-year-old schoolboy was killed in cold blood last month is not 'no-go', but an affluent middle class area with pockets of poverty. His parents were decent working people whose son was trying to break free of a culture of criminality that afflicts people of all races who live in poverty.

The last time I went to a 'no-go' estate, in Glasgow, it was to cover the story of a white child in a predominantly white school collapsing from sniffing heroin at her desk. That tragedy was rooted in poverty too.

Anyway, I'm partly acknowledging this reaction as I expect this blog to attract the attentions of some of the same people who rang the paper yesterday, and I wanted to warn genuine readers that some of the comments posted below may well be by people with extreme views.

Mostly I'm shocked that the BNP are so blatant. I thought they went round knocking on people's doors pretending to be a mainstream political party these days?

Funniest moment of the day: Finding two European tourists on the bus taking photos of each other and presumably hoping to be driven to Hope, the destination on the front of the bus.

Best moment of the day: Meeting the cast of Rafta Rafta at the National Theatre who came out to support us in the rain by the Thames.

Song of the day: The wheels on the bus go round and round.

Weather: Wintery

Multicultural event of the day: Mr Singh who called to say he was wearing his special St George's red and white turban in honour of our campaign.

Mirror

Hope not Hate: Bill aboard!

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Hope not Hate 2007: Sun Hill and Eastenders stars on the Mirror's anti-racism battlebus

The stars have been turning out to back the Daily Mirror Hope Not Hate bus as it continued its journey around Britain. Cast from The Bill stood on the open top and waved to crowds when the anti-racism battlebus arrived at an estate where they were filming.

Roberta Taylor, who plays Inspector Gina Gold, said: "We're really proud to support the Hope not Hate campaign if it helps spread the message across the country. Racism is caused by a culture of ignorance and is totally outdated."

Andrew Lancel, Det Insp Neil Manson in the show, added: "There's absolutely no excuse for racism in this day and age."

Bill colleagues John Bowler and Daniel Flynn, who play PC Roger Valentine and Supt John Heaton also added messages of support at the scene in Merton, South London.

The bus began its round-Britain journey from London to Scotland on Friday - launching an anti-racism fortnight that runs until Easter. It visited communities in London, Essex and Northampton. Yesterday it arrived in Leicester's golden mile, renowned for its Indian restaurants.

EastEnders star Petra Letang, who plays Naomi Julien, boarded the bus and said: "This campaign is very close to my heart. We have to make a difference for the young people coming up. I grew up in East London and I'm proud to be from here."

Hope not Hate is aimed at spreading a message of goodwill in the build-up to the local elections in May - www.mirror.co.uk/hopenothate. The 1964 Leyland Titan bus, emblazoned with the Hope not Hate message, has been welcomed everywhere.

Former boxing champ Lloyd Honeyghan met it in Dagenham, Essex. He told the crowds: "We should deal in love not hate. There's only one race, and that's the human race."

MP Andrew Mackinlay said: "Community relations owe a great to deal to the Mirror for this campaign. It's allowing local people to make a powerful stand against racism."

Messages of support have come in from celebrities including Corinne Bailey Rae, Goldie Lookin Chain, the Sugababes, Sir Alan Sugar, Beverley Knight, Just Jack, Shilpa Shetty, and Brian Harvey. Singer Ms Dynamite added: "Racism is about greed, money and fear."

Mirror