Of letters pages, sneaky fascists, great films and chubby Griffinites...

As expected, the World Cup has given BNP supporters and their ilk any number of excuses for throwing about some casual racism, from hanging out the flags in a sudden frenzy of hitherto-unexpected patriotism to writing crap like that shown in the image above. Believe it or not, it's a genuine letter to a newspaper (purportedly the Daily Mail, unsurprisingly). Cheers to Anon, who sent us the link.

Wigan Patriot, a BNP-supporting blog, is nothing if not optimistic. According to a breathless article on the apparent competition between Ed Balls and David Cameron over which of them can be more anti-immigration, the writer pants;

'The INDIGENOUS POPULATION are getting angry, slowly but surely and that anger will build into resentment, hatred and rage. And what do you think will happen then? They will flock to us in their MILLIONS.'

Not based on the evidence so far, they won't. Fifty years of pretty steady immigration has seen the BNP with a few thousand members, no MPs and just twenty-eight local government councillors. The 'indigenous population' is hardly flocking to sign up to Porky Griffin's pension scheme. Millions, indeed.

The BNP is nothing if not devious though, and Wigan Patriot has obviously learned his lessons well.

'Get into local housing groups or neighbourhood committees etc now. Get active and involved in any associations which work in parternship with councils and have residents as board members . Use your influence within these groups to get things done. Then we have results to show the electors that we ,BNP, get things done even when not in power'

Interesting idea because they get fuck all done when they're actually councillors and they do nothing worthwhile at parish level (except not turn up for meetings).

The only reason Wigan Idiot (and Griffin) are promoting the idea that BNP members should join independent bodies is that they've realised the futility of trying to elect people on to councils where they either have no idea what's going on or simply don't bother taking part in the decision-making process that they are there for. Barking and Dagenham Council is a fine example. The BNP were handed an ideal opportunity back in 2006 when they won twelve seats on the council but their councillors were so utterly, laughably useless that they lost every single seat in the most embarrassing election failure in decades.

Never seen 'Who Shot the Sheriff?' Now's your chance...

Directed by Alan Miles and featuring the 1978 Rock Against Racism Carnival in East London's Victoria Park, 'Who Shot The Sheriff?' tells the story of one of the most exciting mass movements in British history. The film features interviews and unseen footage from the Rock Against Racism movement of the 1970's including The Clash, X-Ray Spex, The Specials, Misty In Roots, and Sham 69. The documentary tracks the rise of racism and the National Front in Britain during the 70's and shows how a generation, black and white, fought back against the Nazi threat.

Who Shot The Sheriff? PART 1 from Alan Miles on Vimeo.

Who Shot The Sheriff? PART 2 from Alan Miles on Vimeo.

Who Shot The Sheriff? PART 3 from Alan Miles on Vimeo.

Regarding Porky Griffin-lookalike Tom Holmes, who we reported on here, several of our readers have forwarded the replies they have received from TalkTalk and they are, not surprisingly, identical. Here it is;

'Thank you for your email of your yesterday regarding Tom Holmes. We take these allegations seriously and can confirm that the individual concerned is not an employee of TalkTalk Group. The person in question is an employee of a third party acting on our behalf and we¹ve informed this company of the information we¹ve received. TalkTalk Group expects its employees to adhere to our equality policies and we do not tolerate behaviour which is racist or discriminatory.'

It's a good reply and rather more than I expected, to be honest. I'll write back to TalkTalk today to ask them for the name of this third party company, on the grounds that I would like to give them information about Holmes directly, and I'd ask that readers do the same. Let us know how you get on...

Thanks to JS and AB for the heads-up.