Two of the most vital lessons learned by the newer and smaller political party is that campaigning costs money - a great deal of money - and that you should never stand where you don't at least have a realistic chance of winning. Unless of course, you have money to throw away.
Even the larger parties aren't stupid enough to spend what amounts to a small fortune if they know damn well that they're not going to win, and simply put up a token resistance by standing and either not campaigning at all or just doing the minimum amount to avoid accusations of indifference.
In politics, as in life itself, these lessons are learned through experience and by observing what is done by others. Although not by everybody.
Julian Leppert, who stood in the London Mayoral Election in 2004, managed to get only a paltry 3% of the vote, being beaten by the Respect candidate and only missing out on being beaten by the Greens too by around a thousand votes, coming sixth out of ten candidates. This time around, the British National Party has put up the leader of the party's disastrous group on Barking and Dagenham Borough Council, pornmeister Richard Barnbrook.
We discussed the possible reasons behind this peculiar choice
here, where we also speculated on which address he will be using from which to launch his campaign - his real one in Lewisham or the fake one the BNP use as a storeroom for the many thousands of undelivered leaflets they have laying around.
Dicky, who has Sadie Graham looking over his shoulder whenever she isn't buggering about in Croatia, is obviously under a great deal of pressure. His
Dagenham Show disaster and the complete lack of support for his mayoral campaign neatly illustrated by a recent post on Stormfront which stated; ''Most people in the party know that the choice of Richard Barnbrook to take on Red Ken in the London Mayoral election next year is a disaster in the offing...' show both his ineptitude and the level of support he's likely to get from his colleagues in the party, particularly in the Barking and Dagenham group where he's now firmly regarded as a loser.
The most
recent revelations about the BNP's troubles make it plain that nothing is working out financially or in any other way for the party. A much-reported fall in membership and the likelihood of having to bail out such disasters as the fast-collapsing Great White Records are causing havoc with the already late accounts and Nick Griffin's casual dismissal of problems with the finances in a
recent blog post hasn't apparently inspired the membership with confidence - or not the many BNP members who communicate with us, at any rate.
No surpise then that Barnbrook himself, rather than the Leader of the party, is handing round the begging bowl to raise funds for his campaign. Dressed in his smartest suit though looking a bit ragged around the edges (Barnbrook, not the suit), he clumsily and with apparent difficulty reads off the idiot board the outrageous call for £200,000 to be donated for a campaign that the BNP is clearly and easily going to lose. This video, obviously made by a bunch of third-years at the local comprehensive, is about as bland as it's possible for a video to be, but if you really feel the need to inflict it upon yourself (you masochist) you can download it from
here (20MB).
One wonders (again) precisely what the membership fees are meant to pay for. Last year's accounts showed a membership of 6502 - the £200,000 represents membership fees for nearly 6700 and there are still the General and European elections to come - each of which will cost considerably more than a fifth of a million quid. Griffin's ambition to conquer the world and make himself rich in the process may not actually achieve anything except to bankrupt the entire BNP membership. It certainly isn't going to win the London Mayoral Election for the BNP.
[Just to cheer you up in case you're a member of the BNP, here's Mr Fister's presentation of Dicky on a night out. I'm not quite sure how but Dicky looks like he's really enjoying himself]
