Bring back the Doc - all is forgiven

Just prior to the most recent local government elections back in May, Nick Griffin issued a royal decree that those blogs that were not directly approved by the party should cease posting, presumably in case somebody (probably Green Arrow) said something particularly stupid that could harm the party's chances.

This temporary proscription was, of course, never placed on Tommy Williams' appalling blog because Griffin makes use of it to attack his enemies, as we have seen here and here.

Once the election was over and the stagnation of the BNP had become apparent, Griffin lifted his decree, thus allowing the current free for all where any BNP member with internet access can set up a blog and talk utter rubbish in the name of the party. This has led to an explosion in pro-BNP blogs, most of which are toe-curlingly bad. Far worse though, are the blogs that have been started - some very recently - by those the party regards as the elite, and the most elite of that bunch is, depressingly, the party's deputy-leader and National Press Officer Simon Darby.

Darby, a well-known twitcher (or birdwatcher, to us mere mortals) has the habit of filling his blog posts with a mixture of drivel about how wonderful the BNP is, which birds are popping their heads up at any given moment, sport, his household chores and, bizarrely, big cat crap.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Yesterday, those of us stupid enough to bother ventured over to his blog page only to be confronted with a post about redwings, rugby, Jean-Marie LePen, some tosh about Gordon Brown and an enormous picture of some 'possible' big cat droppings found 'not more than half an hours drive from [his] doorstep'. You'd think the deputy-leader of what he would like us to believe is the fastest-growing political party ever would have better things to do than show us pictures of cat crap from about thirty miles past his front door.

Strangely, this apparently random meandering through Darby's brain seems not to have endeared him to the BNP membership. Quite the opposite in fact. We're informed that several BNP members are pleading with anyone who will listen for the return of the former Press Officer Dr. Phil Edwards (or Stuart Russell, his real name). Even though he was frequently sloshed shortly after opening time and was often extremely rude to those newspapers who he felt had angered or misrepresented him, he did at least blog about the party and its politics occasionally. With him, we got an awful lot of bullshit but, thankfully, no cat crap.

The last three months in the BNP

From our mate, Irish Tony. Want to see more of his YouTube clips? Click here. Enjoy...

Updated: BNP's Press Officer resigns...

According to a post on the BNP's own website, Phil Edwards, the party's former National Press Officer has voluntarily retired to 'devote more time to his passion of playing the piano' and 'continuing to delight thousands...with his acclaimed and popular firework display business'. His own website, Doc's Diary, states that 'I resign my position of National Press Officer for the BNP', and a rather tired-sounding poster on the Stormfront nazi forum says 'The Doc gets the boot'. Take your pick.

The confusion around Edward's relinquishing of his post extends into other areas of his story. For instance, precisely how long has he been a member of the BNP? Seven years ago he told one of our colleagues he was a former Tory and that he had been in the party for around eight years, a total of fifteen years to now. But in May he was telling callers he had been in the BNP for only eight years. There are also various claims that he has a PhD, two degrees or a single degree (all usually claimed to be in chemistry or something closely allied to it) though those who have taken the time to dig have found no hard evidence of any of these.

What is beyond doubt is that he has been responsible for a couple of nice little PR disasters, not the least of which was the bizarre libel in which he accused an East Midlands GP and former Mayor of selling drugs for sex to woman patients. Whilst all the facts about the real culprit had been well covered in the press he bad-mouthed the wrong man and was forced to make a grovelling apology.

Last year it was revealed that in a recording of a conversation with a student, he stated 'When you go to work and you pay taxes, imagine paying all that tax to give money to single parents in London who have got three or four black kids. The black kids are going to grow up dysfunctional, low IQ, low-achievers that drain our welfare benefits and the prison system and probably go and mug you.'

Not content with that stupidity, he followed it up as news emerged back at the end of July that former BNP council candidate Robert Cottage had been jailed for two and a half years for stockpiling explosives at his house in Colne, with this little gem, 'We never have anyone in the party with criminal convictions'. Obviously it had escaped his notice that the leader of the BNP Nick Griffin has a criminal record of his own.

Edwards has something of a reputation with journalists. One, who met up with him once at a pub sometime before midday, said he was already mildly sloshed and had three or four mobiles which he was answering in turn. When he got sick of the calls, he called the journalist ringing him a cunt and cut him off. He also had a run in with an editor of an East Anglian newspaper. When the editor addressed him as Dr Russell (his real name's Stuart Russell) instead of his alias, he went bananas and told him 'wait until we are in power we will sort you, cunt'.

Whenever there is controversy or a dodgy 'resignation' in the BNP, there is a back-story that the party always tries desperately to conceal, knowing that its revelation would be yet another embarrassment to the party but the comments to this post may hold a clue to the real story. One of our commentors states: 'Doc Edwards left because he had enough of the endless stream of abuse from two Yorkshire based spiteful individuals towards his wife Wendy. Its got a 2 year history...the 'Doc' was a strong supporter of Griffin but even Griffin's (half hearted) intervention was not enough to quell the troublesome stirrer. Anyone getting on the wrong side of you know who and his tiny clique always end up falling on their sword or getting the chop.' Griffin's 'clique' was identified as Mark Collett, Dave Hannam, John Walker and Martin Reynolds, all of whom, it is claimed, are regular contributors to the appalling Covert blog, run by thuggish Griffin-supporter and known drug-dealer Tommy Williams. More information on this aspect of the story would certainly be appreciated.

We'll leave the last word with one of our anti-fascist colleagues, who said last night; 'I for one will miss him. He is such a real example of the BNP's extremism.'

Vicar backs bid to drive BNP's annual bash from the county

A vicar has called for opposition to British National Party plans to hold its annual festival in Derbyshire for the next two years.

The BNP held Red, White and Blue, near Denby, in July, and wants to hold it there again next year and in 2009. But the Rev Ken Horleston, vicar for St Clement's Church in Horsley, said he believed the festival was bad for Amber Valley. He said he felt guilty for not doing more to stop this year's event and had the backing of the area's other vicars in saying Christians should not support the party.

Mr Horleston, 57, said: "As far as my guilt is concerned, I did nothing to try and stop the Denby event taking place but now wish to make my opposition clear. If Red, White and Blue becomes an annual event I would like to think that not only I but others from the local area would let our voices of objection be heard."

He said the BNP's views on race and immigration went against the view, which was central to Christianity, that people should love one another. The party stands for, among other things, an immediate end to immigration to the UK and the repatriation of Britain's non-whites to their countries of origin.

Mr Horleston said: "The bible calls on people to 'love thy neighbour' but the BNP's views are in violation of this. A person cannot be a practising Christian and vote for the BNP."

The Rev Karen Padley, of All Saints' Church, Marlpool, agreed with Mr Horleston and said she raised objections to Amber Valley Borough Council about this year's festival. She said: "I don't want to see Red, White and Blue held in Derbyshire. I raised objections with the borough council about this year's event because I felt it would be harmful to community spirit. Ethnic minorities in Amber Valley suffer from racism and events like Red, White and Blue only make it worse."

The national press officer for the BNP, Dr Phil Edwards, said vicars should not get involved in politics but Mr Padley maintained it was not unusual for them to do so.

Ms Padley, 39, said: "Throughout history, Christians have been involved in politics when they felt it was right to be so. We were involved in the abolition of the slave trade and, recently, supported the Debt Aid campaign."

Dr Edwards also accused the vicars of contradicting their own beliefs. He said: "The vicars have lost their way. The Bible says that God scattered the nations throughout the world in their own regions. By suggesting multi-racial societies they are going against God's will."

He said that opposition from the church would not stop the BNP holding Red, White and Blue near Denby next year.

Derbyshire Evening Telegraph

Facebook dumped over BNP links

Vodafone and First Direct have pulled advertising from Facebook to stop their brands appearing near British National Party details. Their adverts were among several which flashed up on a rotating basis on the same page as the right-wing group. Advertisers cannot control where on Facebook their brands appear.

Vodafone wants to carry on working with the social networking site while "staying true" to its policies, a spokeswoman said. The two advertisers were alerted to their brands' proximity to BNP information on Facebook by New Media Age magazine. A Vodafone spokeswoman said the mobile phone firm bought bundles of advertising space across a number of websites.

"As a result we were not aware that a Vodafone advertisement would appear next to a British National Party group on Facebook," she said "Our public policy principles state that we do not make political donations or support particular party political interests and therefore to avoid misunderstandings we immediately withdrew our advertising as soon as this was brought to our attention."

Vodafone is working with its media buyer to ensure more "robust controls" are in place before it re-invests, she added. First Direct spokesman Rob Skinner said: "We are obviously concerned about where our advertising appears. We have got to make sure that the places we advertise are consistent with our own values and identity."

The BNP has its own page in Facebook's political organisations section.

New Media Age editor Justin Pearse said: "On the internet you often have little control of where your ads are shown, something that's been highlighted by the unwitting association of some of the UK's favourite brands with a highly controversial political cause."

The BNP's Facebook page contains a link to its own website and an introductory paragraph which says the group exists: ".. to secure a future for the indigenous peoples of these islands in the North Atlantic which have been our homeland for millennia."

BNP spokesman Phill Edwards said: "There is no reason at all why anyone should avoid the BNP. There's nothing wrong with the BNP. Unfortunately the media have created a bogeyman and really the fault lies with the media, who for some reason have vilified the BNP, and it has scared these people off."

Metro

BNP paper delivery sparks target fears

A far-right political party delivered its newspapers to residents in East Grinstead last week, leading to fears it could be targeting the town.

The party's newspaper, The Voice of Freedom, was dropped in letterboxes along West Street, and a spokesman claimed they had been invited by residents. Mr Rick Louis, a salesman who lives in the road, said he had been annoyed by having it delivered to his home as he would be the last person to be interested.

He said: "This area has never been like that because I have been here for 10 years. They have obviously been targeting this area. My daughter goes to school here and it worried me that they are dropping this stuff through letter boxes. What they do is hide behind this sort of thing. They just come out with total bigotry."

Mr Louis added that he had spoken to other residents in the road and they had expressed similar views on the newspaper.

"I asked my neighbours if they had received it and they said it was one to just put in the bin straightaway. I know everyone has got their opinions and everything but I think it is a bit blatant to just put it through people's letterboxes"

The newspaper, which is normally sold for 60p, details party policies such as funding "generous" schemes to return immigrants to their land of ethnic origin.

Dr Phill Edwards, the party's national press officer, said: "We are a political party which responds to requests from the public so if they ask for our presence we will come."

Dr Edwards said residents should be happy they did not have to pay for the publication.

"Well, they are very lucky aren't they? They are very fortunate to get a free copy. I wish they'd give me a free newspaper. You in the media have misrepresented the BNP, so it's no surprise that people would misunderstand what we are on about. We conduct our affairs in exactly the same way as any of the other parties do. There's something deep-seated in people's minds about the BNP. It's wicked and it's shameful. We get a lot of black people voting for the BNP."

Kent and Sussex Courier

Tory chief faces rap over BNP blog blast

The Assembly’s Tory leader is being investigated over an attack he made on the British National Party.

Nick Bourne, Mid and West Wales AM, described the right-wing party as a “nasty, mean, distasteful and grubby bunch of sub-human flotsam and jetsam” in an article on his personal blog. The piece in February attracted more than 180 complaints to the Assembly under the rules governing the code of conduct of AMs.

The standards committee is expected to consider a report of an initial inquiry by the standards commissioner Richard Penn next week. The committee can recommend either no breach, that a breach is trivial and no action should be taken or that the AM should be excluded from Assembly proceedings for a specified time.

Mr Bourne stuck by his words this weekend, saying: “I have no intention of withdrawing any of the comments I made about the British National Party and its membership. Nor will I apologise for making them. The BNP is a divisive, dangerous organisation which exists to spread fear, hatred and bigotry. There is no place in a civilised society for their views and people from all political parties and none should stand together against them.”

The complaints against Mr Bourne are the among the first to be considered by the committee since the polls.

Phil Edwards, a spokesman for the BNP, said: “I think he should be put in the stocks, and tarred and feathered and driven out of town.”

icWales

Bid to halt BNP festival

A campaign has been launched in a Derbyshire village to stop a British National Party festival which is expected to attract thousands of the group's supporters. RWB, or Red, White and Blue, is scheduled to take place on the weekend of August 4 and 5 in Denby. But people living near the Codnor Denby Lane site fear the event could cause havoc.

John Lumsden, who lives opposite one of the fields to be used by festival-goers, is involved in a petition to get it cancelled. He said: "Everyone I have spoken to in the area, not just Denby, but Codnor as well, is against it. I've been told they are expecting up to 10,000 people to turn up, but the village simply can't cope with that number of people. For a start, where will everybody park? We have enough trouble with people parking on the road as it is. There is also talk of them having a campsite. That will be like having gypsy encampment nearby - there will be rubbish everywhere."

A 39-year-old mother, who lives in the same road, said she feared RWB could bring violence to the area. The woman, who did not want to be named, said: "I will be signing the petition. I want it cancelled, not just because it's the BNP, but because of the people who dislike the group enough to turn up and cause trouble."

RWB is an annual event, which had, for the past four years, been held in Lancashire. This year, it is scheduled to be held on 20 acres of land belonging Heanor and Loscoe parish councillor Alan Warner. Mr Warner defected to the BNP from the Conservative Party after being an Amber Valley borough councillor from 2002 to 2004. He was the first BNP candidate to take a seat in Derbyshire when he was appointed to Denby Parish Council after an uncontested election earlier this year.

He said the festival would be entirely self-contained, with 60 BNP security guards to prevent people from getting too drunk or taking drugs.

Mr Warner said: "Previous events have been attended by 3,000 people but it might not be that many this time. There will be 30 toilets on the site and if people cause trouble I have told the organisers that I will call the police and they won't be able to hold the festival here again. I'm surprised at the reaction of people in the area. They are acting like thousands of Nazis are about descend on them. The BNP are not Nazis."

The BNP's national press officer, Dr Phil Edwards, said that the festival was held as "a celebration of the culture of white Europeans".

He said: "Because the BNP are so disliked we have to be squeaky clean with events like this or the media will come down on us like a ton of bricks."

Derbyshire police said the officer responsible for policing the event was not available to comment.

Derbyshire Evening Telegraph

The 'Toytown Nazi' BNP get uppity with columnist Richard Littlejohn

The BNP's National Press Officer, Dr. Phil Edwards (or Stuart Russell, depending on who he's talking to), is currently in something of a tizz about Richard Littlejohn, the Daily Mail columnist who on April 27th described the BNP as 'Toytown Nazis' in an article that made it very clear where he stood with the party. The appropriate section of the column is reprinted below:

'...While we’re talking rubbish, a couple of weeks ago I asked where were the candidates in the local elections who would promise to keep or reinstate weekly collections. If you look down the list in the Mail of those councils who have scrapped them, all three main parties are guilty.Since our campaign started, it has become the big election issue. A number of people have written to tell me that the BNP is pledged to empty the bins every week. For quite a while, I have been concerned that decent people are contemplating voting BNP because they think that Labour, the Tories and the LibDems are all as bad as each other. This column doesn’t go in for endorsing any party. It’s up to you how you cast your vote. But I would implore you not to vote for the BNP. They may have been to Man at C&A, but underneath they’re still the same unpleasant bunch of racist, anti-Semitic skinheads they’ve always been. If you want to protest, try UKIP or the English Democrats, or the Monster Raving Loony Party, for that matter. Anyone but this bunch of disgusting Toytown Nazis. Democracy encompasses the right not to vote. That’s also a protest against the system. I don’t care if the BNP promise to empty the dustbins twice a day. Frankly, I’d rather put up with an overflowing wheelie bin, full of six-month old waste, crawling with rats. It’s bad enough having vermin in our rubbish without having them infest the Town Hall, too.'

As much as any decent person must despise Littlejohn for much of the tosh he comes out with, it must be admitted that on occasion he produces an interesting phrase or two.

Edwards, describing Littlejohn as a 'tiresome hack', was furious but managed to get his revenge instantly. Just a day or two before, he had received the following email from Atlantic Productions:

'I am writing to you to request an interview with Nick Griffin for a Channel 4 programme we are producing. I hope you are able to pass on the request (below) and we look forward to hearing from you...We have been commissioned by Channel 4 to produce a one-hour documentary on anti-Semitism. The programme is authored by Richard Littlejohn, the newspaper columnist, and will air at peak time later in the year...In the film, Littlejohn will look at the causes of anti-Semitism and examine how it is no longer only associated with far right neo-Nazi extremists but is also finding a home with extreme Islamists and elements of the political Left. He will explore the complex relationship between this new form of anti-Semitism and attitudes in Britain towards the state of Israel and its foreign policy.'

Although he doesn't actually say this in his reply to Atlantic Productions, Edwards states on his blog:

'The BNP have no policies which espouse or encourage anti Semitism, so why they should contact us illustrates just how out of touch are the likes of Littlejohn.'

Perhaps we can help him out as his memory seems to be at fault - possibly due to the copious amounts of beer he claims to be able to down. Maybe Atlantic and Littlejohn did a quick five-minute search of the internet for 'nick griffin' and 'jews', which would have found them these little snippets:

'He [Griffin] had become editor of The Rune, an antisemitic quarterly produced by Croydon BNP. Griffin was opposed to attempts to modernise the BNP, accusing those who wanted change of "rainbow Conservatism". He also announced that the BNP should prioritise denying the Holocaust to schoolchildren.'

'A Griffin publication, Who are the Mindbenders?, claims to prove that the minds of British people are brainwashed through Jewish control of the media. The booklet includes a list of all known Jews working in the media as though they are working together for a joint cause. He proves Jewish control of the BBC by naming a mere 19 Jews who work for the corporation. He has never repudiated this work.'

'In another article he said, 'I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that 6 million Jews were gassed and cremated or turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth is flat… I have reached the conclusion that the "extermination" tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter-day witch-hysteria.' (Carlisle Two Defence Fund Bulletin)

'In 1997 he told an undercover journalist that he had updated Richard Verrall's Holocaust denial book Did Six Million Really Die?. He also described his former MP, Alex Carlile, QC, who had reported The Rune to the police, as "this bloody Jew... whose only claim is that his grandparents died in the Holocaust."'

'Despite Griffin's new moderate image, he remains a Holocaust Denier. He has attacked fellow Holocaust denier David Irving for being too moderate (!) for admitting that some Jews did indeed die during the Holocaust claiming the "True Revisionists will not be fooled by this new twist to the sorry tale of the Hoax of the Twentieth Century."'

'On his farm in Wales Griffin has, according to Wales on Sunday, two pigs one called "Anne" and another called "Frank" - a crude anti-Semitic parody of Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl whose wartime diary, written whilst she was in hiding in Amsterdam is a world famous indictment of Nazi persecution of the Jews. Anne Frank was later betrayed and died in a concentration camp. Apparently Griffin thinks this is funny.'

That may be why Atlantic contacted the BNP about anti-semitism. It may also explain why Littlejohn referred to the BNP as 'disgusting Toytown Nazis'.

Curiously, Edwards didn't seem to find the implied accusation of anti-semitism inaccurate enough to complain about, choosing instead to get his revenge on Littlejohn for the perceived insult to the BNP. Here's his reply:

'Further to your request for an interview with Nick Griffin for a Channel 4 programme you and Littlejohn are producing about the causes of anti-Semitism, I would like you to read the following comment by Littlejohn in his scurrilous Daily Mail column of April 27:

"Please don’t vote for these Toytown Nazis...While…..[truncated] It’s bad enough having vermin in our rubbish without having them infest the Town Hall, too"

Neither Nick Griffin nor anyone else in the BNP would wish to associate themselves with the likes of Littlejohn. I will put this correspondence on the BNP web site under Columnists and Doc’s Diary for all to see just how unpleasant are Littlejohn and all his works. Please do not contact the BNP again on behalf of Littlejohn.'

So an accusation of anti-semitism is okay but being referred to as 'vermin' isn't? The mind boggles.