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Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
September 01, 2010
BNP's Family Weekend goes wrong...
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Labels:
BNP,
British National Party,
by-elections,
Clive Jefferson,
elections
September 21, 2007
Thursday's by-elections - still no breakthrough for BNP
Thursday's crop of local by-election results brought no sign of a revival for the electorally moribund British National Party. In only one ward (Southend Shoeburyness) did they improve over their May vote - by 0.5%, their candidate coming fourth out of five standing, with 13.94%.
Elsewhere where the BNP's by-election vote can be measured against its May outings the trend of BNP stagnation and vote leakage continued.
In Worcester St. Clements their vote dropped from 15.8% to 11.67%, a loss of 4.3%, giving them third place in a field of five. In Birmingham Brandwood the loss was 2.65%, down from an already low 8.85% to 6.2%., putting the BNP third in a field of eight.
Sharon Ebanks's rebel New Nationalist Party also stood in Brandwood, scoring a paltry 25 votes (0.5%) - a fact BNP members are already using to take the focus off their own dismal performance. Ebanks's party has for some time been considered a spent force and this result can only further underline its irrelevance.
In Wigan's West ward the BNP's vote loss was marginal. The lack of a Conservative candidate this time around did not help them and it appears that most Tory voters gave their support to the Liberal Democrats, who did not contest the seat in May. With 264 votes (13.78%) the BNP came a poor third to the LibDems, who took 24.22%.
The BNP broke fresh ground in two other wards, obtaining a better result than it claims it expected in Copeland Harbour (Whitehaven) and a worse than expected result in Nuneaton and Bedworth Abbey.
In Copeland Harbour ward BNP candidate Bill Pugh came third of three with 23.44% of the vote, a surprise to the BNP and anti-fascists alike. The turnout was disappointing with only a third of electors bothering to take part, a fact which may have helped the BNP, which conducted an intensive campaign and pulled out all the stops to get its vote out on polling day.
The BNP's biggest disappointment of the night came in Nuneaton and Bedworth's Abbey ward, contested by serial candidate Alwyn Deacon. The BNP believed it might win the ward and never failed to talk up its prospects, BNP deputy leader Simon Darby writing on his blog that the election would be "close" and that he thought the BNP were "in with a chance".
It wasn't to be. The BNP came second in a field of six, mustering 21.49% to Labour's 37.94% - putting the BNP more than 16% adrift and leaving questions to be asked about the effectiveness of its research and the veracity of its canvass returns. The Liberal Democrat vote collapsed back from nearly 36% to just over 19%, the party's supporters switching to Labour as the perceived scale of the BNP threat became apparent in the last days of the campaign.
We have previously said that the months' long picture of BNP vote stall may be interrupted by the odd nasty surprise and the Copeland Harbour result certainly comes close to being that, but overall the story of electoral stagnation continues. It should be borne in mind that these are isolated by-elections and that the BNP is able to concentrate its supporters and finances into these small areas for intensive campaign work, a luxury that will not be available to the party next May.
Even so, while a comparison of last night's votes with those obtained in May (where possible) certainly indicates that the BNP is as far away from a breakthrough as ever, the results from Copeland Harbour and Nuneaton and Bedworth Abbey wards deserve some attention. There was no danger of the BNP being elected in either of these places, but the party has established a strong base vote in both. Though our feeling is that this is as good as it's going to get for the BNP in these wards and that subsequent elections will see their vote fall back, nothing can be taken for granted.
No matter how the BNP spins last night's results - and they will spin them - electorally the party is clearly at bay. We must be frank and admit that pre-May we quietly shared the BNP's expectation that by now we would be dealing with around 100 BNP councillors and recording a number of local by-election successes. That hasn't happened and on current form seems unlikely to happen any time in the near future, pleasing us as much as it has caused bitter disappointment within the BNP - but this relative good news does not mean that we can afford to take our eye off the ball.
The BNP will be looking for ways to break out of its present electoral impasse and we must remain as vigilant as ever. A single terrorist incident or a misguided statement by a leading politician could put a completely different gloss on the situation.
In no small measure the BNP's retreat into electoral stagnation can be ascribed to the unsung and untiring efforts of those small groups of anti-fascists who take the ugly truth of the BNP to the doorsteps of voters come rain or shine. They deserve our gratitude and support. Thank you, boys and girls. Your success is their failure.
Results (May percentages on right):
Elsewhere where the BNP's by-election vote can be measured against its May outings the trend of BNP stagnation and vote leakage continued.
In Worcester St. Clements their vote dropped from 15.8% to 11.67%, a loss of 4.3%, giving them third place in a field of five. In Birmingham Brandwood the loss was 2.65%, down from an already low 8.85% to 6.2%., putting the BNP third in a field of eight.
Sharon Ebanks's rebel New Nationalist Party also stood in Brandwood, scoring a paltry 25 votes (0.5%) - a fact BNP members are already using to take the focus off their own dismal performance. Ebanks's party has for some time been considered a spent force and this result can only further underline its irrelevance.
In Wigan's West ward the BNP's vote loss was marginal. The lack of a Conservative candidate this time around did not help them and it appears that most Tory voters gave their support to the Liberal Democrats, who did not contest the seat in May. With 264 votes (13.78%) the BNP came a poor third to the LibDems, who took 24.22%.
The BNP broke fresh ground in two other wards, obtaining a better result than it claims it expected in Copeland Harbour (Whitehaven) and a worse than expected result in Nuneaton and Bedworth Abbey.
In Copeland Harbour ward BNP candidate Bill Pugh came third of three with 23.44% of the vote, a surprise to the BNP and anti-fascists alike. The turnout was disappointing with only a third of electors bothering to take part, a fact which may have helped the BNP, which conducted an intensive campaign and pulled out all the stops to get its vote out on polling day.
The BNP's biggest disappointment of the night came in Nuneaton and Bedworth's Abbey ward, contested by serial candidate Alwyn Deacon. The BNP believed it might win the ward and never failed to talk up its prospects, BNP deputy leader Simon Darby writing on his blog that the election would be "close" and that he thought the BNP were "in with a chance".
It wasn't to be. The BNP came second in a field of six, mustering 21.49% to Labour's 37.94% - putting the BNP more than 16% adrift and leaving questions to be asked about the effectiveness of its research and the veracity of its canvass returns. The Liberal Democrat vote collapsed back from nearly 36% to just over 19%, the party's supporters switching to Labour as the perceived scale of the BNP threat became apparent in the last days of the campaign.
We have previously said that the months' long picture of BNP vote stall may be interrupted by the odd nasty surprise and the Copeland Harbour result certainly comes close to being that, but overall the story of electoral stagnation continues. It should be borne in mind that these are isolated by-elections and that the BNP is able to concentrate its supporters and finances into these small areas for intensive campaign work, a luxury that will not be available to the party next May.
Even so, while a comparison of last night's votes with those obtained in May (where possible) certainly indicates that the BNP is as far away from a breakthrough as ever, the results from Copeland Harbour and Nuneaton and Bedworth Abbey wards deserve some attention. There was no danger of the BNP being elected in either of these places, but the party has established a strong base vote in both. Though our feeling is that this is as good as it's going to get for the BNP in these wards and that subsequent elections will see their vote fall back, nothing can be taken for granted.
No matter how the BNP spins last night's results - and they will spin them - electorally the party is clearly at bay. We must be frank and admit that pre-May we quietly shared the BNP's expectation that by now we would be dealing with around 100 BNP councillors and recording a number of local by-election successes. That hasn't happened and on current form seems unlikely to happen any time in the near future, pleasing us as much as it has caused bitter disappointment within the BNP - but this relative good news does not mean that we can afford to take our eye off the ball.
The BNP will be looking for ways to break out of its present electoral impasse and we must remain as vigilant as ever. A single terrorist incident or a misguided statement by a leading politician could put a completely different gloss on the situation.
In no small measure the BNP's retreat into electoral stagnation can be ascribed to the unsung and untiring efforts of those small groups of anti-fascists who take the ugly truth of the BNP to the doorsteps of voters come rain or shine. They deserve our gratitude and support. Thank you, boys and girls. Your success is their failure.
Results (May percentages on right):
| Birmingham Brandwood | |||
| Lab | 1998 | 42.74 | |
| Con | 1663 | 35.57 | |
| LibDem | 285 | 6.10 | |
| BNP | 290 | 6.20 | 8.85 |
| Green | 193 | 4.13 | |
| UKIP | 64 | 1.37 | |
| NNP | 25 | 0.53 | |
| Ind | 157 | 3.36 | |
| Total | 4675 | ||
| Copeland Harbour | |||
| Lab | 463 | 44.31 | |
| Con | 337 | 32.25 | |
| BNP | 245 | 23.44 | |
| Total | 1045 | ||
| Wigan West | |||
| Lab | 837 | 43.68 | |
| LibDem | 464 | 24.22 | |
| BNP | 264 | 13.78 | 13.8 |
| Com Act | 219 | 11.43 | |
| Ind | 72 | 3.76 | |
| Green | 60 | 3.13 | |
| Total | 1916 | ||
| Southend Shoeburyness | |||
| Lab | 460 | 23.48 | |
| Con | 494 | 25.22 | |
| LibDem | 66 | 3.37 | |
| BNP | 273 | 13.94 | 13.41 |
| Ind | 666 | 34.00 | |
| Total | 1959 | ||
| Worcester St. Clements | |||
| Lab | 604 | 42.48 | |
| Con | 478 | 33.61 | |
| BNP | 166 | 11.67 | 15.8 |
| Green | 52 | 3.66 | |
| UKIP | 122 | 8.58 | |
| Total | 1422 | ||
| Nuneaton and Bedworth Abbey | |||
| Lab | 807 | 37.94 | |
| Con | 329 | 15.47 | |
| LibDem | 409 | 19.23 | |
| BNP | 457 | 21.49 | |
| Green | 115 | 5.41 | |
| Ind | 10 | 0.47 | |
| Total | 2127 | ||
May 05, 2007
The BNP's election to nowhere - turmoil to come?
The BNP's march to power turned into a cul-de-sac of indifference yesterday, with the racist party failing to make any impression in the English local elections.
Predicting at least a doubling of their 49 councillors, a devastated BNP finds its tally (at the time of writing) remains 49. Though the BNP did pick up seats it lost the same number, making no net gains. Of the nine BNP councillors up for re-election only one successfully defended his seat. Those ousted included convicted liar and cheat Richard Mulhall, who led the BNP group on Calderdale Council.
Claiming "mixed results" in an attempt to hide an electoral calamity from its shell-shocked members, there was no real disguising of the BNP's utter failure over large swathes of the country. The party's fortunes stalled and went into reverse in areas where its hopes were high, notably Sandwell and Birmingham, where thousands of votes were lost. Votes in cities such as Coventry were barely improved over those obtained thirty years ago by the National Front. In an effort to distract attention from the Birmingham debacle, the BNP is focussing attention on the fact that it gained more votes than the renegade Sharon Ebanks and her tiny number of New Nationalist Party candidates.
It was clear as the first results came in that the BNP would have no reason to uncork the victory champagne. Stormfront's BNP election-watchers passed over the first bad results but became increasingly despondent and at times lapsed into stunned silence, only slightly encouraged by the prospect of better results to come from the BNP's "best areas". They never did come, and the recriminations were quick to begin.
True to form, BNP members bitterly attacked the voting public as "thick" and "stupid", then blamed large-scale electoral fraud, then talked up anti-BNP media conspiracies, then blamed their own splinter groups, and finally got on with doing what they do best - attacking each other.
Scotland and Wales, where elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly ran concurrently with the English local elections, emphatically rejected the BNP - which imported English candidates already standing for English council seats to make up the numbers. Over most of Scotland so far the BNP's vote stands at less than 2%, while in Wales it has reached 5% only in two regions. No welcome in the hills for the BNP!
The majority of the BNP's local election candidates were make-weight paper-candidates, deployed only to give the public a false impression of BNP strength and growth. Most of them went virtually unsupported but did attract the attentions of anti-racist activists who ensured that the public were made aware of the criminality and corruption endemic to the BNP.
In an election that was as much a test of anti-racism as it was of BNP support, organisations such as the UAF and Searchlight, together with hundreds of concerned individuals produced a series of high-quality leaflets that exposed the dark truth behind the BNP. It is thought that almost half a million leaflets were distributed nationally and that they were a decisive factor in the BNP's defeat.
The fall-out - Goodbye Eddy (and Chris), hello Tony?
Even as the BNP picked through the ruins of its election campaign, news arrived confirming that Chris Jackson is to launch a leadership challenge against Nick Griffin, and throughout the early hours more and more disillusioned BNP members talked up the necessity of ousting Griffin, who they clearly blame for wasting their time and money.
Griffin, however, has a ready-made scapegoat in BNP "elections guru" Eddy Butler.
Voice of Reason previously noted that Butler was one in a long line of victims crossing the path of Griffin's hatchet-man, friend and ally, the thug and would-be bomber Tony Lecomber. Lecomber's attack on Butler, together with accusations of involvement in solicitation to murder, led to his alleged removal from the party. As we reported, there can have been few more amicable partings of the ways than that of Griffin and Lecomber, who was allowed to dictate the terms of his own departure.
We also noted that given the choice, Griffin would have excommunicated Butler, not Lecomber, but with elections pending that was hardly an option. Our belief that with the elections out of the way Griffin would move to return Lecomber to the fold - at Butler's expense - was borne out by Lecomber himself on the Nazi Stormfront website. Responding to a post containing extracts from a Voice of Reason piece questioning exactly how "proscribed" Tony Lecomber really was, Lecomber predicted a "night of the long knives" for the BNP - referencing Hitler's murderous 1934 purge of the Nazi party. As the VoR extract concerned Eddy Butler, there can be little doubt of who is to be purged and who is going to do the purging.
Even an unsuccessful Jackson challenge in the wake of a dismal election showing might be enough to loosen Nick Griffin's grip on the levers of internal power, such is the existing level of disaffection within the BNP. It would certainly set the stage for a future leadership bid that had a greater chance of toppling Griffin.
Nick badly needs two things if he is to keep control - a convenient rubbing-rag to take the heat of the election fall-out away from himself, and a neutralised (or better still, expelled) Chris Jackson.
To accomplish the latter, Griffin needs Lecomber - but he can't have Lecomber while Eddy Butler remains a leading BNP member. So nobody will be very much surprised when the BNP's well-oiled Dirty Tricks Department begins spreading whispers highlighting the failings of the BNP's Elections Department - prop. Eddy Butler.
Close the door on your way out, Eddy.
Predicting at least a doubling of their 49 councillors, a devastated BNP finds its tally (at the time of writing) remains 49. Though the BNP did pick up seats it lost the same number, making no net gains. Of the nine BNP councillors up for re-election only one successfully defended his seat. Those ousted included convicted liar and cheat Richard Mulhall, who led the BNP group on Calderdale Council.
Claiming "mixed results" in an attempt to hide an electoral calamity from its shell-shocked members, there was no real disguising of the BNP's utter failure over large swathes of the country. The party's fortunes stalled and went into reverse in areas where its hopes were high, notably Sandwell and Birmingham, where thousands of votes were lost. Votes in cities such as Coventry were barely improved over those obtained thirty years ago by the National Front. In an effort to distract attention from the Birmingham debacle, the BNP is focussing attention on the fact that it gained more votes than the renegade Sharon Ebanks and her tiny number of New Nationalist Party candidates.
It was clear as the first results came in that the BNP would have no reason to uncork the victory champagne. Stormfront's BNP election-watchers passed over the first bad results but became increasingly despondent and at times lapsed into stunned silence, only slightly encouraged by the prospect of better results to come from the BNP's "best areas". They never did come, and the recriminations were quick to begin.
True to form, BNP members bitterly attacked the voting public as "thick" and "stupid", then blamed large-scale electoral fraud, then talked up anti-BNP media conspiracies, then blamed their own splinter groups, and finally got on with doing what they do best - attacking each other.
Scotland and Wales, where elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly ran concurrently with the English local elections, emphatically rejected the BNP - which imported English candidates already standing for English council seats to make up the numbers. Over most of Scotland so far the BNP's vote stands at less than 2%, while in Wales it has reached 5% only in two regions. No welcome in the hills for the BNP!
The majority of the BNP's local election candidates were make-weight paper-candidates, deployed only to give the public a false impression of BNP strength and growth. Most of them went virtually unsupported but did attract the attentions of anti-racist activists who ensured that the public were made aware of the criminality and corruption endemic to the BNP.
In an election that was as much a test of anti-racism as it was of BNP support, organisations such as the UAF and Searchlight, together with hundreds of concerned individuals produced a series of high-quality leaflets that exposed the dark truth behind the BNP. It is thought that almost half a million leaflets were distributed nationally and that they were a decisive factor in the BNP's defeat.
The fall-out - Goodbye Eddy (and Chris), hello Tony?
Even as the BNP picked through the ruins of its election campaign, news arrived confirming that Chris Jackson is to launch a leadership challenge against Nick Griffin, and throughout the early hours more and more disillusioned BNP members talked up the necessity of ousting Griffin, who they clearly blame for wasting their time and money.
Griffin, however, has a ready-made scapegoat in BNP "elections guru" Eddy Butler.
Voice of Reason previously noted that Butler was one in a long line of victims crossing the path of Griffin's hatchet-man, friend and ally, the thug and would-be bomber Tony Lecomber. Lecomber's attack on Butler, together with accusations of involvement in solicitation to murder, led to his alleged removal from the party. As we reported, there can have been few more amicable partings of the ways than that of Griffin and Lecomber, who was allowed to dictate the terms of his own departure.
We also noted that given the choice, Griffin would have excommunicated Butler, not Lecomber, but with elections pending that was hardly an option. Our belief that with the elections out of the way Griffin would move to return Lecomber to the fold - at Butler's expense - was borne out by Lecomber himself on the Nazi Stormfront website. Responding to a post containing extracts from a Voice of Reason piece questioning exactly how "proscribed" Tony Lecomber really was, Lecomber predicted a "night of the long knives" for the BNP - referencing Hitler's murderous 1934 purge of the Nazi party. As the VoR extract concerned Eddy Butler, there can be little doubt of who is to be purged and who is going to do the purging.
Even an unsuccessful Jackson challenge in the wake of a dismal election showing might be enough to loosen Nick Griffin's grip on the levers of internal power, such is the existing level of disaffection within the BNP. It would certainly set the stage for a future leadership bid that had a greater chance of toppling Griffin.
Nick badly needs two things if he is to keep control - a convenient rubbing-rag to take the heat of the election fall-out away from himself, and a neutralised (or better still, expelled) Chris Jackson.
To accomplish the latter, Griffin needs Lecomber - but he can't have Lecomber while Eddy Butler remains a leading BNP member. So nobody will be very much surprised when the BNP's well-oiled Dirty Tricks Department begins spreading whispers highlighting the failings of the BNP's Elections Department - prop. Eddy Butler.
Close the door on your way out, Eddy.
March 26, 2007
Hope not Hate blog update
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
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
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