Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Regulars will be familiar with my views on the tabloids, and in particular their stance on immigration. Yet in recent days they have sunk to brand new lows, first there was the Mails nasty little front page on Tuesday

Followed by todays absolute shocker from the Express which turned out to be an exact copy of a BNP slogan.

I wont dissect the stories themselves, that has been done in depth elsewhere by more blogs than I care to count now. Instead what I want to write about is why it's important for people like me and the thousands of other small bloggers out there to keep banging on about the lies and the distortions, even those of us that get 20 readers on a good day.

It's important because this is where it begins.

It begins with them and us. It begins with someone that is poor, some who is told "you're poor, and it's their fault".

And where does it end?

Does it end with lies from the Express or Goebells?

Does it end with broken windows in Jewish shops in Berlin or Birmingham Mosques?

Does it end with skin heads like the EDL or the SA on the street? Picking on a minority? Like Muslims or Jews?

Does it end with extremists like the BNP or the Nazis getting to power?

Does it? Does it end here? In this time? And this place? With no more hatred or ignorance? Does it end here while we can easily put it right?

Or does end somewhere else?

Does it end at Auschwitz or Belsen?

It's time to make up our minds.

Shit Days

The last 24 hours in my life have been rather stressful.

For reasons I have had someone staying under my roof who has trotted out the following pearls of wisdom.

1. It is not possible to define racism, therefore no one really suffers from it. He read that on the BNP website.

2. Hitler was a Jew and the holocaust wasn’t his fault. He read that on the BNP website too.

3. Mein Kampf actually makes a lot of sense and it is only poor translation that makes it sound like the ramblings of a complete psycho.

4. The treaty of Versailes (which I will agree with him did lead directly to the election of the Nazis and thus world war 2) was all the fault of a Jewish controlled banking system. Guess we he read that folks?

5. There is no such thing as climate change.

What has made it particularly stressful is that for various personal reasons and as a favour to others, which I will not be going into, I was forced to hold my tongue. I have several ulcers around my lip now from each time I had to bite it till it bled. And to think I took a day off of work to entertain this prick.

Grrrrr……

Royalty gets it right (for once)

Regular readers will no that I am a pretty much dyed in the wool republican. I really don't see any excuse for having a head of state who is not democratically elected. That said I have nothing against them personally, none of them are particularly offensive as far as I can see and indeed on occasions they can come out and do something quite marvelous.

Like this for example. Prince Charles hosted a garden party for YOU, an organisation that is trying to boost the number of kids in London attending uniformed youth groups. As part of this all but one of the London Assembly members. And who did they fail to invite? The one and only Richard Barnbrook of the BNP.

Prince Charles, for once I take my hat off to you! The BNP have NO place at anything to do with the scouts, or boys brigade, or cadets or St John's, democratically elected or not. And Charles has stood up to these nasty little fuckers.

Fantastic!

Blame where blame is due

So some extended thoughts from me on the election results.

On Thursday around 120,00 people went out and voted for a party, in the form of the BNP, who's policies range from the evil, eg allowing women to be raped by their husbands, to the sinister, eg introducing "citizenship" classes modeled on existing schemes such as Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Queens Scout and Queens Guide, but with a nasty nationalist edge to them, to down right fucking stupid, eg withdrawal from NATO. Those individuals were not citizens of some police state where they were frog marched to a polling booth and forced to vote for a bunch of arseholes under threat of violence. No, they did so of their own volition. And they should be utterly and unreservedly ashamed of what they have just done.

People will tell you that not all BNP voters are racist, misogynist twats. And they would be right. Yet those that they refer to should be even more ashamed of themselves. They have not turned to extremists in a time of massive and desperate strife. This is not 1930's Germany or 1900's Russia. People are not starving on the streets, regardless of the current economic climate. These voters may turn around and say that they voted in a fit of rage at the current bunch of main stream politicians and I would agree that they have a huge amount to be angry about. Yet they have still knowingly voted for a group of politicians that think it is perfectly ok for women to be raped just because they have a ring on their left hands. And I don't care how fucking angry you are, to knowingly vote for that is totally unacceptable.

Some of these voters may say they weren't aware of all the other shit, it was just tighter controls on immigration that they want. I'd simply say that UKIP are out there, my personal belief is that they are misguided but not ultimately evil. Why aren't you voting UKIP? They don't advocate repatriation of people with brown skin or the raping of wives . Some may say it was simply a protest, that they never expected the BNP to get anywhere. Well fuck off, fuck right off and shove it up your arse because it's fucking tough because they fucking well did. They have seats in the European Parliament, they will be voting on issues that affect every one of us in this country and if you voted for them and don't really want them then take it on the fucking chin because it is your fucking fault.

What of those people who have been taken in by the BNP? Those who believe all the immigration bull shit that they spread? That believe that we will be living under Sharia law before we know what's happening, that think that people with brown skin are all to get them? I have some sympathy for them, but even they don't get off scot free on this. It takes a special kind of stupid, I mean unbelievably epically fucking thick as pig shit stupid to listen to extraordinary claims like the ones the BNP make and not once, for a few seconds think, "hang on, is this really true?" and do the simplest bit of googling to check. No, they have to share some blame as well.

It is true that if we have main stream politicians with enough humility and intelligence to actually argue based on facts rather than simply try and out hard man the other we would not be in this mess. All those people I have castigated above who are not racist sexist arseholes but who nevertheless voted BNP might actually have voted for one of the dozens of respectable (if in some cases slightly) parties that there out there. Yet ultimately you can't get away from the fact that they all have a personal choice about which way to vote, and they voted to justify rape.

Perhaps in the coming days my anger will abate and I will look back at this post and rethink it, I have certainly had several arguments with people in the real world over these views already today. Perhaps I'll look back on it and agree every word. Yet right here, right now, fuck me, I am so fucking angry I could explode.

Update.....

I am aware that this post is getting loads of traffic via Liberal Consipracy (many thanks Jenny!) so I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a spot of unashamed promotion of my favourite cause, the Scouts.

Right now there are tens of thousands of kids in this country on waiting lists to get into scout groups at every age range. It is an organisation that developes young people to be everything that the BNP is not. Intelligent, careing, tolerant and with an appreciation of all religions and cultures both in this country and abroad. In fact everything that would send that fat fuck Griffin into orbit. To get these kids of waiting lists and into scouting we need adult volunteers, people like you. If you would like to be part of something amazing, click here. All you need is a sense of humour and no prior convictions!

Utterly ashamed to be British

I have got out of bed this morning to find that my fellow country me and women have voted not just to elect racist representatives but elected racist representatives to represent us abroad. It is difficult to describe just how disgusted I am.

No doubt over the coming days you will see a huge amount of thought and analysis in the media, from politicians and on blogs about why this has happened. I have my own opinion and will voice this when I have the time but suffice to say right now that those reasons are complex.

For the moment I feel embarrassed and angry.

Take the Fucking Gloves Off

This is a post that I have been thinking about writing for a while however events, dear reader, events (in my personal life as opposed to political ones) keep getting in the way of my writing time. I'm off on camp on Saturday for a week as well so what with one thing and another we're going to have keep this one short. Thankfully though Anton and Liberal Conspiracy have both done excellant pieces on this subject already so go see them for more.

And that subject is this, the BNP are not just a nasty bunch of racist arseholes, we know that already, they are also a nasty bunch of arseholes generally. Their policies are sexist, homophobic and do not seem to be the product of right thinking human beings with an ounce of compassion in their bodies. And yet for all these faults no one is publically taking them on. We don't see Jeremy Paxman getting one of them on news night and asking them to justify their policy that they would get rid of gay marriage or why someone should vote for them when one of their candidates once claimed that "women enjoy rape". If they are getting a platform like any other political party why are they not being examined like every other political party.

If the Conservatives came out with a policy that married men would get tax breaks but married women would not they would get shredded in the press. So why the fuck aren't the BNP?

At the moment everyone is angry with main stream parties over the expenses scandals, and rightly so. And that is sending people towards extremists like the BNP. Yet if this bunch of twats had been properly dealt with by the press previously it would be UKIP or the Greens that would be getting the vote.

These people are not normal politicians, they are a bunch of shits and time to take the gloves off and start treating them like the shits they are.

Don't be fooled

Following on from my rant about the odious Simon Darby and the foul BNP I ended up reading the Guardian editorial. It's line that we all need to get out and vote to stop the BNP getting in is one that I whole heartedly endorse, however it is in the readers comments below it that the real interest lies. Two points fall out of this.

First the BNP is gaining support from what would naturally be Labour strong holds. Think about where they do well. East Lancs and East London. Neither of these are exactly true blue Torie areas now are they? BNP are doing well by appealing with a combination of policies which are, on the face of it, Old Labour. And that on the face of it seems to make a mockery of them being extreme right. I say seem though, I have more to add later. They make these appeals though based on old policies updated from their use by Old Labour with a good dose of racism, ignorance and bigotry.

Now in a first past the post electoral system like the UK that is all very well because it just means that concentrated support results in maybe one or two seats in a local council and odds are nothing in Parliament. Now while I believe in proportional representation on the basis that is more democratic I do acknowledge that FPP does help keep the extremists out.

Yet we are coming up to the European elections which are based on PR and that gives us a problem because many people are holding main stream politicians in increasing levels of contempt and, more importantly, are failing to see the differences between them. They see 3 main stream parties saying the same thing as each other, mean while people are increasingly unhappy with how the country is going.

The result is that more and more people are failing to get out and vote. The main stream that is. The fact is that the BNP are still mobilising their supporters at elections, and they do need any extras, if large numbers of the main stream are failing to vote the proportion that they are getting naturally increases. And that is a dangerous thing as it means eventually you end up with a big enough proportion that they will get seats and that means funding and eventually they may end up communicating in a way very different to the amateurish ramblings on Darby's blog that I wrote about earlier.

Anyway as a footnote I thought I'd just comment on this idea that the BNP are left wing.

Bull shit.

They are a bunch of extremist racist who have simply latched onto what it sees as the most vulnerable area of the electorate and offered them the policies that they want. While that may be exactly what democracy should be all about it is also what political cynicism is all about and the BNP are full of it, just not as competent as they could be.

It is possible that this whole post sounds a little contradictory talking about how dangerous this lot are while saying how incompetent they are. And to that I say I still don't think that they are competent enough (yet) to get a grip on main stream politics but with the sense of anger in the population at large with the main stream parties the way it is at present they could well establish a foot hold. Not enough to do much damage perhaps, but does anyone want any of these odious people anywhere near a decision making body?

I know I don't.

So get out there and vote.

Wow!

For reasons that are described as "know your enemy" I decided to take a look at the Blog of Simon Darby of the BNP this afternoon. And what a read it was. Now while it has the disadvantage of giving me the urge to dunk my lap top in strong disinfectant and then take a shower in concentrated sulphuric acid to purge myself of such vileness it had the advantage of giving me some idea of the mindset of a Nazi politician.

You see I read quite a lot, some of it written by politicians. That includes news papers, books, blogs magazines etc. And what you find is that while you may disagree with many of their ideas they do nevertheless cover a wide variety of subjects. A typical politicians blog will tell you about their ideas of what they would like to do. It will also be critical of the oppositions ideas. A good example is here, the blog of Liberal Democrat Matt Davies (a personal friend of mine in the real world). It covers a wide variety of material, some of it I agree with, some I disagree but it is still typical of what main stream politicians will write.

So what do Darby's pitiful ramblings consist of? Believe it or not, given that he and his merry band of racist twats spend most of their day persecuting everyone they can find that doesn't have white skin, he whinges on about being persecuted himself.

Oh diddums!

Most spectacular of all is this post. Read it, savour it, go on, soak it up in all its glorious absurdity. It puts me in mind of those scenes in Downfall as Hilter rants on insanely. (Blog of Nazi politician puts people in mind of insane racist dictator? Shurley shome mishtake?) In just one post, one single post, he accuses the BBC, Yorkshire Post, the NUT, Labour and the Archbishop of York of treating the BNP unfairly. By that he means they had the temerity to criticise them and point out the patently obvious truth. ie that they are racist arseholes. Most incredibly he thinks that urging people to vote in a way that ensures that their views are represented and that those of extremists are not is an "attempt to subvert the democratic process".

Eh? You what?

That was in just one post.

Elsewhere there is precious little to actually form an idea of what the BNP would actually do should they (God forbid) every get into power beyond shitting all over people with brown skin. All you get is an overwhelming sense of paranoia and hatred of anything that is not white.

And frankly long may it continue. You see I have turned away from the policy of many liberal/left bloggers of not linking to the BNP because I honestly believe that the more people that read pitiful shite like this the less will be able to take them seriously and so are less likely to vote for them.

Of course what really frightens me is what would happen should they ever pull their fingers out and put something out more main stream. If they ever started looking at main stream issues like health and education and drew people's attention away from their inherent bigotry then we could end up with some serious problems. As it is though when I read blogs like this I sit comforted in the knowledge that the wankers at the BNP are going nowhere fast.

Nick Griffin

What a dick.

Happy St George's day everyone!

In a chicken shit world, a party you can trust

It's nice to know that in this world of uncertainty and economic turmoil, when we are constantly told to be on our guard for terrorism and brown people that are going to eat our swans and steal our children, that out there, there is a political party that you can trust.

That party is the British National party.

You can trust them of course to talk shite and ramble on some poisonous old racist drivel about brown people. We all know that, it's a given.

Yet it's equally important to remember that they can also be relied upon to occassionally shoot themselves in the foot in a way so spectacularly hilarious that it will keep us consistently entertained throughout even the hardest of times.

So what have they done? Well, following hot on the heals of the Polish spitfire debarcle, which was funny enough, we now have this little gem. Yup, Laural and Hardy are alive and well and working in the BNP communications department as song about anti fascists fighting in the Spanish civil war and containing the line "If I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists" is used as backing music to one of their bits of racist propaganda.

In the words of my friend and yours Dicky boy Littlejohn, you couldn't make it up!

THANK YOU TO THE DAILY MAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look I know I slag them off without mery day after day day but really I now owe them an debt of eternal gratitude for running with this story. The story of how the BNP used a picture of a POLISH spitfire from world war 2 to front an anti imigration campaign.

I don't think the word "priceless" can ever EVER come close to describing this!

Blackadder

I always loved Black Adder, one of the best pieces of satirical comedy ever produced on tv, all the more funny for its painfully tight budget, and the best line was the wonderful,

"Something smells fishy and I'm not talking about the contents of Baldrick's apple crumble."

And it was this very line that sprang to mind when I read about the wild cat strikes breaking out at a number of oil refineries across the country. Something at the back of my mind wasn't computing, it all looked like workers with a legit grievance on the surface but something, somewhere wasn't sitting comfortably with me, and I just couldn't put my finger on what.

And now it seems that I was right to feel a little suspicious, because guess who have reared their ugly head behind it all? Our dear friends the BNP!

Sorry lads, but it looks like you've been rumbled. Now fuck of back underneath what ever rock you crawled out from under. There's good chaps.

Genius!

Look I know I wrote to say that I was uncomfortable with the release of the BNP membership list but sometimes you've just got to laugh.

Enjoy!

The cloud inside the silver lining

A list of BNP members and their contact details has found its way onto the internet. Like many others I am some what lacking in sympathy for those listed. This party has persistently sought to victimise minorities and seek to focus the justifiable anger of many in deprived areas at completely the wrong target just for the sake of promoting their own agenda. They are a vile bunch of utter arseholes and anyone that has supported them will get short shrift from me should they suddenly find themselves rather unpopular. In fact it rather says something about the party in general that they would want to keep their membership secret at all.

Obsolete and the Enemies of Reason both give similar views on this however the whole thing does leave me rather uncomfortable.

In this country we have freedom of speech. I may not like what some people have to say however I think that the situations in which anyone should be censored or in anyway prevented from saying what they believe are few and far between and should in pretty extreme situations. Hence the BNP is a perfectly legal organisation, and in my opinion quite rightly. I believe that the way to deal with nasty bits of work like Nick Griffin is through open and reasoned debate and not through censorship.

Similarly while their are certain jobs that I think are incompatible with membership of the BNP such as the police and military (would you want a BNP member trying to reach the hearts and minds of Afghans?) I think that anyone losing their job over because they are a member is not justifiable and neither are threatening phone calls etc. Yet these things are happening. I may struggle to come up with sympathy but there are also very practical reasons, over and above the head over ruling my hearts desire to point and laugh, for these members not to be victimised.

If we end up with a situation where BNP members are now outed, sacked, attacked etc we could end up with a massive wave of sympathy being directed towards them. Can you imagine if say an elderly man or woman is suddenly beaten up by a lynch mob? A single mum loses her job? Can you imagine if these incidents mount up? It will cause a wave of sympathy. You must remember that the BNP has gained in popularity less because of racist views of those that are members or vote for them but more because the popularity has become increasingly alienated from main stream politics. People are leaning towards them to hurt the major parties as they all look increasingly the same. And if BNP supporters end up being victimised because of something that is, or more importantly is perceived as, the result of the actions of the main stream it is going to entrench extreme views and lean more people towards them.

So while I will have no great sympathy for those being outed on an individual basis I do worry that this sliver line is hiding a very dark cloud.

After last nights election result I had a quick look at the BBC have your say page today and I am really quite appauled. 3 of the top 4 most recomended posts were from people saying either they had or would have voted for the BNP.

I am qute lost for words. Yes get mad with the government, yes go out and protest, yes vote for someone else. Lets be clear however, the BNP are nothing more than a bunch of racist thugs praying on the badly educated and badly payed, convincing them that all their troubles can be solved by just turning on anyone that has skin that isn't white, a religion that isn't Christian or a birth place that wasn't here.

It makes me really quite angry and really quite upset. I would write more but this time I'm lost for words.

Who's watching who?

Lets face facts, this is not a blog that will ever set the world alight, it was never intended to be. It was simply meant to be a record of the thoughts of one individual. So it's no real surprise that I've never been inundated with readers. I am aware of 5 individuals who regularly read this blog, of whom 3 leave comments, the other two I happen to know personally in the "real world".

There are though others and I've started keeping a vague track through the little map on the right hand side. Now according to this there are others that have been reading my thoughts and philosophy. And that, in my personal opinion, is a good thing. These have though accumulated only slowly, bit by bit.

Untill the last few days that is, and I wonder why? Actually I don't wonder why, I have a reasonable idea.

One of my favourite blog is the enemies of reason. You can link to it from the list on the right, go explore and see what they have to say, it's worth the read. Now recently it's author had had a "full and frank exchange of views" with members of the BNP via the comments on one post and claims in one of his posts to have received a large number of other messages from them.

Now I chose, and it remains to be seen if this was sensible, to enter into the fray on the authors side and left a post that may be described as "picking a fight" with the BNP wankers that had been hanging around. Since then the number of visitors here has gone up steeply. Coincidence? Who knows, it's difficult to say. I have my suspiscions however.

I await developments with interest.