Countdown to polling day in Henley

THERE was an interesting report in The Guardian on Friday by Jonathan Rutherford entitled "Is this the end of social democracy?" and carrying the sub-heading - The BNP is capitalising on the fear and anger caused by the cultural destruction of the working class.

You can read the report here but the key theme was that . . .

"In Labour heartlands there is a powerful feeling of being dispossessed. As one BNP supporter, who appears on a YouTube video puts it, "the majority of our policies, if you bother to read them, veer toward socialism. We are probably the old Labour party in essence. We care about the working class people."
She points across to a counter-demonstration and says, "When some of those people stand over there and tell me I have no rights ... I have blood and I have history on this soil and that's what I'll fight to defend."

It seems that we have managed to run a very professional campaign in Henley, so it will be interesting to see what vote can be achieved. In a General Election we probably wouldn't consider, at the moment, contesting a seat like Henley, but we don't pick and choose our by-elections and Tim Rait and Andy McBride have done extremely well with little time and resources to hand.

Some of the political forums that I visit seem to think that the BNP have failed to make much of an impact in the constituency apart from on the couple of housing estates in Thame. A number of pundits think we will be well beaten by Labour, UKIP and the Greens in the all-important battle for third place. Personally I shall be surprised if we are beaten by UKIP even though they polled quite well here in the 2005 General Election. They should, of course, be on the defensive over the suspension of another one of their MEP's for fraud, but there has been little publicity about the investigation into Tom Wise, and UKIP boss Nigel Farage was trotted out by the BBC last week for his upmteenth appearance on Question Time just to give UKIP a boost before polling day.

Still on Henley, Tim Rait has his personal contribution carried in the Henley Standard this morning. You can read about the other candidates covered here, but this is Tim's one.

“I grew up in Berkshire and am now retired. My career was in shipping and marine insurance, which involved working both in London and abroad. I am the father of three adult children.
“Appreciating the lovely Thames Valley, as I do, I am concerned at over development. At present central government imposes its demands on local councils. I believe that local people should be fully consulted about further developments.
“The British people should be consulted before great changes are made to our country’s character. Consultation and prior approval are basic requirements of democracy.
“Britain should quit the European Union which is basically an undemocratic institution. The Lisbon Treaty forms a dangerous constitution and should not go forward without the promised referendum. A vital promise has been broken.
“Too much taxation and government waste. The taxes on low paid workers are excessive. I call for the tax free earnings allowance to be greatly increased. Hardworking people should be able to keep more of their own money in their pockets.
“The abuse of human rights legislation should cease and the rights of the law abiding public should come before the claims of criminals and law breakers.”

On Thursday there are also a couple of local council by-elections:
Blackpool Council
Park Ward
Susan Close (Lib-Dem)
Peter Collins (Con)
Roy Fisher (Lab)
Les Joy (BNP)
Colin Porter (UKIP)
May 2007: Lab 661, 631, Con 536, 517, BNP 339, Lib-Dem 276, UKIP 166.

Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council
Hatfield Central ward are:
Timothy Butler (Ind)
Maureen Cook (Lab)
Mark Fuller (BNP)
Hazel Laming (Lib-Dem)
Stan Laver-Walton (Con)
May 2008: Con 1385, 1370, 1221, Lib-Dem 1338, 1283, 1278, Lab 167, 159.

I don't have any info on these two elections, so if anyone does know how the campaign is going please let me know and I shall give them a mention on the main BNP site. On paper, Blackpool looks quite an interesting prospect while in Hatfield it will be all about beating Labour.