Memories of a week of good weather

The globalist lobby is ratcheting up the propaganda war against Russia this morning. Make sure you watch Russia Today on Sky 512 to hear the other side of the story.

Buried under the weight of getting Freedom out at the moment so apologies for the lack of postings. Should be back in step by next Monday.

It's half past six in the morning and it's still very dark outside. The rain is lashing down and the wind in howling. The back lawn is covered with falling yellow and orange leaves just as if autumn had already arrived - and we are still in still August.

I was wearing my fleece yesterday because it was so cold. In my coffee break, to cheer me up, I relived our holiday in France back in July by flicking through our holiday snaps again - the temperatures were in the eighties every day .

Here's one to get a feel of what I'm taking about. It's eight o'clock in the evening and we are just off for something to eat down by the marina . . . and it was still hot! I could do with a bit of that warmth now.

More good news

I'm delighted to be able to report that my colleague Wayne McDermott has won a seat on Ellistown Parish Council in North West Leicestershire.

Wayne is the East Midlands Elections Officer and keeps me well briefed on all matters to do with the BNP and elections.

Last night he actually won the two-seat vacancy by-election with 260 votes which was 31.3% of the votes cast. The Lib-Dems came bottom of the poll with just 71 votes finishing behind two Independent candidates. The Lib-Dems had put out THREE anti-BNP smear leaflets against Wayne and brought in Labour Party bullyboys to help deliver them.

But the voters weren't influenced and elected a local lad who really cares about the community where he lives and has been elected to serve.

WELL DONE WAYNE!

Listen to John Humphrys interviewing Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Radio 4's Today programme. It came on at ten past eight this morning and can be found on the programme's Listen Again feature. And this is the hothead that David Milliband wants to join NATO - an action that will commit British troops to fight his wars for him and plunge the West into a nuclear war with Russia.

Thankfully John Humphrys exposes Saakashvili for exactly what he is - a crank, and a very dangerous one at that.

Get a more balanced viewpoint

Intermittent blogging for the next few days I'm afraid as all the decks are cleared to get the September issue of Freedom ready for the printer.

It's a slightly different newspaper this month concentrating on the BNP itself rather than the usual pages of current affairs news. I'm thinking of it as a "Meet the Real BNP" issue so it needs to be as widely circulated as possible when it comes out.

Please, please, please watch Russia Today on Sky Channel 512. OK it's propaganda but it is no more so than what is churned out on our news channels and it gives you a balanced viewpoint if you watch it in conjunction with BBC News and Sky News.

Yesterday Russia Today was focusing on the 5,000 South Ossetians living in refugee camps in North Ossetia having fled from the Georgian invasion. There's been no mention of this at all on our news channels - they just have their "poor little Georgia" slanted news stories in an effort to win over public opinion for a conflict against Russia. That creep Milliband demanding NATO immediately accept Georgia as a member - he even makes Gordon Brown seem a sensible politician.

Finally a good news story to finish off with. Great quotes from the Chairman of School Governors. Someone with courage to stand up to the Labour witch-hunt.

Labour are the real nazis

IT was quite an incredible scene. People dressed in black, with their faces masked by scarves, using car tyres to barricade a road and then stoning the police as they tried to remove the obstruction.There was the sound of sirens as police reinforcements arrived. There were the scuffles as 33 arrests were made. There was the beat of the blades of the police helicopter as this 'eye in the sky' tracked another breakaway group of protestors.

And all the while a queue of law-abiding British men and women, many with their children, waited patiently in their cars for the road to be cleared so that they could attend the annual gathering of the political party they support.

Labour Party thugs, goaded on by Labour MP Judy Mallaber and trade union boss Bob Crow, and transported from all corners of the country thanks to trade union and Labour money, were trying to deny the right of assembly to members and supporters of an opposition political party by violence and intimidation.

Thankfully our television news bulletins and newspapers captured the scenes and, with just a couple of exceptions, reported accurately what had taken place. It will be a wake-up call for many, to see the sort of violent confrontation our Government not only sanctions but actively encourages.

For over five years the British National Party has had to bear the brunt of a series of attacks from this Labour Government. There have been the blatant frontal assaults such as the scenes just described and the campaign of intimidation and hate, including death threats, orchestrated against our elected councillors.

There has been the attempt to imprison our Party's leadership as seen by the trumped up 'race hate' charges filed against Nick Griffin and Mark Collett.

There has been the more subtle persecution of individual members who have lost their jobs as teachers, in the health service and working for local councils. There has been the targeting of those seeking employment within the police and prison service, who have been blacklisted, even if they have outstanding credentials for the job, solely because of their membership of the BNP.

At election time, our candidates have their campaigns interfered with by thousands of illegal leaflets that are full of lies that are openly delivered by members of the Labour Party. And when the time for the votes to be counted, ballot boxes have been broken into by Labour Party officials and BNP votes have been defaced to make them invalid.

When the history of these times comes to be written, many of those people with influence within our society today will have to hang their heads in shame, because they have stood by and allowed, without one word of criticism, a Government Party to act like a Third World dictatorship in its persecution of an opposition party and its members.

And the greatest irony of it all is that Gordon Brown and his bullyboys have the cheek to call us 'nazis and fascists', when all the while it is they that are denying freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of political choice by implementing the methods of the stormtroopers Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Reflections on the RWB 2008

And we never saw one Labour Party thug!

That was a bit of a disappointment for my sixteen year old son especially after we had received a call to our hotel on Saturday morning warning that 200-odd of Gordon Brown's militia were rampaging unchecked by the police along Codnor Lane. We drove in from Belper and never saw a single protestor, so presumably all the action was at the other end of the lane.

During the day we heard lots of police sirens and there were helicopters circling overhead but otherwise most people at the RWB 2008 were completely unaware of the scenes taking place outside.

Now, of course, we know about the serious disturbances that were taking place, but at three o'clock on the Saturday afternoon the BBC were still trying to put a positive spin on the actions of the Labour Party thugs, quoting a senior police as saying that the demonstrators were behaving "impeccably'. At this stage the arrested tally was just six. The BBC were also still pushing the line that there were 700 protestors. Thankfully most of the other media outlets had the more realistic figure of just 200.

As for the RWB itself it was definitely the best attended ever and the stalls and political agenda were the most professionally organised in the event's history.

Here are my highlights of the weekend:

Richard Lumby's talk on Community Politics late on Saturday afternoon was excellent. Richard explained how he was already acting as an unofficial councillor for his ward dealing with people's problems even though he wasn't yet elected. His summary of how many of the older generation were seeing the breakdown of our society was spot on and really struck a chord with those over 50 in his audience - (the political marquee was packed).

While I have recorded in Freedom, Richard's excellent election results in his Shard End ward over the years, I haven't met him or heard him speak before and it gave me a great boost to know that that such dedicated politicians and effective speakers are rising steadily through the ranks of our Party.

Also on Saturday I enjoyed a bowl of jellied eels from the London stall, something I haven't had for more than twenty years. When I was an on-course bookmaker touring the southern circuit of racetracks in the early 1970s I used to breakfast on jellied eels as soon as arrived at the course. Then in later years when I was working for the old National Front in Croydon and then later East Ham, I used to have a punnet of jellied eels when the sellers used to come around the local pub on the Friday evening.

On Sunday morning, the Reverend Robert West's service was very, very, good. I'm tempted to use the word 'uplifting' but that sounds a bit crass. It was just very satisfying to sit in peace for nearly an hour, to sing some of your favourite hymns and to listen to a very relevant sermon, alongside political colleagues in a packed marquee.

On Sunday I also enjoyed the best cup of coffee of the weekend and four super Welsh cakes from the Swansea BNP stall.

I thought Worcestershire had a good tent with its darts and find a gold nail game, but my favourite tent has to be the one representing the South East. They had a great selection of second hand books which put my mother-in-law in an excellent mood. She bought three books on Friday evening and another six on Saturday and when she's a good mood, everyone else around her is happy too!!

It's a big issue of Freedom coming up at the end of this month. It's a Meet the Real BNP type issue and focusing in the main on what the Party's units are doing up and down the country. So if you have a story with a photo showing the BNP as we really are then make sure you send it to me at freedom@bnp.org.uk - there are about seven days left till deadline.

Your RWB photos would also be appreciated and if anyone has a photo of the demonstrating Labour Party thugs that would be useful too.

RWB here we come!

We're off in just over an hour's time for our journey to Denby. It will probably take around three and a half hours, traffic permitting, but last year I remember we were held up on the M1 just before our turnoff because of the usual Friday afternoon congestion, so that delay will have to be factored in.

We have a stop for a packed lunch just about half way and will probably check-in at our pub before making our way to the Festival site.

It's a lovely morning here in Cumbria which bodes well for the trip down and the forecast I saw last night for Derby shows sunny weather all day today so that should help the campers setting up their tents this evening.

The much publicised Labour Party demo against the RWB does seem to have spurred our people to pull out all the stops to make every effort to attend. There were calls all day yesterday from people renewing their membership to ensure access to the event and Tina has quite a substantial list of "Last Minute Renewals" to verify the late-comers if they have any problems when they come to buy their tickets.

Sadly these demonstrators won't be having their RAP concert in Derby on Saturday because it has been cancelled - presumably because of lack of interest.

The propaganda war against Russia has been stepped up in the media and I just hope that the British people aren't duped by the "poor little Georgia" stories that you can find on every TV news channel.

Workington Reds are at home to Steve Bull's Stafford Rangers tomorrow. I'm disappointed to be missing it but I'm hoping that Simon Darby will allow me to keep updated with the score on the club's live website scoreboard via his internet friendly telephone.

The countdown to the RWB has begun

THE BNP telephone lines just haven't stopped ringing since Monday as members and guests are enthusiastically making their arrangements for the RWB. Apparently a lot of the Bed & Breakfast accommodation in the area is now fully booked and members are telling us that they are having to spread their net a little wider to find somewhere for the weekend.

There are a lot of lovely places to stay if you look a little bit further out from the festival site with plenty of pubs with accommodation in some of the nearby towns.

The five of us are off on Friday morning and will check in at the RWB to locate and organise the Freedom tent on Friday afternoon before the journey on to our accommodation which is around 20 minutes away.

Colin and Sue Goodgroves are in our tent this year and they will be encouraging any visitors to take out a subscription to the newspaper. I will be on hand to answer any questions concerning Freedom, and Tina is in there as well dealing with any membership queries.

I'm on the Question Time panel on Saturday lunchtime and then hope to take a good look around the RWB on Saturday afternoon and to enjoy a plate of what ever is on offer in the Traditional Food Hall.

There was an email from Wayne McDermott yesterday which I am very pleased to include in today's blog.

Wayne writes:
"As you all may recall last month Maurice Collett made the 100 mile cycle to Skegness from Leicestershire as a Euro Election fundraiser for the region. The target was to make this the biggest ever fund raiser held in the East Midlands. He is only £200 short of his target and whilst I know many of us have already given to this fund, I would like to ask you all to please try and give a few extra pounds which would take us to a record breaking sum.

The hard work put in by Maurice and his co-riders to achieve this feat deserves recording-breaking status he has done his bit we need to do ours.

We will be taking donations at the East Midlands stall at the RWB or you can post them direct to our regional address - PO Box 8186 Coalville LE67 0BR.

Many thanks"

All roads lead to the RWB

Me at the Freedom stall in 2005

FIVE years ago there were just two representatives from the British National Party in Cumbria at the Red, White and Blue Family Festival . . . this year there will be more than thirty.

This increase in numbers not only represents the growth of the BNP in Cumbria, but also underlines the increasing popularity of the RWB. This year's festival looks on course to be the best ever with more activities, stalls, games, traditional food and politics than ever before.

The pressure put on the police by the Labour Government to oppose licences for the event and the Labour-backed counter-demonstration supposedly taking place on the Saturday morning have generated more media interest in the RWB than in previous years, so fingers-crossed there's a bumper turnout and that the weather holds good for the weekend.

I'm hoping that Freedom photographer Colin Goodgroves, will be able to capture the real flavour of the event for the usual double page photo spread in the newspaper, and this year we are looking for something extra special - a massive crowd photo which could be used for a full front page on a special European Election issue of Freedom. We are hoping to arrange for this photocall for sometime on the Saturday and will be looking for our young families and older members to be to the forefront for this to show the real face of the British National Party to the public.

"Residents left furious after secret BNP rally is held in village hall" screams the headline from the Exeter Express & Echo. But apparently it was only one resident and two anonymous others who were furious, and the meeting wasn't secret at all.

Parish councillor and BNP member Colin Fribbens, who runs the village's youth group, helped organise the event, and Roy Elkins, chairman of Broadclyst Victory Hall, knew all about it, telling the newspaper:
"It was simply a hire. I don't look at it politically. I believe in freedom of speech."

So the headline to the story was just a bit of anti-BNP propaganda on behalf of the editor or one of his sub-editors. A more appropriate headline would have been "Freedom of speech wins the day as 100 hear BNP chairman at village hall"

What can you hear on BBC Radio 4 today? Why, a programme called "From Ban to Booker" on how the lesbian novel is now mainstream. And a programme on Britons behaving badly abroad and a programme on why the Glorious 12th should be banned. It's the usual fare from this enemy within which we have to fund with our TV licence fee - promoting homosexuality, doing down our own countrymen and attacking a British tradition.

Wag the Dog

Do you remember the film 'Wag the Dog' starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. It was about duping the Amercian public that there was a war going on to take their mind of sleaze allegations concerning the President as he ran for re-election.

Hoffman played a Hollywood film director employed to provide the images to capture the public imagination and support for the war and he did that by featuring a young girl carrying a dog running away from a burning building.

Similar images, albeit it real ones this time, are being used in every daily newspaper and on TV of distraught old Georgian women in front of burning or destroyed buildings in trying to whip up sympathy for Georgia which is under attack from Russia. There's very little mention that the whole conflict started because Georgia invaded South Ossetta attacking Russian peace keeping forces station there to protect its people from Georgian aggression.

This wasn't mentioned either in a blatant piece of propaganda on Radio 4's Today programme this morning. The appalling James Naughtie was squeezing every ounce of sympathy he could for Georgia in his interview with a member of the Georgian Ballet Company in Edinburgh. The creep Naughtie appeared to be having trouble holding back his tears as he talked to a Georgian ballerina about what was going 'back home', but he conveniently failed to mention that it was Georgian aggression that was responsible for the whole conflict in the first place and it was that aggression that had put the dancer's family and home under threat.

There's an excellent article by Steve Johnson on the main website this morning on this very issue. And I have nailed my colours to the mast in the past hour by emailing the link for the article to the Russian Embassy along with a note of support.

Help wanted in Rotherham

I HAVE just heard from Jo Kirby that there's a by-election for Wickersley ward in Rotherham on 28th August. It's an area where the BNP is certainly on the move, getting two councillors elected in May, and they need as much assistance as they can get to keep the momentum going. Anyone who can help please contact the Rotherham organiser Marlene Guest on 01709 551127 and if you can't get there in person then please send a financial contribution to the campaign.

Rotherham Council
Wickersley Ward
Thursday 28th August 2008
Tina Dowdall (UKIP)
Chris McMahon (Lab)
Donald Ross (Con)
Jon Round (BNP)
Steven Scutt (Lib-Dem)
May 2008: Con 1355, Lab 1255, UKIP 879.

We did OK in a by-election for Maldon District Council in Essex last night where our candidate Len Blain polled 13% and beat a rather forgetful UKIP candidate in the process. The full result was as follows:
Anthony Shrimpton (Con) 339
Janet Carden (Green) 200
Paul Rew (Ind) 115
Len Blain (BNP) 107
Geoffrey Harris (UKIP) 69

Geoff Harris bizarrely left his UKIP description off his nomination paper which mean that where the party's name should have been on the ballot paper it was blank. There is no doubt he was standing for UKIP as he was putting out UKIP literature, maybe he was just a little bit ashamed of the riddled with sleaze party he was representing!

Let's hope the weather improves considerably next week and that we have a sweltering weekend for the RWB. I haven't had a bad family festival yet weatherwise as I missed the very first one which was just about washed out when it was held in the Welsh mountains.

Football season starts tomorrow and it has been a long summer waiting for things to get under way again. Saturdays just don't seem right without football. Workington Reds are down at Hinckley but I shan't be going as I'm thoroughly fed up with driving and I have a long haul down to that neck of the woods next weekend. I'm hoping the game will be on Radio Cumbria so that I can listen to it while getting a bit of work done on Saturday afternoon. Sunday it's out in the garden . . weather permitting.

In-laws to dinner tonight and I'm doing chicken in a white wine sauce with chips and salad. The sauce is made very thick using creme fraiche so it goes quite nicely with salad. There's mushrooms and peppers in there as well as plenty of ginger which gives it a bit of bite. I use Cava for the sauce so that I can drink it while I'm preparing the meal.

Recruitment carries on even in the worst month for political parties

You wouldn't believe that it's the first week in August. At a time when most people should be thinking about their summer holidays, the BNP membership telephone just hasn't stopped ringing.

When I've been in the office, I have fielded a few calls and took a membership first thing this morning from a gentleman from Sheffield. He had been prompted to join after the local newspaper there reported that the city council had wiped off a debt of a local Pakistani Muslim group which was in total over £300,000. That's taxpayers money written off in the interests of 'good community relations'. It's stories like that appearing in the press that aids our recruitment, so not only do we pick up new members from the hard work of our local BNP leafleters, but we are also helped by the antics of these politically correct Labour and Conservative councils that bend over backwards to do anything they can for the ethnic minorities while ignoring the indigenous population. It's a blatant bias that plays directly into our hands and we reap the rewards of their stupidity.

At the BNP staff meeting on Monday, Radio BNP was briefly discussed. Apparently we now have a licence where we can play any record on air and volunteers were called for to present some of the programme slots. We do have a number of people who have had experience of local, hospital and forces radio so things should be quite professional. Now I wouldn't mind presenting a golden oldies hour mixing the music of the Sixties with a nostalgic look back on our politics and the news of the past as well as more current affairs. Anyway, I'm toying with the idea of putting my name forward.

I have been doing Freedom photos all day today, preparing them for consideration for the September issue of the newspaper. (There won't be an August issue because the July one came out so late.) It does annoy me when we get a good report of a well attended meeting and the only photo sent in to accompany the report is of the organiser standing with the guest speaker. The photo could have been taken in a front room for all the Freedom reader knows. If there's a meeting of 100 plus people then the photo should be of the audience to verify the report!!!!

This happens time and time again and it does make me frustrated that a great opportunity of excellent publicity to show our growth and potential to the public has been missed.

It's been a long day, I was up at 5.30am, so I'm off now to spend an hour in the garden to unwind . . . as long as the rain holds off.

Getting ready for the RWB

IT was a very good staff meeting in North Wales yesterday with lots of important issues discussed.

We all had a preview of Mark Collett's first Euro Election warm-up leaflet and it looks very good indeed - just the ticket. Mark's leaflet and a special issue of Freedom will, I believe, launch our campaign for the European Parliament in September. More about that issue of Freedom in the days to come as details are still being confirmed.

The RWB looks like being better than ever this year with Nick Griffin, as I understand it, overseeing a traditional food hall - so there is going to be some delicious British food on offer. We are all booked up for the weekend and really looking forward to it. Tina's mother and father come along as well, and our son John has been roped in to help Debbie Stafford's now famous children's activities. I think John has been lined up to supervise the trampoline, so I would suggest keeping your children well away from it!

I'm in the Freedom tent and this year I will have Colin and Sue Goodgroves helping to drum up subscriptions for the newspaper. Colin is also the Freedom photographer and he will be snapping away most of the weekend to capture the real face of the BNP, photographs which will be extensively used in the special issue of Freedom I mentioned earlier.

We are also having a new Freedom banner which Mark Collett is designing. We have had the old one since 2003 so it's definitely time for a change.

M6 was a nightmare yesterday coming home. I always try to leave these meetings at four to get a head start on the rush hour but there was important things being discussed yesterday so I had to sit and suffer. Tina and I lightened our spirits, as we crawled past the high twenty junctions just up from Burnley and Blackburn, by reliving our week's holiday and trying to remember each meal we had. In fact I could murder a plate of mussels and a jug of ice cold Rose right now, but I sign the pledge during the week and only drink on Fridays and Saturdays - BNP meetings and Workington match nights excluded.

And talking of the Reds, guess who beat Carlisle United 3-1 at Borough Park last night in a pre-season friendly. It was a fantastic result for us as it was a strong United side and the win has made a big news splash on Radio Cumbria today. Sadly I couldn't make it as I was still up on Shap when the game kicked off.

Lost in France

JUST back from a week in Boyardville in France. It's a small town on the Ile D'Oleron in western France and its claim to fame is that when you lie on the beach you look out on Fort Boyard, one of Napoleon's maritime fortresses which has gained fame in more recent years as the venue for a game show.

We flew with Jet2 from Leeds/Bradford to La Rochelle and from there it was just an hour and a half's drive to our destination. Both airports are tiny compared to the main ones and La Rochelle's runway must be one of the shortest around as the brakes and reverse thrust were put on the moment the plane touched down which didn't help a nervous passenger like me.

We stayed at a camp site just behind the town. It was just two minutes walk from the harbour where all the cafes were situated and five minutes from the beach.

The weather was very good with only one rainy afternoon and the rest of the time was sunny with temperatures in the high twenties. Boyardville is very French and we didn't hear an English voice for a week apart from that spoken by the entertainer at the lively L'Echoppe bar when he played my Kinks' request. The local food is mussels (moules) and the everyday fare is 'moule frites' which is mussles and chips. I had it twice during the week once with bacon in a white wine and cream sauce and then with a mustard and cream sauce.

We like the Ile D'Oleron because it was our holiday and weekend escape when we lived and worked in France for four years back in the mid-nineties. We were happy to stay in Boyardville for the whole week and just had the one day trip out to see our old house and place of work just outside Civray. Everything was very much the same here, except that there had evidently been an explosion of English families moving in to the area. Our local Super U supermarket in Sauze Vaussais now has a whole section of the English food that we used to send home for when we were there 13 years ago.

Tina and the children liked the sandy beach and went there every day. I preferred the shade of the pine trees of the campsite and stayed there with my sole duty to prepare lunch for 2.00pm when they came home. Salad, cheese, bread and wine were very cheap so lunches were quite substantial and lasted for over an hour. It was quite reasonable eating out in the evening too and the five of us could have one course and a large jug of wine for around £33.

I spent my time reading. I had one political book The Political Brain by Drew Westen which explained how to capitalise on peoples' emotions in order to win their support. Although the book is concerned with American politics, it is really a blue print for political propaganda on how to win the hearts and minds of voters. It's a good read and I can recommend it and I have picked up some useful points for Freedom.

The rest of my reading material was very light but ideal for a holiday when you want to just switch off and escape for a few days. So I can also thoroughly recommend Stephen Booth's Black Dog, Elizabeth Corley's Grave Doubts and Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride. All crime thrillers, but all very British and with excellent descriptions of the Peak District, southern England and North East Scotland.

It's always difficult to get back into things after a break, and this morning I shall try to get into the swing by answering 110 emails which need a response. I then have my July work record to complete and prepare a report for a meeting tomorrow in Wales.

When we got back late yesterday, I had a quick sweep of the usual websites to get back up to speed with what is going on politically. I see that I got a mention on one of the 'rebel' websites. It implied that I'm naive because I believe the Party is far more professional than it has been in the past. When you read what my former colleagues say, and then compare it to the websites of our sworn opponents, there is very little difference because both appear to be seeking to undermine the British National Party. It's all very depressing because what these dissidents are trying to do is, in fact, undermine the very progress that they worked so hard over a two or three year period to bring about.

As they acknowledge, I've been around in nationalist politics for thirty years and have been involved in a number of internal disputes. I know only one thing for certain about them - our enemies love them because they can destroy us.

But I shall finish on a good note and that is that Freedom correspondent Louise Scott is back writing for the newspaper again. Louise is an authority of all aviation matters, as well as a host of other topics, and her contributions will be an asset again to Freedom.