That is a great photo!

Remembrance Day has always been of huge significance for British Nationalists. You can't get a more important day than the one that remembers all those who have given their lives fighting in wars to keep Britain free and independent.

When I first joined the National Front in 1976, the Party held a Remembrance Day Parade to the Cenotaph each year, which took place in the afternoon after all the official parades had finished. If I remember correctly the 1976 and 1977 parades went off without any real opposition. They seemed huge affairs with many thousands of marchers meeting up in Bressenden Place. We finished with a political rally under floodlights at Waterloo right by the river and it was a really morale boosting occasion. When it was all over, we went back to our own coach park which was full of the coaches that had brought National Front supporters from across the country to the capital. On these two occasions the events did seem to be large and well-organised. Does anyone else remember them and can put a figure on the attendance? I would have thought more than 3,000 on both occasions, or is my memory playing tricks on me?

Getting back to the photo, I like it so much because it shows British National Party members from Crawley and Horsham helping out their British Legion association and this is something I would like to see becoming the norm on future Remembrance Days. It is, of course, vitally important to pay your respects and lay a wreath at the ceremonies, but helping out the British Legion as well, shows just how important this day of Remembrance is to members of the British National Party.

From a great photo to a great quote and it comes from Cumbria's own human political dynamo Clive Jefferson.

"The powers that be didn’t want to have this election, they fully intended to leave the seat vacant until next June, when all the county seats are up for re-election.
“Well it is not in my nature to allow the complacent establishment – the old boys’ club – to ‘agree’ not to have an election, because it doesn’t suit their winter holiday calendar.”

You can read the whole report from the Whitehaven News here but the background is that Clive has called for an election in Whitehaven which is just down the coast from Workington, where we polled our best ever vote in that town a couple of weeks ago.

And it's our massively increased votes here in Cumbria that have got our lead candidate for the European Elections in the North West, Nick Griffin, rather excited. I had a long telephone conversation with the BNP chairman yesterday and he is very upbeat about our chances of winning a seat in the European Parliament representing the North West. Nick believes that our improved votes in Cumbria and on Merseyside will play a significant part in boosting our chances.

On the music front I received quite a few emails about The Kinks reforming. I stand by what I said yesterday about remembering them as they were. My other favourite group, the Small Faces, can never reform and hit the road again. Stevie Marriott died in a house fire in 1991 and Ronnie Lane died of multiple sclerosis in 1997. They were a brilliant group and I listen to their songs most weekends when I'm catching up on correspondence and enjoying a glass of wine. Here's one of my favourites, together with some photos of that era.
In fact, I have bought a DVD from Amazon of the Stevie Marriott Memorial Concert in 2001 this very week. I've seen some clips on YouTube and it looks good - I'll report back on this when I've seen it in full.