Hogan-Howe is looking for a high-profile job

I KNOW from first hand the very nature of the beast that calls itself Merseyside Police. Back in November, after the leaking of the BNP Members List, we were plagued by telephone calls from a couple of its officers desperately seeking information in order to persecute one of their own whose name had appeared on that list.

They were reptilian! Jobsworths desperately seeking to curry favour with their Chief Constable, Bernard Hogan-Howe, as he was instigating his anti-BNP crusade across the region.

One morning I got a call before nine and it was one of these Wormtongues scratching around again for any scraps of info that might help him 'hang' his colleague. (The BNP had been asked by the family of the officer to co-operate with the police investigation).

"Hello Martin, how are you,' he slimed. Now I had never spoken to the officer before and had told him my full name when he called. Yet now he was keen to be on first name terms.

I don't very often say the F word but I did then with an 'off' after it and then put the telephone down.

Then, off course, Merseyside Police arrested 13 members of Liverpool BNP for puting out Racism Cuts Both Ways leaflets in the city centre. Days later at 6.00am on a Saturday morning officers distributed notices informing the now quite famous 'Liverpool 13' that they would not be facing any charges.

What an embarrassment for the Chief Constable because he had been bragging to local Labour Party councillors and officials that anyone distributing the 'Racism Cuts Both Ways' leaflet would be arrested and prosecuted. Then came the news that the Crown Prosecution Service had ruled that the leaflet "was unlikely to increase racial hatred" and could quite legally be distributed. Apparently Hogan-Howe was livid and immediately appealed against the decision, sending in a huge list of objections to the ruling. But it was all to no avail, his appeal was rejected which meant that he had to inform the local Labour Party that the British National Party were quite at liberty to put their leaflets out in Liverpool after all.

And now we have had the Everton vs Stoke City football match saga. The BNP asked permission to hand out leaflets in Liverpool to launch the Party's European Election campaign on Merseyside. The Labour Party and its acolytes then announced a march against the BNP. The Police granted this request but then told the media that they were putting the Everton game back 24 hours because of "the BNP march" . . . need I go on?

Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe had aspirations to become the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He is very much a political policeman and he sees his Bash the BNP campaign as a way to impress the Home Secretary so she promotes him to another more high profile and better paid job.

On a more uplifting subject, yesterday I headed a panel interviewing applicants for the places on the Scottish European Election candidates list. There was a very high standard of interview from those who attended and our findings have been forwarded to the Advisory Council for approval.

Glasgow was a very busy city yesterday but we did find the venue without any problems, were able to park for five hours without any charges and were greeted by Charlie Baillie with very welcome refreshments of coffee and tea.

The BNP in Scotland is moving ahead at a pace. The calibre of our officials is impressive and when the Party gets the growth spurt here that has recently taken place south of the border, we will be very capable of capitalising on it.

The lead candidate on our Scottish List will need 10% of the vote to win a seat, as there are now only six vacancies not seven. The BNP only polled 1.6% in 2004 but will significantly improve on that this time around and with UKIP's 6% vote share also up for grabs, as well as the volatile political climate, anything might happen.

Off to work on Freedom now - more tomorrow.