No time for moping

DISAPPOINTMENT this morning. The BNP might have jumped up from 5th to 3rd in the Waddon by-election for Croydon Council, but our vote share of 5% was depressing - I had been hoping for double that. As I have said on many occasions, and will say so again, our results from now until June are all about vote share and there's no way of glossing over what was a poor result for us last night.

I suppose that I am depressed because 85% of those who voted in the contest supported either Labour or the Tories. The very two parties that when in Government have failed miserably in protecting the interests of the British people. Anyway here is the full result from last night.

Thursday 12th February 2008
CROYDON COUNCIL
Waddon Ward
Clare HILLEY (Con) 1462
Ian PAYNE (Lab) 1222
Charlotte LEWIS (BNP) 157
Patricia GAUGE (Lib-Dem) 150
Mary DAVEY (Green) 115
Kathleen GARNER (UKIP) 48
Mark SAMUEL (Ind) 13
John CARTWRIGHT (Loony) 11
BNP Percentage: 4.9%
May 2008 GLA LIST:CON 1353, LAB 893, LD 323, GRN 234, BNP 211, UKIP 103.

One crumb of comfort comes to me and that is something I was told back in the 1970s by a sympathetic Conservative MP. He said that if a nationalist party was ever to have an influence in British politics it would first have to replace the Liberal Party as the home of the protest vote. When looking at the results of the last two years, I think there's certainly some evidence that we are beginning to do this.

Thankfully there's no time to mope over last night's result as tomorrow is a big day for us locally in the Castle and Belah wards where we are contesting seats for Carlisle Council. And next Thursday there are no less than FOUR local council elections taking place and in two of them, at least, we should be back above the 20% vote share mark.

I have to admit that I'm not a Fitna fan. I watched all the news bulletins last night and I found the contributions of the majority of those involved in the debate, cringeworthy to say the least. Lord Pearson and Chris Huhne both made me want to reach for the 'off' button while, surprisingly, the gentleman who talked the most sense was a Muslim spokesman on Channel 4 News - and unfortunately I missed his name.

When you are confronted with a dangerous snake you don't antagonise it by poking it with a stick. What you should do is to cajole and manoeuvre it into a safe and secure place where it can do no harm, and then return it to its own environment.

Well, I witnessed first hand last night an example of the BBC's ethnic quotas at work - on BBC2 at 8.00pm in Masterchef. The only White contestant was a mile in front according to the comments of the judges and what had taken place during the programme (and as a former head chef at the Abbotsley Golf Hotel near St Neots run by one time ladies golf champion Vivien Saunders, I do have some knowledge on the subject) yet she failed to get through. When the result was announced the Indian contestant had come from nowhere to qualify for the next round and it very much seemed as though someone had had a word in the judges' ears at the 11th hour to ensure her progress.

And finally there's a good plug for the BNP's European Election aspirations on, of all places, the Guardian and Observer website this morning . . . here.