Helping to keep our feet on the ground

THERE was an interesting report published in the European Voice yesterday.

It detailed research from the London School of Economics and Trinity College Dublin predicting the outcome of the European Election. Apparently, using a statistical model that draws on results from opinion polls and previous Euro Parliament elections, they worked out that British National Party will not win any seats on June 4th. You can read the report here.

I'm not fazed when a report like this gains publicity because it helps us all to keep our feet on the ground. It also exposes Gordon Brown's office's supposed investigations which claimed that the BNP would win 7 seats in the European Parliament, as complete nonsense. Its findings are specifically designed to motivate Labour's demoralised campaign troops and raise unrealistic expectations within our ranks as to what can be achieved.

Many thanks to Gary Tumulty for informing me of another by-election in Salford. Gary is the new membership secretary for Salford BNP and he will be our candidate in the contest for Irwell Riverside ward.

Now what is of particular interest here is that the election is due to take place on Thursday 21st May, just two weeks before the European Elections. The result could well provide an indicator as to our chances of getting Nick Griffin elected to Strasbourg.

The by-election has been called after the death of  James Hulmes, a Labour counciller and former Mayor of Salford.

The result last year was:
Irwell Riverside Ward
Stephen COEN (Labour) 888
Kenneth McKELVEY (Liberal Democrat) 337
David LEWIS (Conservative) 286
Anthony HEALEY (British National Party) 233

The BNP percentage was 13.4% and something along a similar level of support will do very nicely again on May 21st.


Above is a photograph of my wife Tina, and her mum Jenny, taken at our Battle for Britain Roadshow here in Cumbria the other week. I've posted it because I feel a bit guilty after referring to her in yesterday's blog as just a 'proof reader'.

In reality, Tina is Freedom's sub-editor and draws attention, not only to typos and grammatical errors in the newspaper, but also to the content if it might not be in keeping with the British National Party of 2009. We do have the odd spat over whether a report should be included or not, and/or whether a report actually serves to promote the nationalist cause or not. Sometimes she accuses me of still living back in the 1980s, and sometimes I accuse her of actually believing all the PC nonsense she was fed during her time training as a probation officer and later on working for a drink and drugs charity and the NHS.

But overall we do have an excellent working relationship which stems back to 1983 when I became editor of the National Front's newspaper NF News and Tina had the responsibility of typing up the stories (twice) on an IBM typesetter into galley format so that I could past them into place in the newspaper with cow gum and the aid of a lightbox. How technology has moved on since then.

Of course, even then Tina was more than just a typesetter but a key party activist in the Newham region of London where her mum was the local branch secretary. When Joe Pearce was sent to prison under the Race Relations Act, Tina and Joe's wife Gina, chained themselves to the Downing Street railings, then right outside No.10, a stunt which got us a stack of publicity. They also disrupted Tony Blackburn's show on Radio London another publicity gaining exercise which also drew attention to Joe's incarceration.

Later, after we were married and were living in Worthing in Sussex, Tina and Ted Budden (my political mentor, now sadly departed) made the front page of almost every newspaper and the top slot on the prime time 9 o'clock BBC News when she threw a jug of water over Gerry Adams at a public meeting organised by the Labour Party in Brighton just days after the IRA had slaughtered 11 guardsmen at their barracks in Deal in Kent.

The next morning there was a media frenzy with journalists at the door and on the telephone wanting to do a follow-up report. Soon as they found out that Tina was a leading official of the National Front the story was dropped.

So Tina's political background is just as extensive as mine, but her political knowledge is even more widespread. When we left to work and live in France in 1996, Tina enrolled in an Open University course in Politics and Social Science and four years later after we had returned to Cumbria was presented with her degree at a ceremony at Newcastle University.

She was working as a graduate mental health worker with Cumbria NHS when a witch-hunt in the local newspaper led to her being suspended from work, and then losing her job, because of her association with the British National Party. Now, as well as sub-editing Freedom each and every month, Tina is the Party's Membership Secretary.

And finally, you just can't get away from politics. I like to go to Borough Park and watch Workington Reds play their Conference North football to escape from politics for a couple of hours. Last night we beat struggling Hucknall Town with a last minute goal but the majority of the game was spent talking shop with a range of different people who stopped by my Popular Side vantage point for a chat. Still there was a useful outcome - another possible county council candidate for June 4th.

Back tomorrow with hopefully some news on the Moston by-election.