Friday 29 May 2009

The countdown begins


VOTERS went to the polls in Middlesborough's North Ormesby & Brambles Farm ward yesterday and despite the press smears of the past week, nearly one-in-five of them voted for the British National Party.

Here's the full result:
Len JUNIER (Labour) 549
Michael TRAINOR (British National Party) 175
David CROSBY (Conservative) 131
John HEATH (Liberal Democrats) 63
BNP Percentage 19.1%

Now cast your minds back just seven days to the Irwell & Riverside by-election in Salford. If you can't remember the figures then here they are again:
Matt MOLD (Labour Party) 606
Steven MIDDLETON (Liberal Democrats)293
Gary TUMULTY (British National Party) 276
Chris BATES (Conservative Party)189
Rob MITCHELL (Green Party) 125
Duran O’DWYER (UK Independence Party) 123
BNP Percentage: 17.1%

These are the results of real elections that have taken place in the last week. The verdict of people who actually went out and voted, rather than just answered a telephone to an anonymous pollster and told them what their political preference might be. Both are solid BNP performances.

Congratulations to Michael Trainor and his hard working team for an excellent result achieved in the face of a week of attacks on the British National Party in the media. What a timely morale boost for all our campaigners working so hard across across the country to maximise the British National Party vote in both the County Council and European Elections on June 4th.

Locally yesterday, Allerdale organiser Paul Stafford, and I had our most productive day yet. We put out our first leaflet in High Harrington just after nine o'clock and our last one six hours later in Stainburn. It was the big day's campaigning that we needed Over the next few days I'm going to make some predictions for our seven Allerdale seats and I'll start with Harrington, Clifton & Stainburn today as we have now all but finished our work in the ward.

I think we shall poll quite well in both Clifton and Harrington, but unfortunately these are the smallest of the four areas that make up the electoral division. High Harrington is the biggest and we do have some support here, but Stainburn appears to be quite solidly Tory and we will probably struggle to make an impact.

So my prediction is . . .
Harrington Clifton & Stainburn
Allan Caine (Liberal-Democrat)
 34%
Robert Hardon (Conservative)
 32%
Marjorie Rae (Labour) 21%
Vincent Richardson (British National Party) 13%

This would be a very acceptable result as in all our seats we shall be looking for the 8% vote share Nick Griffin needs to get elected to the European Parliament plus a safety zone of another 4% for those wards where we don't achive this level of support. So 13% here would do very nicely thank you.

Six massive days of campaigning left when Paul and I will be joined by at least another three full-time activists to help us make sure all our literature is put out.

Back with more tomorrow.

Here are today's media smears if you want to bother with them.

1 comment:

alanorei said...

Hughie-S made a pertinent observation on the main site about the N'O-BF households, which explains a lot (most folk on benefit will vote Labour to keep their giros, as one of our activists pointed out).

Re: ethnic influence, the BNP stall near the N'O market set up on Tuesday, May 19th, was menaced by 8-9 local (Pakistani) Asians, who would have trashed it but for the 3 BNP members (including a young woman from Durham BNP) who stood their ground until the police arrived and defused the situation, liaising with our Regional Electoral Official.

Some days afterwards, however, a young single mother (English) was victimised by local Asians who attacked her young son, leaving visible wounds on his face. She had stopped at the stall to ask about the Party and evidently been recognised. 3 carloads of Asians were responsible, being much braver this time, up to 12 instead of a mere 8-9, all equipped with basball bats and having only one vulnerable young woman and child to deal with, instead of 3 BNPrs. This lady described her situation to one of our canvassers. She had contacted the police and they were treating the case as one of assault, though not 'racial' (surprise, surprise) but she got local BNP support and did vote for us.

We were also confronted by the local Labour candidate (at the stall set up in a different location last Saturday). He was very aggressive to start with but eventually agreed that we should approach him with local issues identified during canvassing, which we will. The only downside was, as one of our activists pointed out, we should have insisted on a properly organised meeting indoors, instead of debating on the street, which is not the place for 2 political parties to debate.

It should be noted that the successful Labour candidate is a well-established local, whereas we were contesting the seat for the first time with a candidate, though known locally, who was standing as such for the first time. Local identification counts for a great deal.