Immune to the worst expenses abuse

LET'S start with a photo of Gary Tumulty, the British National Party candidate in Thursday's Irwell & Riverside local council by-election in Salford, on the doorstep accepting another pledge of support.

Gary reports that the opposition have really turned up the heat in the past seven days resorting to all sorts of underhand tactics. They had the same strategy in the Moston by-election in Manchester last month, with three anti-BNP leaflets in the last week of the campaign, but Derek Adams was still able to comfortably take 2nd place. In Salford we are looking for 12% of the vote and to finish in front of UKIP.

Some people claim that the media's campaign against us is only our persecution complex and just a figment of our imagination. I think the events of the last 24 hours prove that it is nothing of the sort.

The Sun's shocking lies about Adam Walker yesterday sunk to new depths. Thankfully Adam is being back by the Solidarity trade union and they issued a statement on his behalf.

"Mr Adam Walker, lead candidate for the British National Party in the North-East region, slammed his political opponents for producing a 'fake' leaflet. Purporting to come from the BNP the forgery opposed the settlement of Gurkhas in the U.K.
"Mr Walker said "As a former soldier I have the utmost regard for the Gurkhas who have served loyally in the British army for nearly 200 years. I back the campaign to allow ex-servicemen to live here. This offensive leaflet has not been produced by me or the BNP."
"He declared "Press reproductions of the leaflet show it is of poor quality and bears no imprint or personal details. It is clearly a forgery designed by opponents desperate to stem our advance. We have no proof it has even actually been distributed yet the Sun chose to run a highly defamatory article without even contacting me for comment. The Sun, either willingly or otherwise, has been duped. I demand an immediate apology and retraction together with a substantial payment in damages".
"Other more responsible newspapers such as the Northern Echo contacted Mr Walker before running the story and published his denial of having anything to do with the alleged 'leaflet' and his strong backing for the Gurkhas."

But there has been another equally revealing report this morning, "England World Cup bid embarrassed by BNP man's presence" - you can read the report in today's Guardian here.

Richard Barnbrook was elected to the London Assembly by the votes of Londoners. So what what the report is really saying is that England World Cup bid is embarrassed by the political choice of the capital's electorate. Doesn't that really say everything about the contempt in which the media and the establishment hold the British people.

Richard was one of of only four London Assembly members who bothered to attend - now that lack of interest and support is not just embarrassing but very revealing.

I have received a lot of emails from people who tell me that my polling information is wrong. Well, it could be, but I think it's best to ignore the polls for the next ten days until things start to settle down and expenses scandal has run it's course.

The Daily Telegraph is stringing the saga out much too long and this risks that the worst abuses, which it is presumably saving till last, will fail to get the publicity they deserve because everyone will be immune to feeling any further disgust.

There's a poll for Sky News this morning which has us on 9.6%, but any poll that has the discredited UKIP on 19% must be flawed.

Freedom came under fire in one of our local newspapers, so I have sent this letter in response. The Times & Star, (where the Mike Bird's letter appeared) is just like the News & Star and the Cumberland News and has an anti-BNP stance. They don't publish our letters or ever ask for a comment from the BNP. Instead they just print anti-BNP stories and tell their readers at every opportunity not to vote BNP.

So rather than let my letter go to waste I shall print it here.

MIKE Bird's claim (Letters 15th May) that the British National Party's monthly newspaper Freedom is "a rag that makes the Daily Mail's position look all bleeding heart liberal" tells me one thing - he never read it.
I expect he didn't want his preconceived notions of the BNP challenged, so the newspaper went straight into his recycling bin.
As the editor of Freedom, and a candidate for Moss Bay in the county council elections, I do agree with Mike that my newspaper is very different from the Daily Mail. That newspaper promotes Tory values while Freedom campaigns on traditional Old Labour policies.
Articles calling for the care of the elderly taken out of the hands of the private sector, workers given a share in the profit of their labour, our troops brought back from Afghanistan, nationalisation of the banks, help for small businesses and farmers and a call to celebrate our Christian heritage, can all be found in the latest edition of Freedom.
These are the issues that matter to the British people and which the British National Party campaign on.
Martin Wingfield,
Editor of Freedom,
British National Party candidate for Moss Bay,
No. 2 on the BNP list for the North West Region.

We dodged the showers yesterday and delivered Freedom to 500 postal voters in the Moorclose ward in Workington. Today will be our last day on postal voters. Fingers-crossed on Thursday morning, our 35,000 especially designed candidate cards arrive, and then it will be all systems go to get them out to voters.