Ashfield might be a BNP 'Dark Horse'

600 mile round trip yesterday to pick up my youngest daughter from Uni. She had to move out of her house as she's off to France for a year in September so the car was full of her belongings.

I left at 6.00am and was back, drinking a Bucks Fizz in the garden, at 6.00pm. Just an 8 minute pick-up before starting the return journey. Understandably I'm feeling a bit tired this morning.

I spoke to the man himself on Friday - election guru Eddy Butler - and he tells me we are also fighting the Glasgow North East by-election.

Here's the voting there at the European Elections:

Labour Party 5244
Scottish National Party (SNP) 3177
Green Party 822
United Kingdom Independance Party 618
Conservative and Unionist Party 561
British National Party 545
Liberal Democrats 533
BNP Percentage: 4.4%

That's a very promising result - could we be in with a chance of saving our deposit?

I was pleased to hear yesterday from Michael Clarke, the British National Party's organiser in Ashfield. He wrote:

"Glad to see Ashfield included in your list for the General Election.

"However, to add a bit of meat to the bones, the figures you give are for the Ashfield District Council area.

"The boundaries for the parliamentary seat have recently changed dramatically in our favour.

"We lose Hucknall (by far our worst area within the district) and gain Brinsley where we polled 40% in 2007 and are currently fighting a by-election.

"Add to this the fact that in the Selston Division we actually TOPPED the poll in the Euros, and we have every reason to feel optimistic of a good result."

That's excellent news and makes Ashfield certainly one to watch out for come May next year if Brown & Co can last that long.

There are boundary changes as well in the Workington constituency where I hope to stand. We lose Keswick which is probably not a good area for us and get a couple of rural wards around Wigton. What a pity it couldn't be Wigton itself - Paul Stafford's 19% vote would have given us a great boost.

My final Freedom has gone to the printers and later this week I hope to meet up with the new editor Mark Collett to hand everything over.