Personal thoughts and interesting pointers

JUST some personal thoughts and interesting pointers which might be worth a mention.

There's been some talk of BNP votes in the county council elections "slipping" to UKIP for the Euro Elections. I can't see this happening.

If anyone has braved the wrath of every single daily newspaper, all our politicians and the Archbishop of Canterbury to vote BNP in the county council elections, I can't see them 'whimping' out and voting UKIP in the Euros, especially when all the media speculation has been has been about the BNP gaining an MEP.

No BNP supporter, lukewarm or otherwise, can have missed the importance of a BNP vote in the European Elections.

UKIP have been hyped up in the media but not to the same extent as five years ago. They will obviously poll well and take votes from the Tories. But will they take our voters away from us? I am not so sure.

Five years ago in Burnley we polled 16.5% at the European Election. It was our best vote of all the local authorities. 16.5% on the turnout this time around would be 3,840 votes. On Thursday, across Burnley in the Lancashire County Council we polled 4,670 votes.

Our second best local authority was Pendle where we polled 13.2%. A similar vote on the European Election turnout in Pendle last Thursday would be 3,902. Across Pendle in the Lancashire County Council elections, BNP candidates received 4,120 votes.

The British National Party's ability to secure the 8% in Liverpool, Manchester and Cheshire East - the three largest population centres, will be the key to our success or failure tomorrow.

And finally, at that interminable count yesterday at the Moor Close Sports Centre in Workington, I paid great attention to the Euro votes as they were counted before being re-boxed. In most cases you could see the BNP crosses while the tellers were counting because we were in the corner the tellers were bending back.

We fought seven of 16 seats in Allerdale and our Euro vote in the nine we didn't contest was very hard to find. As soon as the boxes were opened of the county council electoral divisions which we were contesting, our euro votes were easily spotted and definitely matched at the very least our votes in those wards.

We polled 1,340 votes in seven wards on Thursday so to get our 8% we need another 935 votes from the other nine wards. I would say that's a tall order, but I do have an ace up my sleeve which might just mean that Allerdale meets its target.

The two Independent candidates standing in the Allerdale elections were telling us yesterday that many of their supporters said they were voting BNP in the European Election. Those two polled 739 votes between them so, if true, that might help us out.