A difficult summer is coming to an end

IT'S BEEN a long summer. I'm usually saying that when eagerly anticipating the return of football down at Borough Park, but this time I'm talking about the political situation.

Once the local council elections are out of the way, usually the first week in May but this year the first week in June because of the European Elections, serious politics seems to take a back seat until September.

Normally this doesn't effect me as when I was editor of Freedom the newspaper still had to come out. The easing off of election and branch news was more than adequately compensated for by the BNP's Summer School and the Red, White and Blue reports filling any empty pages.

But this year has been different and although I still edited the July issue of Freedom, for the past two months I've been on my new European parliament job and it's taken a bit of getting used to.

What has made matters worse is that after our incredible achievement in getting two MEPs elected, expectation amongst our membership reached an all time high and instant change was expected. But in fact everything just got much harder for us because we had made the transition from a big small party to a small big party and we just didn't have the infrastructure to cope.

MEP ELECTED: An incredible achievement which raised expectations.

Those of you who heard my speech on the Sunday afternoon at the Family Festival in Denby will know that it's not just me that has found this summer difficult. The large scale changing of jobs for many of the BNP staff has left a sense of drift within the Party, prompting people to voice concerns.

"What's going on?' has been the most asked question during the past couple of months by our local officials and membership and I'm afraid that the answer they got much of the time was "We don't know". And that's because no one did know due in the most part because the BNP was moving into unchartered waters.

Moans about money have been heard from all quarters and this is quite understandable because we are in the midst of very difficult times. I too have money worries, I left the employment of the BNP on July 14th and received my half month's money on my usual payday. That was the last pay cheque I have received and now I have been told that none of the European wages will come through until the end of September. Hopefully I have an understanding bank manager.

But things are now beginning to take shape and think this Autumn you will see a much slicker and more professional BNP growing in stature and attracting an increasing number of new members.

Next week both MEPs new offices will be open for business and all the new staff will be working to full capacity leaving behind the difficulties of the past couple of months.

I'm delighted that the Three Owls story continues to run. You can see the latest newspaper report here.

Our opponents will hate us maximising the influence of our two MEPs but it is something they will have to get to used because it's what is going to be happening for the next five years. And the more people we help, or draw the public's attention to their particular difficulties, the more the British National Party will be seen as a political party that gets results.

A scorcher in Cumbria.

IT was a sweltering day up here yesterday and Paul Stafford and I must have sweated off quite a bit of excess weight as we pounded the pavements in my ward of Moss Bay.

It's all finished there now so it will provide the focus of my results prediction this morning.

In the Times & Star yesterday, sitting Labour councillor Barbara Cannon said that from her campaigning she believed that voters in Moss Bay accepted that it wasn't local Labour representatives who were at fault over the expenses scandal.

She could be right but there was still a lot of hostility for Labour from the people I met.

We were challenged by "You better not be Labour" on numerous occasions as we walked up the garden path and on the whole, people were pleased when we said we were from the British National Party.

In the past three weeks there has been a dozen enquiries from people in the ward about the Party and there are BNP posters up in windows in both Salterbeck and Moss Bay, the two centres of population that make up the ward.

Yesterday, I even had a call from a lady who had just received my candidate card and wanted me to sort out a problem for her in an ongoing dispute with the council.

Labour have put out two leaflets, both full colour and glossy, and the Independent has put out one leaflet. I haven't seen anything from the other two parties.

We have delivered newspapers to the postal voters and our candidate's profile to all voters.

So what of my chances?

Maybe I'm being a little optimistic, but I think a second is on the cards, hopefully finishing just a whisker in front of the Independent candidate.

I would be happy with this sort of result.

Cumbria County Council
Moss Bay Electoral Division
Barbara Cannon (Labour) 48%
Martin Wingfield (British National Party) 17%
John Bracken (Independent) 16%
Judy Prest (Conservative) 12%
Ian Francis (Liberal Democrat) 7%

Campaigning in Maryport East this morning, that's Tina's ward and then Maryport West on Sunday, before finishing off with a big push in Workington concentrating on Moor Close and St John's wards on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

I took one look at the headline's of this morning's newspapers and then clicked off the link. The Times can no longer be considered a newspaper of record after the drivel of the past few days. It's been as bad as The Mirror this week with its anti-BNP smear stories.

If you want to read the stories behind the anti-BNP headlines, then click here.

To finish on a positive note, the latest opinion poll has us on 5% (up 3% from last week). Five years ago we were never mentioned in the polls yet still attracted a 5% vote share, so on that form line we could, in reality, be up around the 10% mark.

Off to Whitehaven . . .

NEVER got around to the correspondence yesterday I'm afraid. Hopefully will do so this afternoon.

This morning I'm off to Whitehaven to help get signatures for another seat they hope to fight in Copeland. Rumour has it that this is the 12th and final electoral division, so that if we are successful today Copeland BNP will be fielding a full slate of candidates, but this is not confirmed. In fact I have been told off for talking up our candidate numbers for Cumbria and that we will be short of the original figures that I quoted last week. Apologies if I have been over optimistic.

What is definite is that we shall be fighting seven in Allerdale with our man in Maryport, Steve Harris, out this morning getting the signatures for Maryport East where Tina is standing.

The electoral division of Maryport East is made up of the local council wards of Ellenborough and Ewanrigg where back in 2007 Tina and I polled 30% of the vote in each of them. In fact the breakdown of votes between Labour and us on the day was more like 55 to 45% but Labour won it massively on the postal vote, by as much as 95 to 5% in Ewanrigg. That won't be happening this time around.

Just a quick newsround then I'm off.

Simon Darby in today's Daily Mail here

Best way to beat the BNP in today's Independent here

Neil (alrighhtt!) Kinnock on the BNP in The Guardian here

They want us to think it's too late.

If there was ever a television programme which illustrated the urgency with which the British National Party needs to establish itself as a mainstream political party it was Tonight on ITV yesterday evening at 8 o'clock.

It was pure 1984. Immigrants interviewing other immigrants to explain to the British people the positive aspects of immigration. Even the 'local' workers, interviewed about Eastern European immigrants taking their jobs, were Afro-Caribbean immigrants. You could have been excused for thinking that the programme might have been about Britain in 60 years time when the British people have become the minority in their own country.

But that, of course, was its purpose. To make the British people believe that immigration is so far advanced that there is nothing that can be done about it - that there can be no reversal of the trend that is set to change the face of the British population forever.

Probably the most depressing part of the half hour slot came near the end when dear old Trevor McDonald visited a school in East London. Just two of the twelve children interviewed were British and if you closed your eyes one of those sounded as though she was Jamaican.

What is important for us is how ordinary Britons felt watching such a programme. Are they seeing it through our eyes or the eyes of those who made the programme. The answer to that question will decide our fate on June 4th.

I'm grateful to Cynthia Wainwright for a report from Cornwall on a day's activity in Helston and Falmouth.

"While leafletting in Falmouth a community policeman who was standing in a doorway asked for one of our leaflets. We joked that his superiors wouldn't want him to read it and he just smiled as he folded it up and placed it in his top pocket.

"We were chatting to him when a retired schoolteacher joined in the conversation, she forthrightly expressed her fears about what was happening to our country.

"It's typical of the response we have received in Cornwall since we started leafleting in September for the European Election campaign. While Cornwall hasn't been affected like the rest of the UK by immigration, over 60% of the population are White flighters who have turned their backs on the multi-racial society to find a little bit of England in their retirement years, so they are receptive to our message.

"Also significant numbers of East Europeans are appearing in towns like Cambourne and with the Government wanting another 70.000 houses built in the South West, it makes you wonder who they have been earmarked for."

Thanks to Scotland organiser Gary Raikes for a report on the by-election for the Aboyne, Upper Deeside and Donside by-election for Aberdeen Council.

These are the candidates:
Rosemary BRUCE (Lib-Dem)
Wilson FORBES (Ind)
David HUTCHISON (Ind)
Roy JONES (BNP)
George PARKINSON (SNP)
Jo PICK (Con)

Gary writes:

"Another day was spent on the campaign trail in Deeside on Sunday where our leafleteers basked in glorious sunshine pounded the streets of Aboyne delivering a ‘vote for Roy Jones’ leaflet with the ‘say no to EU rule’ one.

At the same time our candidate canvassed shoppers in the town centre where he was well received although disappointed to find voter apathy to be at an all time high.

While people were happy to stop and speak many expressed their disillusionment with politics and politicians by saying they would not be bothering to vote for anyone!

On a good note those he spoke to were well aware of the BNP standing in this election.

This election uses the transferable vote system so the outcome is far from clear.

Roy has worked hard over the last month to put the BNP marker down in Deeside and in that respect is all ready a winner, we have never contested this ward so this is a first step for BNP Scotland here that has already gained supporters, activists and another future candidate.

Our percentage at the count on Friday will provide measure of things to come on June 4th.

The European Election campaign issue of Freedom is nearing completion and booked into the printers for early next week. The priority here is to get it to our units by May 1st so there's a full month to get the newspaper as widely distributed as possible.

Woolas plea just alienates voters

It seems that I was too quick to turn off BBC's Radio 4 Today programme on Friday.

Once I heard the words 'Nelson Mandela', that was enough for me, but Freedom columnist Sally Wood, has scolded me for being much too hasty.

She wrote:

"You should have carried on listening to Radio 4 this morning as it got quite interesting.

It seems that John Humphreys used to live in South Africa, 30 years ago, and he went back to his old house to see how the neighbourhood has changed.

The houses all looked the same and the same old trees were still there but the huge difference was in the security: there was barbed wire everywhere and large electric gates.

He went to speak to the lady who now lives in his old house and she told him that she is often followed home from the shops by those intent on robbery, and so the gates have to close very fast behind her as she enters her drive.

He also visited a white squatter camp and asked a white man why he didn't go and look for a job, but the guy said he stood no chance of getting work as they only want to employ blacks."

Sally also draws my attention to Martin Kettle's column in Friday's issue of The Guardian. He believes that when the expenses claims of MPs are released to the public in July there will be suicides and by-elections!

Having watched last night's Dispatches programme on Channel 4 about the Westminster Gravy Train, I can well believe that this could be case.

Plenty of drivel in the weekend newspapers but one important report in the Mail on Sunday which you can read here

This is what we need. Senior Labour figures telling people to vote for any political party other than the BNP.

Such statements devalue the importance of a vote for Labour and rather than encouraging people to come out and vote, in fact confirms what many people already think - "that all the old gang parties are the same".

Disillusioned Labour voters will never 'Vote Tory', and at election time will either just stay at home or go out and actually 'Vote BNP' to punish the Government for letting them down.

It is such a naive statement from Woolas that I can only think it is a special message for ethnic minorities who are new-arrived in this country and who have no grasp of partisan party politics. I can't believe Woolas was addressing former miners in South Yorkshire telling them to vote for a Conservative Party that has destroyed their industry, community and way of life.

Another cracking photo taken in Exeter on Saturday.

Peter Lucas wrote in his accompanying report:

"Towards the end of the Second World War the Royal Air Force seemed to operate two distinct offensive strategies. Down in the South West these principles seem to have evolved, also. Bomber Command managed to muster 1,000 aircraft to attack one target during the course of one night, an incredible feat of organisation. Fighter Command would send out pairs of locomotive and tank busting Typhoons and Tempests on "interdiction" raids where they would roam the sky looking for targets of opportunity on the ground.
James Wallis and Mike Wainwright do the latter in Cornwall, organised by the formidable Cynthia Wainwright. On the 16th April the two of them raided three towns in one day handing out hundreds of leaflets and chatting with dozens of interested parties.
Laurie West over in East Devon takes the former approach and amassed eighteen activists to "bomb" the centre of Exeter on Saturday. A photograph of just some of the Magnificent Eighteen is shown here, the remainder having hared off to the other end of the Shopping Mall.
Both systems seem to work and both compliment each other as the recent enquiry rate indicates."


If anyone has any news on this week's three by-elections I would be very grateful for it. In the prediction thread on the Vote-2007 website, there are a wide range of BNP percentages suggested which probably means that no one really has much idea of the outcome, so it would be useful to be able to shed some light on this.

Naughtie's hankie

IT was the off button for the umpteenth time for the Today Programme this morning.


Now I'm certain that 2009 must be the fiftieth or hundredth anniversary of many acts of British heroism or times of great British achievement. Yet BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme chose to recollect the seventieth(?) anniversary of a boatload of Eastern European immigrants fleeing Germany and coming to Britain. The tenuous 'news' element to the story was that a book published in 1974 recalling the voyage, has been re-published.

Once the interviewer, James (Everyone must carry the guilt) Naughtie started slowing his voice down, so that his audience could dwell on the injustice of it all, and then his struggling for words with his voice starting to break up as he reached for his hankie appearing overcome by the courage and fortitude shown by the immigrants - I'm afraid I had had enough.

If the BBC had a spot to fill, then they should have found a story connected with the anniversary of something British. An act of heroism at a pit disaster or a British invention. Not something that has nothing to do with the British people apart from the fact that yet another boatload of immigrants landed up on our shores.

More predictions on how the British National Party might do in the European Elections in this morning's copy of The Times.

You can read the report here.

It appears that Glyn Ford has moderated his original prediction that the BNP would win seven seats, it's now down now to six seats. He's probably trying to keep more in line with Harriet Harman's one to three seat prediction in Friday's Independent newspaper.

Excellent meeting for our Euro candidates from the North West, North East and Scotland on Saturday. Dealing with a hostile media is something all our candidates must be able to do. The seminar was about those questions fired out at the begining of any interview which need to be got out of the way to enable our representatives to start talking about BNP policy. The day was very useful indeed and lots of good tips were picked up. There's more about the meeting and some of the literature that's going out in the North West on Clive Jefferson's blog which can be found here.

Email from Gary Tumulty this morning saying that there has been a brilliant response to the plea, put out on this blog on Saturday, for help and funds for the Irwell Riverside by-election in Salford just two weeks before the Euro Elections.

I can't stress how important this contest is, coming just two weeks before the big day on June 4th. The bottom line is that we must poll 8% or more to ensure that the final weeks of our campaign have the morale boost of knowing, in the North West at least, we are on course for an MEP.