Campaign well under way in Workington

THANKS to the sterling work of that leafleting dynamo Stephen (Todd) Stoddart (left) our campaign in Workington has got off to a flying start with 4,000 local Patriot leaflets distributed in Seaton, Northside and the St Michaels Ward part of the town.

Todd has hit the areas that haven't received a BNP leaflet before and as well as the General Election warm-up leaflet, he is also distributing a national recruitment leaflet.

Paul Stafford came with me this morning for our weekly trip to Cockermouth where around 1,000 leaflets were put out. We have finished Christchurch ward in the town and now started on All Saints Ward.

In Maryport, Steve Harris is back from his annual visit down-under and the campaign there gets underway next week, as it does in Flimby where Carl Edgar is our team leader.

Chris Davidson to stand in Penrith and the Borders

I was busy working on election maps late into the night, preparing the 25 election packs of our team leaders and their activists in the wards that make up the Workington constituency.

Yesterday's internal problems within the Labour Party can only help our cause and the senseless leadership challenges and all the bickering that follows will only depress Labour's swindling band of activists even more.

Having said that, my campaign in Workington will target the Tories more than Labour. I certainly don't want to see a Conservative victory and will be reminding voters that this Labour Government has only been so appalling because Blair and Brown became the Pink Tory Party.

It is White working class Britons who have suffered the most because they lost Old Labour - a party whose activists at least, went through the motions of fighting their corner. Now it is only the British National Party that represents them.



There was good news yesterday when Chris Davidson (left) was selected as the British National Party's candidate for Penrith and the Borders. The constituency is very rural and the farming community holds sway here and that's why we are so pleased that Chris is our candidate. He has had a long and enduring friendship with this community and is very well known and trusted by them.

The main towns in his constituency are Penrith, Wigton and Longtown. In Penrith we recently polled 12% in a local council election. Across the whole of Wigton BNP candidate Paul Stafford polled 19% in June at the county council elections, and in Longtown, Chris himself polled 15%.

With a good campaign I think the British National Party will certainly be making its presence felt in this Tory stronghold.

Campaign gets underway

There was a General Election planning meeting in Workington last night attended by 20 key activists.

The weather was shocking with temperatures down to -5, thick snow underfoot and snow flurries in the air.

Full marks to one activist from St Michaels Ward who walked the two miles to the venue, up some steep and slippery hills, despite being partially sighted and having a guide dog. If our team shows that sort of commitment then we shall certainly have the old gang parties on the run.

Team leaders are to be allocated to each of the 25 wards that make up the Workington Constituency and a number came forward to take up the posts at yesterday's meeting.

I gave a brief outline of of how I hoped the campaign would go and an initial timetable for the first round of leafleting.

The first drop will start in Cockermouth with both Christchurch and All Saints wards completed by the end of the month.

Households here will get two leaflets. The full colour glossy A3 Nick Griffin leaflet outlining his work in the European Parliament and this will be accompanied by an A4 black and white leaflet both introducing me to the electorate and covering a local topic.

Below is the local leaflet that will go out in Cockermouth.

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The weather here today is shocking with near blizzard conditions but thankfully this has brought with it a slight rise in temperature.

Eddy Bulter is here to investigate the November floods on behalf of Nick Griffin. He had been hoping to visit both Crummock Water and the Thirlmere Reservoir this morning but it looks as though many of the Fell roads are blocked by snow.

However I believe that Eddy also has some meetings in Keswick with former United Utilities employees who will give him a briefing on procedures at the dams and on the responsibilities and consequences of opening the sluice gates.

Greed behind West Cumbria flood disaster

IT WAS five years ago that United Utilities, which owns the Thirlmere reservoir (above), was first asked to lower the water level during the Autumn so that there was additional capacity to hold the winter rains coming off the Lake District Fells.

The private company refused to do so, claiming that its priority was to keep the reservoir full to the brim so that it could provide the necessary water to meet the needs of 300,000 homes in Greater Manchester.

Back in 2005, both Keswick and Cockermouth were flooded because when the above average rainfall filled Thirlmere to over-flowing, the excess water turned the River Greta into a raging torrent.

It was deja vu this November when heavy rainfall caused Thirlmere to overflow yet again. The result this time was that not only were Keswick and Cockermouth flooded again but also the main Northside bridge in Workington was swept away and PC Bill Barker lost his life preventing a major disaster by stopping cars from crossing the bridge.

Again, prior to the disaster, the Thirlmere Reservoir was full to the brim. This time to make the problem worse, work was being carried out on the Manchester aqueduct restricting the amount of water making its way down to the city which meant the reservoir was overflowing even before the heavy rains of November 19th.

If the water level in Thirlmere had been 3 meters below the reservoir wall, as was called for back in 2005, then this disaster wouldn't have happened because the abnormal rainfall would have been easily absorbed.

Critics of United Utilities say the company keeps the water level high so that water can be pumped out to Manchester using the existing equipment. If the water level was to drop, then new, more efficient pumps, would have to be purchased which would eat into the company's profits and its shareholders' returns.

There is no doubt that the high water level in Thirlmere was responsible for the devastation caused in Workington and Cockermouth.

Water levels in the reservoir are the responsibility of United Utilities so the company should be footing the bill for the damage they have caused and making sure that in the future the water level Thirlmere is never over the 3 meters from the top mark.

Ready for the General Election year

BEST WISHES for 2010, a year that will hopefully see further electoral progress for the British National Party.

No posts during December for very good reasons. My visit to Cockermouth just after the floods brought home the magnitude of what had happened. When you see the reality of people's homes and businesses virtually destroyed, words seem frivolous.

Updating my blog seemed trivial to say the least - especially with talk of politics and policies when the constituency where I am standing has been split in two by the loss of the two bridges that connect Northside, Seaton, Flimby and Maryport to the main town of Workington.

There's been a lot of gossip about what took place and just how a torrent of water was able to take out the main Workington bridge which had stood for nearly 100 years. It's important to fact find before pointing any fingers, and that's what I and my team will be doing in the run-up to the General Election.

Although, I wasn't blogging, I was busy with a trip to Brussels for some training and then a week in Strasbourg as the Parliamentary Assistant to Andrew Brons. This was a fascinating few days, researching for the numerous votes that were taking place, helping Andrew prepare for two speeches he made in the European Parliament and attending a meeting of European nationalists where I met Jean Marie Le Pen, his daughter Marine and the impressive Bruno Gollnish.

Below is a photo of us in Andrew's Strasbourg office, preparing for around 30 different votes on the Thursday morning.



The weather has been playing havoc here in West Cumbria and the rest of the North of England. When returning home from Strasbourg my eldest daughter met me at Leeds Bradford Airport. On the trip home there was a blizzard and we got stranded, first along the A1 and then on the A66. Despite landing just after 9.00pm, we didn't get home till three in the morning.

Then two days later I met my other daughter, returning from university in France, at Newcastle Airport. Here again we got caught in a blizzard on the way home and were trapped for an hour on the A69 because cars were unable to get up the hill at Haltwhistle. There were incredible scenes with cars sliding all over the road and others trying to climb the hill via the central reservation.

Here in Wigton we have been frozen solid for the festive week. Pavements are lethal and venturing out in the car takes ten minutes of preparation because of frosted windscreens. Very little football with Workington Reds not having played since a victory over Nuneaton saw us through to the next round of the FA Trophy. The next outing is due to be at Blyth on New Year's Day, but reports from Croft Park say the pitch is still frozen.

It's the West Cumbrian way

I went to Cockermouth on Thursday, just to take stock of the situation and speak to some local people.

Clive Jefferson, who lives in the town, and Eddy Butler, who was there on a fact finding visit for Nick Griffin MEP, were with me as we walked down the main street talking to residents and members of the emergency services.

We did a bit of filming for BNPtv away from where people were trying to salvage what was left of their belongings and down by the river. The strength and height of the Derwent was still very worrying, although the weather had improved and level of the river is said to have dropped.

We visited the home of a BNP voter and he told us the harrowing story of the night and how events unfolded. It all happened so quickly. One minute he was watching television and the next his car had been washed away and his lounge was knee deep in water.

He was busy cleaning up and getting on with life. And that seems to be the way of things. It's the West Cumbrian way.

Football at Borough Park this afternoon where there will be a minute's silence for the brave Bill Barker who lost his life saving the lives of others just a few yards from the ground. Borough Park itself was just six inches from being swamped but the double bank that protects the ground from the Derwent held firm and withstood the raging torrent.