Desperate Labour face an investigation

Michael Clarke and wife with East Midls Election Officer Wayne McDermott.
A LABOUR candidate was so desperate to resist a challenge from the British National Party in a county council election that he might have fallen foul of the law.

The contest in question was for the Kirkby North Division of Nottinghamshire County Council and the result was as follows:

John Knight (Lab) 842
Michael Clarke (BNP) 722
Wendy Harvey (Ind) 597
James Thornton (Con) 445
Melvin Grant (Lib-Dem) 412
Dave Spalding (Ind) 174
BNP Percentage 22.6%

It was a great effort by the BNP's Michael Clarke, who was beaten by just 120 votes, and it is the closeness of this contest that is key to the police investigation that is now taking place.
                   
Just two days before polling day, a letter was sent out by Ashfield District Council to local residents in the Kirkby North Division which was blatant electioneering on behalf of the Labour candidate John Knight.

Now John Knight just happens to be the leader of Ashfield District Council so it is inconceivable that this letter was sent without his knowledge and consent.

The letter concerned a consultation process taking place with regard to the development of Warwick Close and the surrounding area which had generated a high level of response from local residents with 57% of those within the area completing a questionnaire.

So on this topic of great public interest, guess who gets a special mention in this official council letter sent out just 48 hours before those very residents go to cast their votes . . . ?

Why none other than John Knight himself!

The letter says:

"The new Leader of the Council, Cllr John Knight, a local Kirkby Member is taking a personal interest in the issues and has made it clear to me that he is committed to improving the area for local residents."

Michael Clarke understandably wants a full investigation into this and has contacted the police because he believes that this matter could have far reaching implications for the democratic process because a candidate has used taxpayers money to promote his campaign.

He told me:

"As you can see Labour won the seat by 120 votes, so it is reasonable to assume that the letter could have been a highly significant factor.

"Depending upon the result of the police investigation I will be seeking that the election be re-run.

"The investigating officer stated that this has high ranking people scratching their heads with all agreeing that it was wrong to send the letter, but unsure what laws may have been broken.

"Although there was no official imprint on the letter, the sender is clearly identified along with the council address. This is evidence that Ashfield District Council interfered with this Nottinghamshire County Council election."

I've forwarded Michael's email to Michael Barnbrook, a former senior police officer who is the British National Party's crime spokesman and whom I'm certain will be keen to offer help and advice.

I'll keep you updated with any developments.

A bit of my music to finish off with.

Bringing on back the Good Times by the Love Affair.

I wish the clip could have been from Top of the Pops in 1969 when the song was released and reached No 9, but it doesn't seem as though it's available.

However there's this one from German TV some thirty years later with Stevie Ellis still sounding good.

Good Times was the BNP's General Election song back in 2005.

Brown's going to try to do a Thatcher

Thatcher: "Fears of being swamped" - Brown: "House Brits first".

BACK at the General Election in 1979, Margaret Thatcher stormed to victory thanks, in the main, to a television interview where she said that she "understood people's fears about being swamped."

Thatcher was talking about stopping immigration, which was THE BIG ISSUE after a decade of near unrestricted access to Britain from the former Commonwealth countries.

After the election, nothing was done to stop the flood and discussion on immigration was quietly dropped from the political agenda.

Now I predict Gordon Brown will go into next May's General Election pledging to stop immigration in a last desperate attempt to keep Labour in power.

I believe this in the light of his new "British homes for British people" housing policy launched this morning which pledges to put Britons back at the front of the queue for council housing. And also because of the remarks made by Frank Field on the policy change in the Daily Mail today.

He says:

"Any conversion, even if it's 12 years late, is welcome. But it is a typical act of spin that doesn't deal with the main issue. What whites and immigrants both want is a halt to immigration."

The massive about turn in Labour's housing policy comes after it was revealed that 10,000 newly-arrived immigrant families were housed last year ahead of Brits who had been waiting for years for the same accommodation to become available.

Will this new housing policy influence voters? I don't think so. I believe it will just validate what the British National Party has been saying for the last ten years.

If Labour plays the immigration card at the General Election will that influence voters? Again, I don't think so. I believe it will just confirm everything that we have ever said concerning immigration.

Our opponents will be quick to draw parallels between Thatcher's immigration scam in 1979 - and the demise of the National Front - with any similar trick by Labour to appear to be tough on immigration in order to try to eclipse the British National Party.

But there is no comparison.

The National Front were in terminal decline long before 1979, in fact its peak was in 1976 and even despite the eye-catching 1977 local election results in London, the Party had already started to lose its popularity.

The NF didn't have a single elected councillor and no real local Party structure apart from its numerical strength in London and Leicester. It was a castle built on sand and after the 1979 election it just collapsed and disintegrated into warring factions.

NATIONAL FRONT: Unpopular marches and no councillors.

Thatcher's fleeting tough stance on immigration just consolidated Tory voters who had already left the NF and gone back to the Conservatives.

The British National Party is a different kettle of fish altogether. It has 2 MEPs, 1 London Assembly Member, 3 county councillors and over 100 borough, district, town and parish councillors. It has a thriving party structure across the whole country and it is attracting more and more Labour voters as each day goes by.

All Labour's last minute change on housing policy does is to provide a badge of approval for the British National Party and our brave and much criticised stance against immigrants being housed before Brits.

Rather than winning former Labour voters back, it will give others the courage and confidence to switch to the BNP in the knowledge that we have been right all along.

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.

Have the General Election on your mind

FIRST things first. Here are the initial contact details for the Norwich North by-election direct from one of the campaign's co-ordinators.

"Those wishing to contact us for offers of help for the by-election should do so by e-mailing norfolk@bnp.org.uk giving their name, address and telephone number. Accomodation can be provided for people fancying a working holiday."

Please make sure this information is as widely distributed as possible. Contacting the postal voters is a vital first task, so help with this is needed immediately.

We are still waiting for the Labour candidate who will selected on Sunday. The date of the election will be either the 16th or 23rd July if it is called in the next few days, otherwise it will be in October when Parliament returns after its summer break.

The Lib-Dems and the Greens are already having difficult media presentation problems. The stories doing the rounds are that April Pond was only her Party's third choice for the seat and that Green candidate Rupert Read has been branded an extremist by his opponents.

David Cameron visits Norwich today.

At the moment these are the names in the frame for the contest.

Thomas Burridge (Ind)
Bill Holden (Ind)
Craig Murray (Anti-Sleaze)
April Pond (Lib-Dem)
Rupert Read (Green)
Chloe Smith (Con)
Glenn Tingle (UKIP)
Robert West (BNP)

Just heard from Rob West - he's up and about early this morning - that Dave Fleming is his agent and campaign manager.

After Norwich North, and in less than eleven months from now, there will be a General Election and in any of the Parliamentary seats that come under the ten local authorities listed below, the British National Party will be a major player.

Barking & Dagenham 19.4% (14.8%)
Stoke-on-Trent 17.6% (22.0%)
Thurrock 17.5% (21.6%)
Barnsley 16.7% (18.7%)
Rotherham 15.4% (20.7%)
Havering 14.8% (26.9%)
Burnley 14.6% (14.8%)
NW Leicestershire 14.5% (16.3%)
Bolsolver 14.0% (14.8%)
Ashfield 13.5% (15.6%)

The list shows the vote share we gained in each of these authorities at the European Elections. It is, of course, well short of what is needed to win a seat at the General Election, but there is something else to factor into these returns.

It’s what I call the ‘disillusioned vote’, the support for the UK Independence Party in the European Election which could well all but disappear as it did five years ago after their similar spectacular Euro vote.

Some of this support (in the brackets above) will go back to the Tories from where it came, but the lion’s share will be up for grabs and the British National Party can capitalise on this.

In quite a few of the local authorities above, when the disillusioned vote is added to the BNP’s support, you have a vote share that is approaching 40% and in a well balanced contest where the three main parties are fully campaigning, that could well be be a winning percentage.

These are exciting times but the British National Party can only make further progress if the hard work for the General Election starts now.

In the Parliamentary constituencies where we know we can unnerve the three main parties we need to have the best candidate selected and in place as soon as possible, the campaign strategy needs to be planned and the work got under way.

After our European Election victories and our successes in the County Council elections we are on a ‘win/win’ footing for the General Election. No one expects us to win a seat under the first past the post system so we can give it all we have got and not lose any of our newly gained electoral credibility if we fall short of our goal.

Norwich North - a bit of background

HERE'S a nice photo of the Reverend Robert West, the British National Party's candidate for the Norwich North by-election, to accompany a bit of background to the contest.

The constituency includes parts of two local government areas, Norwich and Broadland with the majority of the electorate in Broadland.

At the European Election these were the votes cast in Broadland

Conservative Party 11,647
UK Independence 8,117
Liberal Democrats 5,141
The Green Party 3,549
Labour Party 3,247
British National Party 1,864
BNP Percentage: 5.6%

and these were the votes cast in the City of Norwich.

The Green Party 9,039
Conservative Party 6,329
The Labour Party 6,045
Liberal Democrats 5,409
UK Independence Party 4,449
British National Party 1,686
BNP Percentage: 5.1%

We fought just the one county council election in the consistuency, and that was in Sprowston where the result was . . .

John Ward (Conservative Party 1123
Glenn Tingle (UK Independence Party) 663
Barbara Lashley (Labour Party) 593
Corinne Russen (Liberal Democrat) 564
James Dexter (Green Party) 298
Julia Howman (British National Party) 228
BNP Percentage: 6.6%

We shall be campaigning very hard to save our deposit and on the above results, we must be in with a chance.

I'm hoping that the new issue of Freedom, which goes to the printers tomorrow, will be used as a warm-up for the postal voters. The newspaper shows that the BNP are now winners - and big winners at that - and with all the publicity the Party has had since our 'Victory in Europe', I think our vote share will be on the increase.

The two unknowns are what will happen to the UKIP and the Green vote. The Greens don't usually perform too well in by-elections whether it's local council or Parliamentary. UKIP's European Election vote disappeared to nothing in domestic contests after their success five years ago and with all the internal disputes within the party at the moment I can't see it being any different this time around. Neither party saved their deposit in 2005.

This was the result then:

General Election 2005:
Ian Gibson (Labour) 21.097
James Tumbridge (Con) 15,638
Robin Whitmore (Lib-Dem) 7,616
Adrian Holmes (Green) 1,252
John Youles (UKIP) 1,122
Bill Holden (Ind) 308

I know that the Tories are concerned about UKIP and will be looking to try to discredit their prosepctive candidate by exposing his alleged past political affiliations.

12 months ago we fought an excellent mid-summer campaign in Henley for the parliamentary by-election there. We only polled 3.6% but because we beat Labour that news made the headlines. This time we could make the news again by saving our deposit.

I'll try and get some contact details today for anyone who wants to go to Norwich to help. It's a lovely area around there and could make an interesting holiday destination with a bit of campaigning thrown in for good measure.

Now they are making mistakes

A photo of our brave Pat Richardson headlines the blog this morning.

Pat is a member of the British National Party.

Pat is an elected and a re-elected British National Party councillor.

Pat is the leader of the BNP group of councillors on Epping Forest District Council.

Yet writing in The Independent this morning, Michael Savage who is described as a 'political correspondent,' claims that the BNP bars Black, Asian and Jewish people from membership. You can read his report here.

It seems that in his haste to launch a witch-hunt, Michael has got his facts wrong. That's a big mistake when the people that you are trying to influence are already skeptical because there are just too many anti-BNP stories doing the rounds.

There was another wrong fact 'own goal' on Channel 4 News last night when it was reported that the BNP's elected representatives only helped their White constituents.

Interviewer Jon Snow had to sit there suffering in silence while Nick Griffin set the record straight.

And then, of course, there was THE classic.

It will be as much the arrogance of our opponents, as the hard-work of our own people, that will bring our Party further success.

Enter Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote. He said on the same programme that he and other black people wanted the British National Party to open up its membership so they could all join and then shut it down.

I would loved to have taken a straw poll of Channel 4 viewers at that very moment as to what they were feeling about this issue.

It's excellent news that we are to fight the Norwich North by-election and that the Reverend Robert West is to be our candidate.

This time last year we fought a very good campaign in the Henley by-election and if we can build up a similar head of steam in Norwich North, we shall be able to record another respectable result.

If anyone can help I know that they will be made very welcome by our people in Norfolk.

And finally a contribution from Pendle BNP.

The Nelson Leader is Pendle's main newspaper and it held a poll on the reaction of people to the election of Nick Griffin as their MEP. Here's the result.


Have a nice day!

Collector's Item

THIS is my 400th posting so it's fitting that it should be something special.

Below is the front page of the July issue of Freedom.



Please make sure you get a copy because it will most certainly be a collector's item - and that's not because it will be the last one that I have edited, although that might add a few bob to its eBay price as well when I'm long gone.

This will be the most sought after issue of Freedom in years to come because it records, as the newspaper's headline reports, the BNP's entry into mainstream British politics.

Why not take out a subscription to Freedom by contacting our 'subs' team of Colin and Sue Goodgroves at subscriptions@bnp.org.uk just to make sure that you don't miss out.

Something's in the air

AM I just being over optimistic or is change in the air.

Two events in the past few days have bucked trends that have been the norm since 2002 and probably long before.

Firstly, at the end of last week, we had the Chartered Institute of Journalists, stepping forward and issuing a statement that the British National Party should be treated in the media as any other legal political party with elected representatives.

Its statement was prompted in response to a meeting of the National Union of Journalists where the tactics of its members reporting on the BNP were to be discussed.

The NUJ deliberately encourages its members to doctor news to show the British National Party in an unfavourable light. It's a despicable policy but it has been in effect for over a decade and has never been challenged by anyone in the profession.

For another union to come forward at this time and issue, what is in reality, a condemnation of NUJ policy is very heartening indeed.

Over the weekend there was a call for BNP members to be banned from the teaching profession. The call was prompted by the Labour Party, the discredited Ed Balls in particular, but it was also backed by some members of the General Teaching Council of England.

Today, in The Guardian, the General Teaching Council of England distances itself from the comments of these Labour lackeys. Registrar Alan Meyrick writes:

"The five members of the General Teaching Council for England writing about teacher registration and membership of the BNP (Letters, 20 June) were acting independently of the GTC.

"As the regulator of the teaching profession, the GTC must carry out its responsibility - to hear cases of alleged unacceptable professional conduct, serious professional incompetence and relevant criminal convictions - fairly.

"Membership of any lawful political party cannot amount to unacceptable professional conduct. Council members, all of whom hear disciplinary cases, must not risk prejudicing themselves by expressing views that could be seen as predetermining the outcome of a case. We cannot regulate against the beliefs of professionals, only their actions and conduct.

"Where employers, such as the police, stipulate that membership of any particular political party is not permitted, this is a matter of employment contract rather than a matter for a professional regulator. For the GTC to take a position or advise government on this matter would be prejudicial to our position as a fair and impartial regulator."

There are also two other letters which buck the usual persecution trend when discussing the British National Party in newspapers like The Guardian, and they can be found here.

My 80th and my last 'Freedom'

NICK has hit the headlines this morning across the country with newspapers reporting "BNP's Griffin weeps over EU success".

What has happened to the NUJ's censorship? Surely it doesn't fit their criteria to report that Nick has shown emotion - devils don't have feelings.

You can read the report here

What is rather strange though is that at this moment, ten-to-nine, under some of the headlines the story is 'unavailable' - are they belatedly trying to pull it? See here

I know why Nick felt so emotional. We all did.

Simon Darby was responsible!

In his introduction he recalled how Tony Blair and his Government had twice tried to jail Nick with the two Race Act trials in Leeds.

When Simon said: "If Tony Blair had had his way, Nick would now be in prison rather than an MEP going to Brussels to represent the people of the North West," - I think it brought home to everyone just how massive our success has actually been.

Great day yesterday and also very constructive. At 9.30 there was an Advisory Council meeting where the plans for the future were set out. This went on till the Victory Rally started.

I reported on our election results and there were also speeches from both our MEPs, Deputy Chairman Simon Darby, our fund-raising magician Jim Dowson and Paul Golding on the BNP's Operation Fightback against a biased media.

Our breakthrough into the mainstream thanks to our two victories in the European Elections will certainly be life changing for Tina and I.

After thirty years of producing a monthly newspaper - firstly for the National Front, then the National Democrats and finally the British National Party, I'm now moving on to something different.

At the meeting Nick announced that I am to be the Campaigns and Communications Officer for both himself and Andrew. This will involve getting the maximum publicity for our MEPs to ensure that every voter in the North West and Yorkshire is aware that they are working on their behalf.

Tina will be Nick's PA and Constituency Office manager, while hard-working Leeds BNP councillor Chris Beverley, will be filling a similar role for Andrew.

There are some more appointments to be made to both teams, but we are awaiting on the official announcement.

Today, for me, it's back to Freedom, my 80th issue and my last. The immensely talented Mark Collett is taking over at the helm of the newspaper and I have no doubt he will make it into a really eye-catching publication.

At last, some opposition to the NUJ

APOLOGIES for no postings for the last two days but I have been out of the office.

There have been a series of meetings with regard to staffing and the structure of the Party. With success also comes some welcome problems such as Nick and Andrew needing 6 members of staff each to enable them to carry out their duties as MEPs representing their constituents over the next five years - this has meant some shuffling amongst existing staff and new staff being taken on.

That entails training, changeovers, relocations and the re-defining of jobs. All quite a major upheaval in the short term, but of definite benefit the British National Party in the long term.

There's only one change that has been made public so far and that is Tina becomes Nick's PA and Constituency Office Manager. She's very excited about this completely new job after five years as Membership Secretary. The handover to the new Membership Secretary will take place in around two weeks, in time for the opening of the new session of the European Parliament.

Pride of place on the blog today goes to a report on the Hold the Front Page website.

I am able to reprint this completely unedited and you can confirm this by the link here.

Treat BNP the same as other parties says union

A journalists' union has entered the debate over coverage of the British National Party by calling for them to be treated on the same basis as other political organisations.

Last night, the National Union of Journalists held a debate over how reporters should respond to the rise of the far-right group which captured seats in the recent European Parliament and local council elections.

But a rival union, the Chartered Institute of Journalists, says there is no need to single out the BNP for special treatment. It says the election of BNP members as councillors and MEPs should be dealt with in the same even-handed manner as all other political parties.

CIoJ president Liz Justice said: "It is not an option ignoring views of elected members because they don't chime with your own political views.

"It is a reporter's job to report – and a sub's job to edit – without injecting personal feelings and prejudices into the story. It is not the job of a journalists’ trade union to dictate otherwise.

"That is why the Chartered Institute of Journalists is strictly non-political and urges its members to report the facts and let the readers make up their own minds.

"The electing public can make good decisions based on accurate reporting. Journalists are in the perfect position to let the public know what they are voting for when the next elections come along."

Let's hope that all self-respecting journalists now sign up to the Chartered Institute of Journalists to show their support for this brave action.

Finally, it's a difficult job for me tomorrow at the Victory Rally in Blackpool.

I'm the under-study for Eddy Butler who is due to give an analysis of the local and European Election results but might not be able to make the Conference. So I have to prepare my take on the results just in case Eddy doesn't make it to the North West's main seaside resort.

The July issue of Freedom is on schedule despite my two days away, and this is because I have been burning the midnight oil. Hopefully it will be with the printers well before the end of the month.

I'm really happy with the front page which will be an eyecatcher on the High Street. I will post it up here first, once the newspaper has been completed.

Yorkshire Post blasts the UAF

FIRST and foremost I do not have any control over the Google advertisements that appear on my blog. The book and music ones are all put on by me, but the others are just random.

Some people have been upset by anti-BNP adverts appearing on these pages, but I have no say in the matter.

I'm very busy with Freedom at the moment and wrote a brief report about our county council wins this morning. For reference I dug out a copy of the newspaper from four years ago which reported on our efforts last time around. I thought you might be interested.



When you make a comparison with our 453 candidates across 34 county councils this time around, it shows the incredible progress the British National Party has made.

Here's something from yesterday's Yorkshire Post. Columunist Bernard Dineen lets the UAF thugs have it with both barrels. I have removed the now compulsory anti-BNP platitudes and soundbites from his article to make it acceptable for this blog.

LET'S have an end to the hysteria about the British National Party. They have arrived in the European Parliament thanks to the Labour MPs who turned their backs on the people who sent them to Westminster.

We are told very solemnly that we mustn't be complacent. That's rich, coming from the very people whose complacency and refusal to listen to the public, particularly on immigration, let the BNP in.

In town after town, city after city, traditional Labour voters watched the whole nature of their communities changing without their consent. If they even mentioned their misgivings, they were accused of racism.

The BBC in particular cannot let a day go by without giving the BNP publicity. The police should be ordered to put an immediate halt to the violent attacks on Nick Griffin. One glance at the thugs responsible shows them to be the same old Trotskyite rabble who have infested British politics for a generation: the same gang who used to shout down Denis Healey during Labour's deputy leadership contest.

Their latest stunt is to offer £200 to anyone who throws Indian food at Mr Griffin. Masterminded by the subversive Socialist Workers Party, they cluster around every controversial issue like maggots on rotten meat. They were behind the anti-police campaign after the shooting of the young Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes and they ran the Respect Party which put George Galloway into Parliament until he quarrelled with them. The BNP's success is music to their ears.

You will not see them standing for election because they know the voters have no time for them. So they operate like parasites. Their biggest success was setting up the Anti-Nazi League, which was just a SWP front but managed to fool many well-intentioned people.

Now they see the BNP as their next big chance. By inflicting damage on the Labour Party with their "entryism", they are a bigger menace than the BNP ever could be.

The Big Ambush

Well, if the BBC and our opponents think that the sort of attack they launched on Andrew Brons and the Reverend West yesterday is going to deter viewers from finding out more about the British National Party, they have made a serious mistake.

After a personal rant from the 'three members of the panel', and tirade after tirade from selected members of the audience, any right thinking person could have been forgiven for asking 'where's the balance', or even 'let's hear from someone in the audience who does not come from an ethnic minority.'

Andrew and Robert did very well indeed in a hugely difficult situation and, as I said yesterday, would have won the plaudits from any uncommitted viewer. Very well done to them both.

Here's a report from the Sunday Express which I think is worth drawing your attention to.

I have removed the predictable and unnecessary anti-BNP rhetoric to make it acceptable for this blog.

"WHEN anti-fascist activists threw eggs at Nick Griffin, the BNP leader and newly elected MEP, the only people left with egg on their faces were this Labour Government.

For it is the Labour Party that has, over 12 long years, ignored the concerns of the people it claimed to represent and forced them to turn, in desperation and fear, into the arms of the BNP in last week’s European elections.

Unite Against Fascism claimed they want to prevent the BNP from pretending to be a respectable party but you don’t defeat the British National Party by resorting to violence to stifle free speech and legitimate political debate.

When you disrespect a democratically elected politician – you disrespect the voters who elected them.

How dare mainstream politicians say it was a “sad day for democracy” that the BNP were elected! It’s not for them to tell voters whom to elect.

It is not an outrage that the BNP has been elected. How can it ever be an outrage that people chose to vote for a legal political party in a free and fair election?

The real outrage is that those people felt their needs were not being represented by any of the mainstream parties. The BNP didn’t make this happen. The Government did. Mr Griffin and his party have simply benefited from the Government’s failure to tackle the issues that matter to ordinary people.

The 943,000 people who voted for the BNP are desperate and afraid.

Labour has spent the past 12 years telling the country that mass uncontrolled immigration has not changed the face of Britain or affected job opportunities for British workers, or that it hasn’t had a knock-on effect on overstretched public services.

But the reality for ordinary people in many parts of Britain is very different than it is for the Hampstead types who run our country (and much of our media) and for whom immigration just means cheaper builders, cleaners and nannies.

Labour ministers don’t send their children to schools where most pupils don’t speak English and where nativity plays are banned as “racist”; they don’t languish on council-house waiting lists, take crowded buses or wait in NHS hospitals; and they don’t live in streets where English isn’t spoken, where women cover their faces with burkhas or where shop names are in a foreign language.

Yet that is the reality for millions in Britain today. Are they all racist or just afraid that their country has changed beyond recognition?

What Labour has to ask itself is why people are so fearful.

If anything, the election of two BNP MEPs might even end up being a positive thing because it will finally force Labour to face up to the real world out there.

Paying tribute to a worthy opponent

EVERY morning I work out on my cross-trainer and rowing machine. When you are 58 and the years come and go with increasing speed, trying to keep fit is important. I love ski-ing and if you are not fit you can't do it or risk serious injury, so that's my incentive each morning.

While exercising I listen to the Today Programme during the week, Sounds of the Sixties on Saturday and then Sunday Worship 24 hours later.

This morning the service was from Blackburn Cathedral and I was pleased to hear a prayer being said for those who face persecution. Tagged on the end of quite a lengthy list of recipients, was "those who face persecution for their political beliefs."

Now that has to be the members of the British National Party, because no one else in Britain faces persecution for their political beliefs.

At last, after having our elected representatives attacked by a mob and our members persecuted in the workplace, the Christian Church is acknowledging that such actions are wrong and has offered a prayer on our behalf.

Sunday is a time for reflection and seven days ago I felt very different to how I feel today.

Last Sunday there was a ball of fear in the pit of my stomach. I felt like a boxer who has just given their all over 15 rounds and now sits on the stool in his corner waiting for the referee's verdict.

My heart felt we had done enough for a narrow victory, but my head said that our County council returns might not be quite good enough to secure a seat, especially in the North West.

The fear in my stomach was about what might happen afterwards. As a veteran Nationalist I know what comes after election results that don't meet expectations. It's something much worse than anything our opponents can throw at us.

That ball of fear was with me until the announcement that Andrew Brons had won in Yorkshire. Then it disappeared in an instant, and then Nick's election ensured that we could rightly claim our victory.

The glow of victory makes it easy to pay tribute to your opponents and I shall do so now.

When I talk of opponents, I don't mean the moronic UAF who tried to jump on the publicity bandwagon once the hard work was all over, just in an attempt to boost the membership of the Socialist Workers Party which runs it.

No I'm talking about our old 'friends' Gerry, Sonia and Nick from Searchlight who fought to us toe to toe for the full 15 rounds and were only beaten by the narrowest of margins.

In the intro to Joey Smith's Victory Song it says that the BNP victory was achieved:
" . . .despite the biggest media hate campaign ever witnessed in Britain".

Well, that hate campaign was down to Searchlight. Nick Lowles admits this in his Hate Not Hope blog.

It must have taken some doing to keep this campaign going for a full three weeks and although the expenses scandal no doubt helped because it made editors more susceptible to anti-BNP stories because of the hammering the three mainstream parties were receiving, it is still a feat worth acknowledging.

I see that Searchlight is now to start an investigation into why one million people voted for the British National Party.

Always willing to help a worthy opponent I would like to offer my contribution.

As an over-50 I would suggest that many people of my age group support the BNP because they feel uncomfortable with the demographic changes that have taken place in this country - they just prefer the way things were before large scale immigration.

I have just seen Andrew and the Good Reverend on the BBC's Big Question and they did very well indeed. Hostility from all quarters but they met it with sensible and polite answers which must have won the support of many uncommitted viewers.

Attempted electoral fraud in Barnsley

A quite incredible report of attempted electoral fraud in Barnsley.

It's revealed at the end of this video of Barnsley BNP's victory celebration barbeque.

You can view it here.

A fine ambassador

I RECEIVED some very sad news yesterday afternoon from Mike Ashburner our hard-working organiser in Barrow-in-Furness.

He told me that Charlie Bickerstaffe had just passed away after a long illness. He was 69.

Now Charlie was the fourth and last of the Cumbrian Four. Along with yours truly and Paul Stafford from Wigton, and Kevin Clark from Penrith, he travelled with us two or three times a week down to Burnley in the Spring of 2002 to campaign in the local elections there which led to our electoral breakthrough in May of that year.

Charlie was a taxi driver in Barrow and often, after a long night shift, he would drive to Junction 36 of the M6 where we would pick him up on our way to Burnley. If he missed us there, he would drive to Burnley in his cab and meet up with us for our canvassing sessions in Brunshaw ward.

Charlie was a tireless worker and never wanted stop.

I would say, 'Well that's it for today," and Charlie would say, "Come on let's do another half an hour."

But there was something else special about Charlie. He blew the media's stereotype of the BNP being made up of racists right out of the water.

You see Charlie's daughter had married a West Indian and he had two grandchildren who he loved dearly.

Yet, that didn't shake his conviction that immigration had to be stopped completely and that illegal immigrants had to be returned to their country of origin.

Like so many in our ranks today, Charlie had been a Labour voter all his life but the rapid change in the priorities and policies of that Party under Tony Blair after 1997, led him to the British National Party.

Charlie's commitment to our cause lasted right up until the end. Despite being desperately ill he answered the call for 'paper' local election candidates to come forward and he stood in the District of Eden in Cumbria to help build our European election vote there.

On Thursday June 4th he received 105 votes in Penrith West which was a very useful 8.3% of the votes cast.

Charlie Bickerstaffe was a great ambassador of the British National Party right to the very end.

10.43 am UPDATE:"He will be sadly missed by those who knew him, but he left us with some fond and often humorous memories. Rest In Peace Charlie." From Kevin Clark, Penrith. (One of the Cumbrian Four).

Just an innocent bystander . . .

Many thanks to Alistair from Glasgow for alerting me to the following photographs.

Just note the look on the face of the cameraman on the far left in the top photo. You know he's thinking "What the hell is she doing.?"

Full marks to the gentleman on Nick's security team for getting her out of the way in such a professional manner. For all he knew she could have been carrying a knife.

I hope the Metropolitan Police are aware of the first photo and charges the UAF's Anna Heath with wasting Police time over her assault claim.

Of course there shouldn't have been an unauthorised demonstration so near to Parliament in the first place.

This comment came from The Times website:

"It is an Offence under SOCPA 2005, s.132, to organise and/or attend a demonstration within the Vicinity of Parliament (Designated Area) without Authorisation from the Met Commissioner.
To obtain Authorisation, written Notice must be given 6 clear days before the demo if this is "reasonably practicable".
If not practicable, then written Notice must be given AT LEAST, and IN ANY EVENT, 24 hours before the demo starts.
The Designated Area is outlined in an Order, SI 1537/2005. It is quite large, stretching from Hungerford Bridge to Lambeth Bridge, then up to Victoria, Birdcage Walk and the Mall, then on to Northumberland Avenue and back to Hungerford. Encompassing Whitehall etc. of course in this wide circumference.
The punishment for the crime is either prison (max 51 weeks) or a fine level 4, or both.

Can we see UAF's Authorisation please? If they do have one, it should not have been given as the purpose of the Act is to prevent exactly their type of behaviour occurring in the first place. If they don't have one, they have committed a crime and broken statute law, whether they threw anything or not. The police can arrest on the spot, without a warrant, if there is no Authorisation. So, did they have one? Can we see it? Please?"

Very well said, and if the demonstration was authorised why wasn't there a much heavier Police presence?

And finally this is a great offering from Joey Smith in acknowledgement of the hard work done by our supporters across Britain. Victory Song really grows on you the more you hear it.

No smears on this Mirror

THINGS are going to start getting back to normal with the press conferences now over.

It went very well in Manchester yesterday and Nick certainly made an impact on the reporters and cameramen crammed into Derek Adams' lovely pub.

Some silly adjectives used in a report in The Times this morning which is disappointing. This was once a newspaper of record but now standards have dropped so far that this report sounds like something from a student magazine.

Surprisingly The Mirror carries a truthful report on yesterday's event so I'm linking to that too, here. Maybe The Mirror was pleased that reporters from The Sun had been turned away from yesterday's conference after its deliberate lies regarding the bogus Gurkha leaflet.

This blog will be much truncated over the coming days as I have to try to get focussed on Freedom. There's also the Summer School next weekend if the date in my diary is correct.

Weyman saves the day

I wonder if Robert Mugabe was watching Sky News and BBC News 24 yesterday.

He would have seen a Government sponsored mob attacking two elected opposition representatives to stop them speaking to the press, while hundreds of policemen stood across the road and did absolutely nothing.

Maybe the next time Gordon Brown or David Milliband try to lecture him on the treatment of his political opponents, he could mention it.

Before the events on College Green, I had been told that our press conference was going to 'bomb'. That means that there would be no 'live feed' and that any footage and statements made by Nick and Andrew there, would be for archive purposes only. In others words it wasn't going to be reported on mainstream TV.

Then enter Weyman Bennett, Sarah Kavangh, Martin Smith and the UAF . . . need I say any more?

Here's an Eddie Mair classic. His interview with Sarah Kavanagh from yesterday's PM programme.

And here is Jon Snow, who always gets so involved when the BNP is being attacked, looking decidedly embarrassed on Channel 4 News interviewing Martin Smith.

I'm starting to wonder whether Channel 4 are secretly on our side. First they allow Andrew Brons to demolish Margaret Hodge, and then this.

Guardian columnist, Sunny Hundal, who was on Sky News yesterday condoning the violence of the UAF, was a panel guest along with me on a BBC World Service discussion programme where the main audience is apparently in America and Africa. The subject was the rise of the Far Right across Europe.

I'm afraid I might not have gone down too well, with my suggestion of a moratorium on building mosques in Britain and improved resettlement payments for immigrant families seeking to return home, upsetting both Sunny and the presenter.

Also on the panel was a former French centre-left politician who was much more sensible. He understood the appeal of the BNP to old Labour Party supporters and how the BNP had filled a vacuum in British politics because the three main parties now all sung from the same songsheet.

The programme was a phone-in and the last caller was an Italian working in Ireland who was so worried about the rise of the fascist BNP that he was having trouble sleeping at night. I was able to reassure him, as the programme ended, that the British National Party wasn't fascist, but democratic, and advocated a change to proportional representation for our electoral system. This was something else that Sunny wasn't happy about.

I was working on our County Council election results for Freedom all day yesterday and its very heartening to see such significant rewards for the efforts of all our brave candidates. Just as with the European Election, it was another very strong electoral performance by the BNP.

Sorry Roy!

THE first thing I must do this morning is to apologise to Roy Goodwin and his dedicated band of activists in Oldham.

In yesterday's blog I insinuated that no BNP campaigning had been done in Oldham. This was completely wrong.

Roy who now lives in Blackpool, but who was originally from Oldham, has been travelling over since the start of the year and regularly leafleting the town.

It was their efforts that helped deal the final hand which won us the game. Well done to Roy and the team.

I'm grateful to James from Blackpool for politely drawing my attention to my error and to Dave from Burnley for doing so in his usual forthright manner.

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story," he derides me, along with his usual broadside over Freedom's bias towards BNP activity in Cumbria.

Ouch!!!

It's a day of compiling results for Freedom today, but I shall be back later with a report on my appearance on the BBC World Service last night where I was accused of sounding like some White supremacist from 1950's America!

Success or failure on a knife edge

AS someone quite rightly says on the comments section of the main website, it was all the North West that got Nick Griffin elected not just Oldham. It was Oldham however that dealt the final hand that secured our victory.

Yesterday was a day of ups and downs. I think everyone feared the worst concerning our European Election efforts. The media/UKIP bandwagon was on the roll again and it looked very much on the cards that our carefully planned victories would be snatched from our grasp at the 11th hour.

Tina and I set off from Cumbria at one o'clock and reached Derek Adams' pub at four, just in time for a lift to City Hall. There were long faces amongst the BNP contingent when we arrived with talk of just a 3% BNP vote for Manchester.

We needed 8% in every region if we were to be successful, so such a low vote in Manchester would scupper any chance we had before the evening had even started.

I buried myself away in counting room C, and for the next two hours just counted the votes coming out from three city hall staff directly in front of me. They probably thought I was some sort of nutter because I never moved. Just counting 100 ballot papers at a time and keeping the BNP tally for each 100 on my fingers.

It was 9% every time and that must have been for nearly three thousands votes. Tina had the same 'one-in-every-eleven' for her stint on another table. So at six o'clock we knew that things were on course in our counting room and although the other three rooms produced lower percentages, we ended up just a couple of hundred votes short of our 7,000 target in Manchester.

It was a promising start.

Then came the waiting and the telephone reports from counts across the region. Once again these were doom-laden tales of impending disaster. Only 10% in Burnley, lucky if it's 2% in Trafford, struggling for 8% in Bury - only a report of a strong showing in Wigan gave us any hope.

It was three hours later before the results started coming in and after twenty declarations we were on target and this despite that dreadful result in Trafford. Our table in the city hall's candidates and agents room was buzzing.

Then we were sent reeling by a string of devastating results. Cheshire East, Cheshire West, South Lakeland, Sefton and Eden - all well below the 8% threshold needed.

When Nick Griffin left the table at midnight to give an interview to the BBC, we were on course for a seat. When he came back 20 minutes later we were 5,500 votes short of our target. After 27 declarations the results' screen now showed the Greens were beating us, UKIP had more than double our vote, and the Tories had more than three times our vote. Suddenly we were staring defeat in the face.

Then the pendulum swung back again.

Halton 300 votes above 8% and then another 600 votes clawed back in Knowsley. Copeland in Cumbria did us proud with 900 votes over target before three stunning results that appeared to have changed the course of the night. 4,905 in Rochdale (1,400 votes over 8%), 7,517 in Wigan (2,400 votes over 8%) and 6,549 votes in Tameside (2,589 over 8%).

We seemed nearly there but before these result could be added to the accumulative tables on the result screens, these all went dead. Now it was down to our own arithmetic.

Stockport was very disappointing, so was Sefton and Fylde and we were back on tenderhooks again. The second last result was Wirral which not only put the Greens back in the frame but also made UKIP the favourites for taking the final seat.

The tension was unbearable . . . . until the Oldham result.

We got back at six this morning and what has happened over the past 24 hours is still sinking in.

Back later.

Swimming in the mainstream

Just an idea of what last night has achieved with regard to the British National Party's standing in the media.

Making the headlines.

Oldham tells them

BY a quirke of fate, at half past two this morning we were sitting around a table at Manchester's City Hall waiting for the result from Oldham.

The result system had broken down around an hour earlier and it was only by manual calculations that we had any idea of where we stood and whether we were still in with chance of winning that final North West seat.

We knew that the Tories had more than three times our vote, so they would take one of the final two seats. The Greens and us were neck and neck and UKIP were ready to pounce and pip us both on the line.

Everything depended on the Oldham vote, which although declared hours earlier, the figures had not been sent through to Manchester.

It was back in Oldham at the 2001 General Election that the British National Party, and Nick Griffin in particular, hit the headlines when we polled 16% in one of the town's two parliamentary constituencies. For the next few years Oldham was a flagship town for the BNP with a string of excellent local council elections and a growing local BNP branch.

But in recent years our activity in the town had dwindled to next to nothing and at the moment there isn't even a BNP organisation in Oldham and no campaigning had been done there. Yet it was in the hands of Oldhammers whether Nick Griffin would be elected to the European Parliament.

It was a tense wait while this final result sheet was delivered. We were 6,000 odd votes short of our 132,900 target and were desperate for at least an 8% vote. The mood around the BNP table was not optimistic.

O us of little faith.

Oldham did us proud with over 11% - a 5,435 vote, nearly 3,000 votes more than the Greens, and close enough to the UKIP vote to ensure that Nick took his seat in Brussels.

It's ironic that it should be the votes from the people of Oldham that should take the BNP up another rung of the political ladder. Our opponents have always showcased Oldham as "the town where the British National Party were defeated."

The reality is something quite different. Oldhammers are still very much supporters of the BNP as they proved last night.

Back with more reflections on last night later.

Manchester here we come . . .

AFTER much deliberation, I think we will get to the City Hall in Manchester earlier rather than later so that Tina and I can see the count unfold for Manchester itself, which could hold the key to our success or failure to win a seat in the North West.

Sleepless night as I have figures swirling around in my head. My slight concern now is over our results in 2004.

I pulled out the July 2004 issue of Freedom last night and digested the results in full and on reflection some of them were very good indeed. In Blackburn, Bolton, Rochdale, Tameside and Stockport we polled some very, very good results and at this incredible tense time I would probable accept those sort of results again at this moment.

It's all on a knife edge in the North West and I wouldn't like to call it.

We have had the best British National Party campaign of all time, but that has been met by the most ferocious anti-BNP campaign in the media ever seen.

I go back once again to the scene from one of my favourite films, The Verdict, when lawyer Paul Newman making his final plea to the jury says:
"People have a great ability to see through things to find the truth."

I hope that has happened with regard to the media campaign against us.

Of course, it's not only the North West where we are in with a shout of a seat. Yorkshire still looks a serious possibility, especially after the County County results in our most poorly supported areas.

West Midlands looks very good too after the council results there although there are worries over our support in Birmingham, the largest population area, where BNP votes in the Euros were said to be 'hard to find'.

I have received complaints that my results presentation on our local elections was 'below the usual standard' so I will rectify that now:

Cumbria County Council
Harrington Clifton & Stainburn
Thursday 4th June 2009
Marjorie Rae (Lab) 748
Robert Hardon (Con) 612
Allan Caine (Lib-Dem) 454
Vince Richardson (BNP) 251
BNP Percentage: 12.2%

Cumbria County Council
Maryport East
Thursday 4th June 2009
Keith Little (Lab) 904
Tina Wingfield (BNP) 328
John Stanyer (Con) 266
BNP Percentage 21.9%

Cumbria County Council
Maryport West
Thursday 4th June 2009
Bill Cameron (Lab) 628
John Rivers (Lib-Dem) 334
John Peel (Ind) 282
Carl Edgar (BNP) 259
BNP Percentage: 17.2%

Cumbria County Council
Moorclose
Thursday 4th June 2009
Gerald Humes (Lab) 591
Denis Robertson (Ind) 462
Eddie Woodthorpe (Con) 148
Glen Brew (BNP) 131
BNP Percentage: 9.8%

Cumbria County Council
Moss Bay
Thursday 4th June 2009
Barbara Cannon (Lab)411
John Bracken (Ind) 277
Martin Wingfield (BNP) 130
Ian Francis (Lib-Dems) 104
Judy Prest (Con) 77
BNP Percentage: 13.0%

Cumbria County Council
St Johns
Thursday 4th June 2009
Joe Holliday (Lab) 759
Michael Davidson (Con) 563
Stephen Stoddart (BNP) 237
BNP Percentage: 15.2%

Cumbria County Council
Wigton
Thursday 4th June 2009
Joe Cowell (Con) 918
John Crouch (Lab) 651
Paul Stafford (BNP) 248
BNP Percentage 18.8%

Five years ago Tina and I arrived back in Cumbria after the European Election count at 4 o'clock in the morning tired, depressed and with the BNP facing extinction because of the challenge from UKIP and the fact the Party was bankrupt.

Five years on and we will definitely be exhausted when we arrive back home again at about the same time. Maybe we will be feeling depressed again, I don't know.

What is certain is that we won't be facing a challenge from UKIP once the European Elections are out of the way and that the British National Party is in the best shape possible both financially and in organisation, to take on the challenges of the next five years.

And finally a reason to be cheerful. This was posted on the Vote 2007 website by a Labour Party supporter just a few minutes ago.

"I happened to notice that there was a very high BNP turnout in Featherstone.
I happened to see a full bundle of 25 being counted and 21 of them were BNP. Because they were top on the slip I could see them all clearly. Baring in mind that this is a random bundle and no sorting had taken place.
Draw whatever conclusions you wish from it.
Doing as best as I could to get a flavour of how the vote might go, I think Labour have done very poorly. We looked quite good in our strong areas...Wrenthorpe, Horbury, West and so on."

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.

The Target - 132,905 votes

THANKS to Tricky, a fellow elections anorak on the Vote 2007 website, we now know our target for tomorrow night.

It's 132,905 votes which is 8% of the total number of votes cast in the North West region for the European Election campaign.

The turnout across the region was 31.9% which is a full 9% down on 2004 and this means that Nick Griffin in fact needs to secure 2,000 less votes to get elected than the British National Party received five years ago.

Then we polled 134,959 votes which was a 6.4% vote share but now on the reduced turnout a similar vote will do quite nicely thank you.

Your Armchair Guide for tomorrow night (below) breaks down the huge Euro constituency into its 39 local authorities and pinpoints the 8% mark in the votes cast in that authority.

If we have reached the 8% you fill in the BNP vote under "Yes", if we don't it goes under "No". If it's "Yes" or "No" I shall be writing the number of votes over or under that 8% mark in the opposite column as +558 or -558 to give me an idea of the balance of the way the results are going.

I can't guarantee the figures are correct but this is my copy for the count and I shall be using it.

Your armchair guide to the Eurpean Election in the North West Region

The morning after . .

No, I'm not nursing a hangover, although I do have one, but working on an armchair guide for you to have tomorrow evening so that you can follow the progress of our efforts in the North West region on the European election specials on TV.

Back later with the guide and some thoughts.

Ouch! fingers burnt and suffering from exhaustion

WHAT a count. Seven and a half hours. Why on earth didn't they have different ballot boxes for the Euros?

I'm gutted over St John's ward. I seriously thought we were in with a chance. Our disappointing result shows the massive effort put in by Clive Jefferson last time when he canvassed the whole ward.

Results otherwise were roughly what was expected although my enthusiasm for the campaign obviously had some percentage points which weren't appropriate.

What was most important was the Euro vote. From close examination I would say that Allerdale has returned a 8/9% BNP vote which is double five years ago.


Harrington Clifton & Stainburn (Allerdale) :

Richardson, Vincent Frank
British National Party
251

Hardon, Robert Gibson
Conservative
612

Rae, Marjorie
Labour
748

Caine, Allan
Liberal Democrat
454

Maryport East (Allerdale)

Wingfield, Tina Dorothy-Rose
British National Party
328

Stanyer, John Brian
Conservative
266

Little , Keith Anthony
Labour
904

Maryport West (Allerdale)

Edgar, Carl Joseph
British National Party
259

Peel, John QK
Independent
282

Cameron, Bill
Labour
628

Rivers, John Roger
Liberal Democrat
334

Moorclose (Allerdale)

Brew, Glen
British National Party
131

Woodthorpe, Eddie
Conservative
148

Robertson, Denis
Independent
462

Humes, Gerald
Labour
591

Moss Bay (Allerdale)

Wingfield, Martin
British National Party
130

Prest, Judy
Conservative
77

Bracken, John
Independent
277

Cannon, Barbara Ann
Labour
411

Francis, Ian William
Liberal Democrat
104

St Johns (Allerdale)

Stoddart, Stephen
British National Party
237

Davidson, Michael
Conservative
563

Holliday, Joe
Labour
759

Wigton (Allerdale)

Stafford, Paul Brandy
British National Party
248

Cowell, Joe
Conservative
918

Crouch, John
Labour
651

And finally . . .

From the Searchlight website:

"Over the course of the last three months we have put out 3,400,000 newspapers and leaflets – dwarfing the efforts on any of the political parties standing.

"Over 44,000 people joined our campaign online and almost 1,500 people donated to the campaign over the internet.

"We ran a huge media operation which placed anti-BNP stories in the newspapers on a daily basis and we sent out almost 600,000 eve of poll emails – the biggest single email in domestic British history."

I think it's called duping the media. Let's hope a few editors take note.

I'm going to be late but . . .

More good results from Essex.

Harlow South East - turnout 32.5%
Con 1966 40.8%
Lab 983 20.5%
Lib Dem 859 17.9%
BNP 677 14.1%
Green 320 6.5%

Harlow North - turnout 35.4%
Con 1838 33.2%
Lab 1378 24.9%
Lib Dem 1129 20.4%
BNP 716 12.9%
Green 472 8.5%

Harlow West (2 member) - turnout 32.7%
Con 3235 2939
Lab 2549 2453
Lib Dem 1447 1504
BNP 1381 1318
Green 1066

In 2004 the turnout was 36.7% when interestingly the BNP percentage was 5.9% and for Greens 4.8%

Off to the count . . .

. . . but first some late info.

Votes for the main players in Rochford in Essex.

BNP beats Labour in all five Electoral Divisions.

Con - 11,718
Lib-Dems - 4,467
BNP - 2,751
Lab - 1,823

Wayne McDermott is quite happy with results in Lincolnshire which work out to an average of 11.9% across the 23 seats contested.

Money going on our Euro seat win

I'm off to the count in Allerdale shortly but I thought you might like to know that Betfair now has the BNP's odds on gaining a seat in the European Parliament at 1.25, the lowest price it has been since the book opened.

It's going to be a nail-biting weekend.

Missing Results from last night in Lincs

Good Morning, good morning.

Just three hours sleep but I'm feeling OK

So-so results in the end in Lincolnshire with us falling short of the 15% average vote needed for an MEP and I don't know what Wayne McDermott, the East Midlands election officer, will be thinking this morning.

One glaring fact from the quite incredible performance from the various Independents is that there are an awful lot of Euro votes up for grabs in the county!

BOURNE ABBEY

Sue Woolley (Con) 1298

Trevor Holmes (Ind) 762

Peter Morris (Lib-Dem) 289
Roberta Britton (Lab) 239

Alan Galland (BNP) 219

BNP Percentage: 7.8%



FOLKINGHAM RURAL

Martin Hill (Con) 1928

Janire Morris (Lib-Dem) 497

Timothy Bradley (Ind) 387

Chris Robinson (BNP) 301
David Burling (Lab) 251

BNP Percentage: 8.9%



GAINSBOROUGH RURAL SOUTH

Stuart Kinch (Con) 1785

Peter Heath (Lib-Dem) 1514

Malcolm Porter (BNP) 379
BNP Percentage: 10.3%



HEIGHINGTON & WASHINGBOROUGH

Ron Oxby (Con) 1105

Hannah Woodruff (Ind) 657
Peter Scott (Lab) 202

Ashley Baldock (BNP) 166

BNP Percentage: 7.8%



HOLBEACH
Nick Worth (Con) 1599
Carol Drew (BNP) 418

Robert Griffiths (Lib-Dem) 294

Dorothy Dawson (Lab) 212

BNP Percentage: 16.6%



HORNCASTLE & TETFORD

William Aron (Ind) 1159

Michael Clarke (Con) 1157

Ian Shepherd (Lib-Dem) 450

Jeffrey Drew (BNP) 265
Barbara Collett (Lab) 220

BNP Percentage: 8.2%



HYKEHAM FORUM

John Marriott (Lib-Dem) 974

Reg Poole (Con) 632

Diana Reeves (UKIP) 325

Donald Nanstead (Lab) 172

Patricia Buxton (BNP) 160
BNP Percentage: 7.1%



LOUTH NORTH

Pauline Watson (Con) 963

Alan Fox (Lib-Dem) 383

Michael Preen (Lab) 267

William Hatchman (BNP) 242
BNP Percentage: 13%



LOUTH SOUTH

John Hough (Lab) 970

Derek Smith (Con) 750

George Horton (Ind) 345

Malcolm Bouchier (BNP) 242

Jeremy Baskett (Lib-Dem) 222

Francis Treanor (Ind) 169
BNP Percentage: 9%



LOUTH WOLDS

Charles Marfleet (Con) 1408

Daniel Simpson (Ind) 771

John Hattersley (BNP) 318

Eric Needham (Lib-Dem) 304

Richard Peck (Lab) 153
BNP Percentage: 10.8%



SPALDING EAST & MOULTON

Eddy Poll (Con) 1586

Anne Ramkaran (Lib-Dem) 638

Robert West (BNP) 573
BNP Percentage: 20.5%



SPALDING WEST
Howard Johnson (Con) 1138

Phil Scarlett (Ind) 822

Catherine McGrath (BNP) 341
Dermot Hopkins (Lab) 204

BNP Percentage: 13.6%



TATTERSHALL CASTLE
Betty Harvey (Con) 1459

Edward Jeffrey (Ind) 650

Richard Johnson (Lib-Dem) 569

Anthony Williams (BNP) 355
Philip Sturman (Lab) 144

BNP Percentage: 11.2%



WOODHALL SPA & WRAGBY

Denis Hoyles (Con) 970

Craig Leyland (Ind) 970

Roger Stephens (Lib-Dem) 351

Patricia French (BNP) 350

Neil Ward (Lab) 159
BNP Percentage: 10.3%


02.45 update - Off to bed

That's me I'm tired.

Not a bad set of results to date.

The shocking smears in the Manchester Evening News didn't hurt us too much in Radcliffe and the results in Lincolnshire - still a very new area for us - were "solid".

02.40 update: - 20.6% in Boston North West

Best result of the night so far
Andrea Jenkyns 463
Colin Wescott (BNP) 374
Alison Austin (Boston By-Pass) 283
Richard Leggott (Ind) 279
Pam Kenny (Lab) 205
Paul Appleby (Lib-Dem) 130
Andrew Bakewell (Ind) 82

02.38 update: 14.3% in Ruskington & Cranwell

Erin Bauer (Con) 1485
Alan Woodhead (Ind) 846
Michael Clayton (BNP) 434
Mark Bartlett (Lab) 279

02.31 update: Avonmouth (Bristol)

Ron George polled 375 votes which was 11.1%. He beat the Lib-Dems, the Greens and the English Democrats.

02.29 update: - 12.1% in Boston West

Ray Newall (Boston By-Pass) 525
Paul Mold (Con) 514
Elizabeth Ransome (UKIP) 353
Paul Goodale (Lab) 297
David Owens (BNP) 233

02.27 update: 11.8% in Lincoln Moorland

Kelly Smith (Con) 817
Geoffrey Ellis (Lab) 542
Jenny Shaw (Lib-Dem) 293
Alan Kirk (BNP) 222

02.24 update: - 13.4% in Lincoln Glebe

Pauline Mathers (Con) 844
Neil Murray (Lab) 479
Simon Parker (Lib-Dem) 372
Olivia Wolverson (BNP) 262

2.20 update: - 11.8% in Lincoln Boultham

Kevin Clarhe (Lab) 726
Lindsey Cawrey (Con) 675
Lynn Pepper (Lib-Dem) 340
Marion Galland (BNP) 233

02.18 update: 14.3% in Lincoln Birchwood

Edmund Strengiel (Con) 844
Tina Ulyat (Lab) 432
Linsday Gunn (Lib-Dem) 313
Philip Marshall (BNP) 266

02.05 update: Horfield (Bristol)

Christine Ogden polled 135 votes which was 3.5% of the total vote.

Just Avonmouth to come now and on the whole not a bad set of results.

Bristol BNP will be well satisfied I would think.

01.56 update: - 10% in Boston Coastal

Peter Bedford (Con) 1142
Felicity Ransome (UKIP) 523
Anthony Turner (BNP) 208
Beth Gall (Lab) 202

01.47 update: St George West (Bristol)

Chris Stocks polled 211 votes which was 7.5%.

01.43 update: - 14% across six wards in Broxbourne?

Report on Vote 2007 website that the BNP got 14% in six wards in Broxbourne. Tories apparently won all 6 with the BNP coming 2nd in 4

01.37 UPDATE: St George East (Bristol)

Best BNP result of the night so far for Michael Carey who polled 17.4% with his 575 votes.

01.33 UPDATE: Hillfields (Bristol)

Chris Pegler polls 428 votes (13.0%)

01.29 UPDATE: BNP polls 16% in Radcliffe West

Turnout: 35.15%

Shori, Rishi (The Labour Party Candidate) 879
Davies, Samantha (The Conservative Party Candidate) 870
Purdy, Jean (British National Party) 459
Halsall, Mike (Liberal Democrat) 429
Morris, Stephen (English Democrats - "Putting England First") 228

01.24 UPDATE: Lawrence Hill (Bristol)

Janet Ashman polls 236 votes which is 8.1%

01.22 UPDATE: - Frome Vale (Bristol)

BNP's Colin Chidsey receives 368 votes which is 11.1%

Tory gain from Labour

01.15 UPDATE: - Lockleaze (Bristol)

John Hooper receives 210 votes which is 8.3%

* Labour vote crashing in Bristol - two seats lost to the Lib-Dems.

**Labour vote down 24% in Lincolnshire after four electoral division declared.

01.09 UPDATE: Sleaford Result

SLEAFORD
David Dickenson (Con) 790
David Suitor (Ind) 774
Samantha Turner (Lib-Dem) 306
Steven Talton (Lab) 273
John Russell (BNP) 248
BNP Percentage: 10.4%

00.00 Update: 3.3% in a Glasgow by-election

Glasgow- Drumchapel/Anniesland
Turnout: 26.9%

MCTAGGART, Anne (Lab) 2584
DOCHERTY, Martin (SNP) 1509
MCKEE, Nathalie (Lib-Dem) 349
SULLIVAN, Richard (Con) 316
DUKE, Eillen (Green) 270
ROBERTSON, John (BNP) 177
TROLLAND, James (Ind) 129

Trolland eliminated: 21 to SNP, 14 to Greens, 13 to LD, 11 to Con, 9 to Lab, 9 to BNP.
BNP eliminated: 43 to SNP, 32 to Con, 20 to Lab, 11 to Green and 11 to LD
Green eliminated: 78 to SNP, 70 to LD, 38 to Lab, 7 to Con
Con eliminated: 89 to LD, 47 to SNP, 38 to Lab
Labour at 2689 elected

9.30pm Update: Worth a read

MICHAEL White of The Guardian on the British National Party in Stoke-on-Trent.

BNP ready to fill the vacuum in Stoke

9.15 Update: Results coming in tonight

HERE are the County Council elections involving British National Party candidates where the count will take place tonight. If you know of any others please put them on the Comments' Section.


LINCOLNSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

BOSTON COASTAL
Peter Bedford (Con)
Beth Gall (Lab)
Felicity Ransome (UKIP)
Anthony Turner (BNP)

BOSTON NORTH WEST
Andrew Bakewell (Ind)
Paul Appleby (Lib-Dem)
Alison Austin (Boston By-Pass)
Pam Kenny (Lab)
Colin Wescott (BNP)
Richard Leggott (Ind)

BOSTON WEST
Paul Mold (Con)
Paul Goodale (Lab)
Elizabeth Ransome (UKIP)
Ray Newall (Boston By-Pass)
David Owens (BNP)

BOURNE ABBEY
Roberta Britton (Lab)
Sue Woolley (Con)
Alan Galland (BNP)
Trevor Holmes (Ind)
Peter Morris (Lib-Dem)

FOLKINGHAM RURAL
Janire Morris (Lib-Dem)
Martin Hill (Con)
Timothy Bradley (Ind)
David Burling (Lab)
Chris Robinson (BNP)

GAINSBOROUGH RURAL SOUTH
Peter Heath (Lib-Dem)
Stuart Kinch (Con)
Malcolm Porter (BNP)

HEIGHINGTON & WASHINGBOROUGH
Peter Scott (Lab)
Ashley Baldock (BNP)
Ron Oxby (Con)
Hannah Woodruff (Ind)

HOLBEACH WEST
Robert Griffiths (Lib-Dem)
Carol Drew (BNP)
Dorothy Dawson (Lab)
Nick Worth (Con)

HORNCASTLE & TETFORD
Michael Clarke (con)
Ian Shepherd (Lib-Dem)
William Aron (Ind)
Barbara Collett (Lab)
Jeffrey Drew (BNP)

HYKEHAM FORUM
reg Poole (Con)
John Marriott (Lib-Dem)
Donald Nanstead (Lab)
Diana Reeves (UKIP)
Patricia Buxton (BNP)

LINCOLN BIRCHWOOD
Tina Ulyat (Lab)
Edmund Strengiel (Con)
Linsday Gunn (Lib-Dem)
Philip Marshall (BNP)

LINCOLN BOULTHAM
Kevin Clarhe (Lab)
Lindsey Cawrey (Con)
Marion Galland (BNP)
Lynn Pepper (Lib-Dem)

LINCOLN GLEBE
Neil Murray (Lab)
Simon Parker (Lib-Dem)
Pauline Mathers (Con)
Olivia Wolverson (BNP)

LINCOLN MOORLAND
Geoffrey Ellis (Lab)
Kelly Smith (Con)
Jenny Shaw (Lib-Dem)
Alan Kirk (BNP)

LOUTH NORTH
Michael Preen (Lab)
Alan Fox (Lib-Dem)
Pauline Watson (Con)
William Hatchman (BNP)

LOUTH SOUTH
Derek Smith (Con)
John Hough (Lab)
Jeremy Baskett (Lib-Dem)
Malcolm Bouchier (BNP)
George Horton (Ind)
Francis Treanor (Ind)

LOUTH WOLDS
Eric needham (Lib-Dem)
Charles Marfleet (Con)
John Hattersley (BNP)
Daniel Simpson (Ind)
Richard Peck (Lab)

RUSKINGTON & CRANWELL
Erin Bauer (Con)
Mark Bartlett (Lab)
Michael Clayton (BNP)
Alan Woodhead (Ind)

SLEAFORD
Samantha Turner (Lib-Dem)
David Dickenson (Con)
Steven Talton (Lab)
David Suitor (Ind)
John Russell (BNP)

SPALDING EAST & MOULTON
Eddy Poll (Con)
Anne Ramkaran (Lib-Dem)
Robert West (BNP)

SPALDING WEST
Phil Scarlett (Ind)
Howard Johnson (Con)
Dermot Hopkins (Lab)
Catherine McGrath (BNP)

TATTERSHALL CASTLE
Betty Harvey (Con)
Richard Johnson (Lib-Dem)
Edward Jeffrey (Ind)
Philip Sturman (Lab)
Anthony Williams (BNP)

WOODHALL SPA & WRAGBY
Denis Hoyles (Con)
Roger Stephens (Lib-Dem)
Patricia French (BNP)
Craig Leyland (Ind)
Neil Ward (Lab)

HERTFORDSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

CHESHUNT CENTRAL
Dave Hewitt (Con)
Carolyn Iles (BNP)
Ron McCole (Lab)
David Parry (Lib-Dem)

FLAMSTEAD END & TURNFORD
Ian Hunter (Lab)
Chris Mitchell (Con)
Paul Salter (Lib-Dem
Ian Seeby (BNP)

GOFFS OAK & BURY GREEN
Robert Gordon (Con)
Lloyd Harris (Lib-Dem)
Alec McInnes (Lab)
Wendy Ward (BNP)

HODDESDON NORTH
Thomas Clay (Lib-Dem)
William Dewick (BNP)
Wilf Eynon (Con)
Annette Marples (Lab)                         

HODDESDON SOUTH
Kirstie De Rivaz (Lib-Dems)                
Neil Harvey (Lab)
Ramon Johns (BNP)
Alan Searing (Con)

WALTHAM CROSS
Malcolm Aitken (Lab)
Michael Green (Lib-Dem)
Stephen McCole (BNP)
Terry Price (Con)

8.00pm Update - Nick in Cumbria

A photo taken just minutes ago in Cleator Moor - Nick with North West Election agent Clive Jefferson, who is standing in Cleator Moor North & Frizington.

Our photographer reports a "phenomenal" reception for the BNP in this former Labour stronghold.