12 April, 2009
Scraping the greasy barrel
One of life's minor entertainments, for those of us with perhaps too much time on our hands, is watching political opponents simultaneously (a) bigging up their own side by implausible extrapolation of some trivial and often accidental advantage into the final coup de grâce which will secure the annihilation of their opponents, while (b) attempting to parlay the opposition's most minor, frequently accidental, setbacks, errors and general daily trivia into conclusive proof of turpitude, incompetence and imminent doom.
They all do it, and it is alternately funny and irritating to watch them at it. On second thoughts, no. The tunnel-visioned certainty and self-delusion of these wankers is in reality quite frightening insofar as some of their ilk are actually set in real executive and legislative power over us.
The degree of desperation implicit in each piece of aggrandisement or denigration* can be a useful barometer of the relative state of the parties. Perhaps some enterprising political academic or anorak can devise a set of metrics so that we can score the state of play "scientifically".
By any measure, this piece of nonsense on the Hope not Hate site does not look good for the strength of the "anti-fascist" cause.
It transpires that Simon Darby, the BNP's No 2, has been to a gathering of like-minded souls in Italy. Apparently (I have not cross-checked), the BNP website erroneously reported this as taking place in Rome rather than Milan. A tad careless but hardly a harbinger of the imminent collapse of civilization, is it?
On his return, Mr Darby was to attend a meeting with other BNP officials. It would appear — and if you are of a sensitive nature you might wish to sit down and take a couple of deep breaths before reading on — it would appear that the fiend Darby has brought back some Italian Easter eggs as gifts for his colleagues. The gifts, according to HNH, are attendance incentives to compensate for the fact that the BNP has been forced, as a desperate resort, to hold the meeting on Easter Saturday when no decent politician would be working. (Isn't that right, Gordon?)
Finally, the HNH writer adduces as conclusive and irrefutable evidence of the renowned terminal ignorance and stupidity of BNP types, a copy of en email relating to the Easter Egg Meet, complete with the original grammatical errors. And what are these errors? Well, it seems that Mr Butler, the author of the email, is a little casual about the convention of using initial capitals in the names of days, months and place names. Oh, and he has misspelt Stansted. And if you really want to be picky, he's dropped the apostrophe in Bishop's Stortford, though personally I'd say there's some leeway with that one. Like, er, wow, man, that's really gross an' stoopid.
Perhaps he's an e.e. cummings fan. If I were marking his English 'O' level, I might dock him a mark or two, but this is hardly major league higgerance, is it, chaps? I've seen a damned sight worse when reading emails written by recent graduate entrants when I was still working at MegaCorp Inc.
If HNH are resorting to this sort of petty crap, things must be pretty desperate. Hint. Don't scrape the bottom of the barrel too vigorously, you'll get splinters.
I have said before that I do not really want this blog to be seen as a BNP support site. You can get that elsewhere. If the blog has a major focus (obsession, the unkind might express it), it is on the impact of mass immigration to the UK. But it really is about time the political classes of this country dealt with the fact that the rise of the BNP cannot be held off indefinitely with ad hominem sniping, dirty tricks and outright abuse of power. It's not going to go away. There is serious discontent growing in this country, not just about immigration. Those in or near power need to be addressing its causes before someone gets hurt, not using their proxies to try and sweep it under the carpet.
On a related topic, here's a slightly more effective smear job from the News of the Screws, related to the same Milan meeting. But look at the comment thread. I don't think the proles are buying into the propaganda, chaps.
____
* denigration: Can I use this word any more, or will Uncle Trevor's mob be sending the Old Bill round with a warrant? Oh well, at least when I'm banged up I won't have to worry about the value of my pension.
They all do it, and it is alternately funny and irritating to watch them at it. On second thoughts, no. The tunnel-visioned certainty and self-delusion of these wankers is in reality quite frightening insofar as some of their ilk are actually set in real executive and legislative power over us.
The degree of desperation implicit in each piece of aggrandisement or denigration* can be a useful barometer of the relative state of the parties. Perhaps some enterprising political academic or anorak can devise a set of metrics so that we can score the state of play "scientifically".
By any measure, this piece of nonsense on the Hope not Hate site does not look good for the strength of the "anti-fascist" cause.
It transpires that Simon Darby, the BNP's No 2, has been to a gathering of like-minded souls in Italy. Apparently (I have not cross-checked), the BNP website erroneously reported this as taking place in Rome rather than Milan. A tad careless but hardly a harbinger of the imminent collapse of civilization, is it?
On his return, Mr Darby was to attend a meeting with other BNP officials. It would appear — and if you are of a sensitive nature you might wish to sit down and take a couple of deep breaths before reading on — it would appear that the fiend Darby has brought back some Italian Easter eggs as gifts for his colleagues. The gifts, according to HNH, are attendance incentives to compensate for the fact that the BNP has been forced, as a desperate resort, to hold the meeting on Easter Saturday when no decent politician would be working. (Isn't that right, Gordon?)
Finally, the HNH writer adduces as conclusive and irrefutable evidence of the renowned terminal ignorance and stupidity of BNP types, a copy of en email relating to the Easter Egg Meet, complete with the original grammatical errors. And what are these errors? Well, it seems that Mr Butler, the author of the email, is a little casual about the convention of using initial capitals in the names of days, months and place names. Oh, and he has misspelt Stansted. And if you really want to be picky, he's dropped the apostrophe in Bishop's Stortford, though personally I'd say there's some leeway with that one. Like, er, wow, man, that's really gross an' stoopid.
Perhaps he's an e.e. cummings fan. If I were marking his English 'O' level, I might dock him a mark or two, but this is hardly major league higgerance, is it, chaps? I've seen a damned sight worse when reading emails written by recent graduate entrants when I was still working at MegaCorp Inc.
If HNH are resorting to this sort of petty crap, things must be pretty desperate. Hint. Don't scrape the bottom of the barrel too vigorously, you'll get splinters.
I have said before that I do not really want this blog to be seen as a BNP support site. You can get that elsewhere. If the blog has a major focus (obsession, the unkind might express it), it is on the impact of mass immigration to the UK. But it really is about time the political classes of this country dealt with the fact that the rise of the BNP cannot be held off indefinitely with ad hominem sniping, dirty tricks and outright abuse of power. It's not going to go away. There is serious discontent growing in this country, not just about immigration. Those in or near power need to be addressing its causes before someone gets hurt, not using their proxies to try and sweep it under the carpet.
On a related topic, here's a slightly more effective smear job from the News of the Screws, related to the same Milan meeting. But look at the comment thread. I don't think the proles are buying into the propaganda, chaps.
____
* denigration: Can I use this word any more, or will Uncle Trevor's mob be sending the Old Bill round with a warrant? Oh well, at least when I'm banged up I won't have to worry about the value of my pension.
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 10:12 
Comments:
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I think that they'll only be nicking you if you manage to combine two forbidden words or phrases in a single sentence, such as: "If you clear away all the flim-flam and get down to the nitty-gritty of the matter, you can see that it’s a straightforward case of denigration.”
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