19 April, 2010
They just don't get it
Given that it's less than three weeks to the election, the anti-BNP black proper gander campaign seems remarkably muted. Remember last year, when the Government's unofficial press agency, Searchlight, would release a new smear almost every day, "exclusive to all newspapers", as Lord Gnome's infamous organ would express it?
Perhaps the stalwarts of Hope not Hate are still getting their breaths back from last year's exertions. Or perhaps they have concluded that their all-out campaign was not as effective as they had expected. As I recall, the only smear that really struck home in turning the lower orders against the BNP was the story about Johnson Beharry's VC. The evil BNP, quoth all newspapers, think Pvt Beharry should not have been awarded the VC 'cos he is a Darkie.
Even that tale was more complicated than it seemed. Although there seems little trace of it in the on-line media, I do recall that when the then Pvt Beharry's award was announced, there were rumours of mutterings in the Armed Forces that Pvt Beharry's courageous action under fire, while it certainly merited formal recognition, did not merit the country's highest military honour, an award which is made very sparingly indeed and under truly exceptional circumstances. What substance there is to these rumours I know not — the Army tends to be tight-lipped about such matters — but it certainly got a mensh on the BBC news at the time. The rumour was that because Pvt Beharry is a Black man, his award had been inflated at the behest of the Blair regime for "purposes of social cohesion". I hope that this is not true, for it would be an unspeakable insult to the Armed Forces, to the memory of earlier recipients of the Victoria Cross, and to L/Cpl Beharry himself. The BNP were foolish to refer to it on their website, but they did not originate the story, and it is the sort of amoral trick I can readily believe of New Labour. Searchlight got away with that one.
This year, the centrally co-ordinated campaign seems have gone AWOL, leaving it to the troops on the ground to improvise. The clumsy Maruice Cousins of Nothing British scours Facebook for infelicitous phraseology that can be frantically worked up into a smear. The indefatigable Edmund Standing (Harry's Place and CSC passim) continues his exhaustive and frequently bafflingly pointless researches into the far right in general and the BNP in particular. Our good friends of the UAF continue with the direct approach of attempting to intimidate the owners of venues willing to host BNP meetings and of starting fights at EDL demos while hypocritically attempting to blame the latter for the violence and the resultant policing costs.
And our valiant mainstream press does its best with really rather entertainingly desperate efforts like this:
Perhaps it's a Black thing. I saw a Nigerian woman at the supermarket checkout the other day kicking up a huge fuss because the £10 note she had received in change had a half-inch tear in it. Or then there's this wonderful story from across the Pond, where the offence at least has a bit more substance to it. (But do clock the wonderful expression on the offendee's face.)
Not that any of this matters. It will have little effect.
The only instance I have seen so far of someone of a presumably Righteous persuasion actually coming anywhere near understanding why this is so was in a reader's comment on, of all places, Lancaster Unity. I'm surprised Ketlan let it through.
Brown and Cameron can waffle all they want about "controlling immigration". We know, and they know, that they are talking out of their proverbial arses and that it will be back to business as usual after the voting's over, whichever gets in. As to Clegg with his promise of an amnesty for illegals. Do us a favour. UKIP comes closest, but it remains difficult to believe in a party that seems still at its core to be a single-issue anti-EU vehicle which was boosted by a mysterious injection of funds prior to the 2005 Euro elections which allowed it to present itself as the "decent racist" alternative to the BNP. UKIP's credibility as a full-spectrum political party with a credible immigration policy remains undemonstrated.
Until and unless you address the issues instead of mouthing insincere platitudes until the election's out of the way, then I'm afraid the punters will continue, quite knowingly, to vote for a pig in an SS uniform.
Oh, and in another example of the Righteous inability to understand real people, the IPPR is still puzzled that support for the "far right" is higher in areas with relatively low immigration. It really is quite simple. The people there have seen the effects of mass immigration in other parts of the country. In many cases they have themselves relocated to their present homes partly at least to get away from the immigrants: white flighters in other words. If they are more likely to oppose immigration and support the "far right", it is because they don't want the wave of immigration to follow them.
Here endeth today's incoherent rant.
Perhaps the stalwarts of Hope not Hate are still getting their breaths back from last year's exertions. Or perhaps they have concluded that their all-out campaign was not as effective as they had expected. As I recall, the only smear that really struck home in turning the lower orders against the BNP was the story about Johnson Beharry's VC. The evil BNP, quoth all newspapers, think Pvt Beharry should not have been awarded the VC 'cos he is a Darkie.
Even that tale was more complicated than it seemed. Although there seems little trace of it in the on-line media, I do recall that when the then Pvt Beharry's award was announced, there were rumours of mutterings in the Armed Forces that Pvt Beharry's courageous action under fire, while it certainly merited formal recognition, did not merit the country's highest military honour, an award which is made very sparingly indeed and under truly exceptional circumstances. What substance there is to these rumours I know not — the Army tends to be tight-lipped about such matters — but it certainly got a mensh on the BBC news at the time. The rumour was that because Pvt Beharry is a Black man, his award had been inflated at the behest of the Blair regime for "purposes of social cohesion". I hope that this is not true, for it would be an unspeakable insult to the Armed Forces, to the memory of earlier recipients of the Victoria Cross, and to L/Cpl Beharry himself. The BNP were foolish to refer to it on their website, but they did not originate the story, and it is the sort of amoral trick I can readily believe of New Labour. Searchlight got away with that one.
This year, the centrally co-ordinated campaign seems have gone AWOL, leaving it to the troops on the ground to improvise. The clumsy Maruice Cousins of Nothing British scours Facebook for infelicitous phraseology that can be frantically worked up into a smear. The indefatigable Edmund Standing (Harry's Place and CSC passim) continues his exhaustive and frequently bafflingly pointless researches into the far right in general and the BNP in particular. Our good friends of the UAF continue with the direct approach of attempting to intimidate the owners of venues willing to host BNP meetings and of starting fights at EDL demos while hypocritically attempting to blame the latter for the violence and the resultant policing costs.
And our valiant mainstream press does its best with really rather entertainingly desperate efforts like this:
Cherrie Shepherd, of Farina Close, just off Bramford Road, discovered a British National Party (BNP) stamp on the bank note she had withdrawn from a cashpoint which read: “Know the truth - BNP.org.uk.”I have to say that I find the common practice of using the unprinted area of the note, where the watermark is, as some kind of scratchpad for running totals to be rather disrespectful, but I wouldn't go to the papers about it. Any more than I would get unduly worked up about somebody, whether a BNP sympathizer or an anti-BNP smearer, overprinting the note in this way. To be honest I'd be more concerned about the potential diseases one might pick up from notes and coins that have been God knows where in their circulation.
The 34-year-old, who is mixed race with family from Barbados in the Caribbean, said she had been “shocked and disgusted” by the discovery.
Perhaps it's a Black thing. I saw a Nigerian woman at the supermarket checkout the other day kicking up a huge fuss because the £10 note she had received in change had a half-inch tear in it. Or then there's this wonderful story from across the Pond, where the offence at least has a bit more substance to it. (But do clock the wonderful expression on the offendee's face.)
Not that any of this matters. It will have little effect.
The only instance I have seen so far of someone of a presumably Righteous persuasion actually coming anywhere near understanding why this is so was in a reader's comment on, of all places, Lancaster Unity. I'm surprised Ketlan let it through.
Are people that desperate to vote or support anything other than the main party’s, that they are prepared to throw money at a corrupt reprobate like Griffin in the forlorn hope that things might just work out for the better?Well, give that dog a bone. It is a cliché that in parts of Labour's heartland in the North people would vote for a pig provided it was wearing a red rosette. Similarly, whatever dirt, real or made up, you can dish on Griffin and his crew, people will continue to vote for them. Why? Because there is no-one else honestly representing their views.
If this is the case then it begs the question, why the hell can’t we organise ourselves and actually give people a true alternative? There are millions of people biting at the bit to vote for something or someone that represents them and their wishes. People do not want to vote out of hate but they do want to vote to retain and nurture the things they love, and they are being drawn into Griffin’s world of sleaze and dishonesty.
Brown and Cameron can waffle all they want about "controlling immigration". We know, and they know, that they are talking out of their proverbial arses and that it will be back to business as usual after the voting's over, whichever gets in. As to Clegg with his promise of an amnesty for illegals. Do us a favour. UKIP comes closest, but it remains difficult to believe in a party that seems still at its core to be a single-issue anti-EU vehicle which was boosted by a mysterious injection of funds prior to the 2005 Euro elections which allowed it to present itself as the "decent racist" alternative to the BNP. UKIP's credibility as a full-spectrum political party with a credible immigration policy remains undemonstrated.
Until and unless you address the issues instead of mouthing insincere platitudes until the election's out of the way, then I'm afraid the punters will continue, quite knowingly, to vote for a pig in an SS uniform.
Oh, and in another example of the Righteous inability to understand real people, the IPPR is still puzzled that support for the "far right" is higher in areas with relatively low immigration. It really is quite simple. The people there have seen the effects of mass immigration in other parts of the country. In many cases they have themselves relocated to their present homes partly at least to get away from the immigrants: white flighters in other words. If they are more likely to oppose immigration and support the "far right", it is because they don't want the wave of immigration to follow them.
Here endeth today's incoherent rant.
# posted by Edwin Greenwood @ 13:02 
