Wednesday, November 19, 2008 

Let's not have horrible double standards, shall we?

Exciting as it is having a list of British National Party members available at our fingertips, no one, perhaps with the exception of the serving police officer, who might well have already left the group, should lose their job as a result of being a member of a completely legal if highly unpleasant political party.

We ought to bear in mind what we would be saying and thinking if instead of a list of BNP members, it had in fact been a comprehensive list of convicted paedophiles that had been leaked. While most of us would probably have looked at it, just as we have the BNP list, we would be disgusted and deeply worried at the prospect and potential of vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. The chances, it has to be said, of mobs converging on the doorsteps of individual members of the party are rather low, but some are already reporting emails and abuse over the telephone. Amusing as it might be that Nick Griffin and Richard Barnbrook might be getting some sort of comeuppance for their rabble-rousing over the years against vulnerable communities by having their personal phone numbers exposed, what is not amusing is elderly individuals completely harmless to anyone but who have unreconstructed political views receiving the same treatment.

Similarly unacceptable is the Guardian publishing Google Maps, or at least the original one directly pinpointing where some live. Would they be doing the same were this a list of paedophiles? Very doubtful. It doesn't matter that no personal actual information is being disclosed, or that's it not detailed enough to pinpoint any particular individual, although a lone member in a town/village is clearly visible, it's still not the sort of depth we ought to descend to. Only slightly less objectionable is the "heat" map now up, which tells us precisley nothing really that we didn't already know: the BNP's major strongholds, outside Barking and Dagenham, are above the Midlands. The numbers in Wales are the only slight surprise.

The other thing this is doing, apart from severely embarrassing the party's leadership, is giving them the kind of press attention and media access which they can usually only dream of. Instead of being disastrous for them, if they get a sympathy vote (difficult to imagine I realise), and they're already playing on this being down to their imminent success at the polls, not the disgruntled worker, then it may have the opposite effect on the party's fortunes. Less members yes, but more anonymous donations potentially also. Whilst the one thing we should be doing is taking on the BNP in debate, we shouldn't allow this to turn into them getting a free-run, which is what it looks like becoming. All the more reason to shut this down now and instead target the party's policies rather than its actual membership.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008 

BNP paralysis.

Flying round the internet much like the identity of Baby P's abusers is now also the full membership list for the last year at least of the British National Party (not being linked to here for exactly the same reasons). Schadenfreude is rather understandably the dish of the day, and when it contains not just the home phone number of a certain N. Griffin but also the mobile phone number of one of his (activist) offspring, it looks like being a rather embarrassing few days for the party, which had otherwise been gearing itself up for a renewed fight in next year's European elections, as well as producing such cutting edge documents as "racism cuts both ways".

More pertinently, it's probably going to result in a good few people losing their jobs, although a quick look down the list suggests that there's just the one police officer currently an actual member of the party, although the number of teachers listed is far greater. The police is the one organisation I think where vigilance of members of extremist political parties is justified, although some will doubtless also not be best pleased by having fascists teaching their children.

Typically, as it often is with groups on both the far-left and far-right, this information has not been leaked as a result of the party being infiltrated either by a journalist, like the Guardian managed towards the end of 2006 which resulted in the fact that the ballerina Simone Clarke was a member coming to light (she's listed this time round too, although having split with her Chinese-Cuban partner and now married/engaged to Richard Barnbrook that's hardly surprising) or by the police or security services, but rather by a disgruntled former employee/member, of which the BNP has many. The real point is that many for obvious reasons want to keep their membership of such organisations secret, and not just necessarily because of the hassle they would receive at work were their political predilections to become known. As a result, this has the potential to severely damage the BNP - after all, why would you join a party which can't stop such information from entering the public domain? While it's far too early to suggest that this might be the nail in its coffin, it's surely the kind of blow which is bound to lead even more splits, and the further fragmentation of the far-right in this country, which can only be a good thing.

P.S. The comments on the NorthWestNationalists blog are just too good to miss.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007 

This blog loves schadenfreude.

How to look a tit in 3 easy steps:

1. Rip off Andrew Neil's mentioning that Greg Dyke "might" be considering standing as a London mayoral candidate by claiming it as an "exclusive" after you've consulted with your friends in the Tory party.

2. Don't bother to check this story with err, Greg Dyke, and play down the idea without mentioning that you support your mate Nick Boles, while still quoting his "spokesman".

3. Insult Greg Dyke by saying he gave a "cringeworthy performance" and that he is "all over the place and the Conservatives should have nothing to do with him" when he clarifies the story, thereby covering your embarrassment in starting the whole sorry debacle in the first place.

Yep, Iain Dale truly is a blogging expert, at least in making the rest of us look stupid.

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