‘No one is going to stop me doing what I think is best for the British people’

From BBC’s ‘The Paxman Interview’

Err Michael, you seem to have forgotten about the insignificant little matter of the British electorate.

Read this

Now check the date - 26 January 1998

Now look at the signatatories…

… especially Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz

Now note this…

“if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.“

and this…

“We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council“

QED

Day five and still no answer as yet to the question of whether the Lib Dems in Birmingham are farming postal vote applications from their local supporters through their offices in Yardley.

Come on John, this is starting to get a bit like Paxman v Howard - can’t wait for tonight’s return match, BTW.

Is there a problem here, John? After all, you’ll only be following party orders if you are farming postal applications, even though you did try - and fail - to overturn the entire system yesterday.

I await your response with interest.

Just watched the BNP’s Party Election Broadcast - if you didn’t bother, here’s what you missed.

One crappy folk song (lyrics by N Griffin Esq) about a ficitious homeless ex-serviceman who gets nothing from the state while asylum seekers get a free ride to council house heaven.

One black and while film of a BNP member slouching round London trying to act out the role of a homeless drunk - hardly a reach for most of them - to fit in with the lyrics of the aformentioned crap folk song.

Three key messages…

1. One third of homeless people on Britain’s streets are ex-servicemen

2. Labour: Let in too many asylum seekers

3. Tories: See above.

All topped off with a bit of footage of Obergruppenfuehrer Nick leaving Keighley Police Station to address his local rent-a-mob, who appeared by kind permission of Morons-R-Us.

Now apart from being a dull as ditchwater there was just one slight problem with it all - bit of a veracity thing.

You see the whole business about 1 in 3 homeless people being ex-squaddies comes from a credible source - Crisis (I would link to them but their sites not working - www.crisis.org.uk) - the only problem being that the research is rather out of date… by about three to four years.

Oh, and in between, something fairly significant happened which must have accidentally slipped the BNP’s collectives minds - er, I think I’m definitely overreaching with that concept - and that happens to be that back in July 2002, your friendly neighbourhood Labour Government passed the Homelessness Act 2002, the effect of which was to compel Local Authorities to treat ex-servicemen and women as priorities for housing on their leaving the armed forces.

Its the kind of thing that makes for a pretty short debate on the hustings…

Nick: What about homeless ex-service personnel, are you going to help them?

Tony: We already have. Three years ago.

Nick: Ohhhhhhhhhhh shit…

So don’t bother complaining to the Beeb about it - unless you want to tell them how crappy it was - it was so dull that there was nothing worth complaining about.

Might as well just tell people the truth - that Labour have already dealt with the issue of homelessness and the armed forces - and ask FactCheck to look into it.