It appears that Trevor Phillips is in one of his making a complete arse of himself moods yet again, if this report from the Meeja Grauniad is anything to go by…

Writing in the Beeb’s in-house, Ariel, Phillps has argued for an amendment to the Race Relations Act requiring the Beeb to publish information on training, retention rates and complaints, as well as data it already provides on targets and recruitment, clearly having failed to notice that the BBC is covered by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 for everything except for information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature - so he could just submit an FOIA request like everyone else and save the trouble of adding yet more unnecessary legislation to the statute books.

However, its not just information that Phillips is after, as he goes on to explain here…

The duty would make them subject to regulation by the CRE in terms of their programmes for promotion of ethnic minorities - to some extent, the balance of what they broadcast and to a large extent, what they do on training and how they treat different ethnic groups among their staff

So the CRE want to regulate the Beeb, which is supposed to be an independent and impartial public service broadcaster, in terms of programming and employment - to what end exactly?

Apparently, this one…

The BBC currently employs 10.2% of its staff from black and ethnic minorities, and 5.2% of its senior management. Targets for the end of 2007 are 12.5% and 7% respectively.

Mr Phillips said the BBC’s targets were still too low.

"It’s fine for [the BBC director of television] Jana Bennett to aim for a 10% target on screen, of characters and contributors, because that chimes with, or even exceeds, the percentage of minorities in the national audience.

"But on employment, the pool from which the BBC draws two-thirds of its staff [in cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester] is one-third ethnic minority.

"Do the sums: 10.2% is way underperforming. It’s not hideous, but it’s not good."

Now hang on a minute there, Trevor, what’s all this the pool from which the BBC draws two-thirds of its staff [in cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester] is one-third ethnic minority all about?

For one thing, the Beeb, being a national broadcaster, is likely to attract applicants for any number of positions from across the whole of the UK - it might be likely that applicants for admin jobs, etc. would be mainly local but for many of the technical jobs and particularly jobs in journalism, production etc. the actual pool from which the Beeb draws its employees will be the whole of the UK and maybe, even, beyond. There are plenty of people out there looking for a career of some sort in the broadcast media who will, and do, relocate to take a job at the Beeb, so on that basis alone you’re stretching the point with your one-third ethnic minority population line.

Then there’s the little matter of commuting to take into account - if one is talking about the potential ‘pool’ from which an employer might draw his employees, that pool is delimited not just by the city in which the employer is based or has a workplace but by the effective distance that potential employees are willing to commute to work. Birmingham, which of the example given is the city I know best, may have a minority population of just under 30%, but if one looks at the figures for the West Midlands Region, which one could reasonably regard as the commuter area for Birmingham, this figure drops to 11.2% - in which case 10.2% is hardly underperforming by much and if the Beeb hits its 12.5% target it’ll be overperforming by comparison with the regional statistics as a whole.

Phillips then goes on…

Mr Phillips said BBC News was in danger of failing to address its black and Asian audience because of the under-representation of ethnic minorities.

"There’s a whole panoply of rules that govern BBC journalism, all directed to one end, which is to tell the story fairly and comprehensively," he said.

"People tend to focus on that in party political terms, but actually, in modern Britain, the more serious bias is about whether huge chunks of the community are not having their voices heard or their perspectives addressed.

"Newsrooms which are monocultural are in danger of being like comedy that isn’t funny. Without cultural knowledge, you don’t ask the right questions.

"You can be the most brilliant interviewer, but if the team that’s briefing you has no idea about the influence of South Asian culture [in] west London, you can conduct interviews there in the most profound ignorance of what most matters.

"This is not about doing the job better, it’s about whether you can do the basic job at all."

Okay, Trevor. I can go for the bit about the importance of cultural understanding and sensitivity in approaching and working in minority communities, after all I’ve been doing just that on a regular basis for the last ten years or so, even though I’m white.

It’s actually not that difficult, in my experience, to work in minority communities if you have right attitude which, generally speaking, comes down to treating people with a basic degree of respect, not making assumptions and not being afraid to ask questions and let yourself be guided by the community you’re working with. You can get a long way simply by treating people as human beings and sometimes, as an ‘outsider’, you can get further in some matters than someone from the ethnic background of the community you’re working in either for practical reasons; i.e. you’re seen as being neutral and an honest broker with no particular agenda or axe to grind, or because you’re exempt from some of the cultural forces and social mores of that community and given rather more latitude than someone who they consider one of their own.

There are advantages and disadvantages that come with working inside your own community, whichever community you’re from. You have an edge in understanding the social and cultural values of your community, but some of those values may mitigate against your work, especially as a journalist, where such affiliations may lead you to compromise your objectivity out of a desire to present your community in the best possible light. You may even yourself under greater social pressure to gloss over issues as an insider than you would as someone coming from the outside, for the ‘greater good’ of your own community.

So while a monocultural newsroom is, on balance, rather limiting, it doesn’t follow automatically that employing individuals from a particular cultural background in order to match local demographics is necessarily a major improvement - it may be, it may not, depending entirely on the individuals you’re employing, their skills, knowledge and experience and how well they do the job.

However, that being said, what the law says explicitly is that discrimination in employment is permissible only where there is a genuine occupational requirement to discriminate on grounds of ethnicity, gender, disability etc. and I dubt very much that 30% of the jobs at the BBC would meet the test of there being a genuine occupational requirement for an individual from a minority community, even allowing for the usual ways in which the law is quietly circumvented - i.e. by specifying that candidates must possess one or more specific community languages - having worked with many ethnic minority voluntary organisations over the years, I’m rather an old hand at working the system, but that’s another story - and as Chair of the CRE you know that as well as I do.

So what’s the real game here, Trevor? You know as well as I do that it isn’t going to happen, not least because if there’s the remotest sign of the government caving in to this demand then both the Equal Opportunities Commission and Disability Right Commission will be wanting exactly the same type of oversight over the Beeb.

But then you know that as well, don’t you, Trevor? Because this is all just part of the turf war leading in to the creation of the Single Equality and Human Rights Commission, just a bit more jockeying for position and bigging up your own organisation in an effort to grab the biggest possible slice of the pie when all three commissions are merged together.

And that’s what pisses me off more than anything else here - you’re not on the level, you’re just playing the same old political games and it doesn’t really matter that somewhere out here in the real world there are going to Black or Asian kids with their heart’s set on a career in broadcasting who might just be naive enough to believe that you’re actually serious and putting up these idea because you’re in it for them, and not just for yourself and the status of the CRE.

That’s the real price of tokenism like this - you raise false expectations and then piss off to the next bit of game-playing without a thought for those who might have believed you were going to something for them, only for them to find that when push comes to shove, you’ve done nothing at all and never seriously intended to anyway.

Not unsurprisingly, the news that the NHS’s new electronic patient record system is running more than two years late and looks likely to cost more than three times the £6.2 billion cost that was touted at the time that the project was given the go ahead  - or was that £2.3 billion and ten times the cost as the Register noted here - has drawn a fair bit of comment and criticism.

Tim Worstall, ever with his eye on the economic picture, notes that the now £20 billion cost of the system amounts to 1.5-2% of Britain’s output for a single year, while both he and Longrider draw obvious parallels with the Government’s other massive database project, the National Identity Register, which the state claims will cost £6 billion, a figure disputed by the London School of Economics, who put its estimate of the cost of the system at around £18 billion - three times higher, yet again.

What neither have spotted, buried as it is in the FT’s report on this issue, is the real parallel between the two projects, one which doesn’t just suggest that the real costs of introducing ID cards and the NIR will be much higher than the government’s quoted figure, but also the extent to which citizens will bear the brunt of these costs.

The key statement in the FT’s article is this one:

He [Lord Warner] also admitted that the full cost of the programme was likely to be nearer £20bn than the widely quoted figure of £6.2bn. The latter figure covered only the national contracts for the systems’ basic infrastructure and software applications, he said.

Hospitals and other parts of the NHS would, however, spend billions more on training staff, buying PCs and upgrading and assimilating existing systems over the decade-long programme, Lord Warner said in an interview with the Financial Times.

The extra money did not mean the programme would cost more than expected, he said, but instead reflected the full expense of switching existing IT spending from outdated systems to the new ones.

Notice two things here; first the £6.2 billion figure quoted for the cost of the system covered only the national contracts for the systems’ basic infrastructure and software applications and not the localised costs of staff-training, purchasing and upgrading local computer systems and, seemingly, transferring existing systems and data, if it is only infrastructure and software applications included in the £6.2 billion. This last point , that of the costs of transferring and validating existing data is a rather curious one as this is by far one of the most expensive line items in the total bill for setting up such a system, particularly where records are still held primarily on paper and in handwritten form, making the transfer process a very labour intensive task and, as such, one would have expected these costs to be reflected in the figures quoted for the system.

Second, Warner goes on to say that…

the extra money did not mean the programme would cost more than expected, he said, but instead reflected the full expense of switching existing IT spending from outdated systems to the new ones

If that is the the case then not only is he admitting that the government and/or NHS have knowingly given the public a false estimate of the costs of the system, but one also has to ask the question as to whether this figure has ever been quoted in Parliament and in what context, as if it has and the Minister in question did not make it explicit that the figure given related only to part of the full cost of the system then it may well be that an apology for misleading the House will need to be made.

Regardless of whether this is the case or not, what is clear is that a false picture of the real cost of this system has been given to the public - and it appears knowingly if Warner’s remark that the extra money did not mean that the programme would cost more than expected is taken at face value.

Now, lets apply this to ID cards and the National Identity Register, which means referring to this article from The Register

The £6 billion cost of the ID cards system, like that of the £2.3 billion or £6.2 billion cost of the NHS system is based on the costs of the core ID cards system, i.e, what the government is getting for its money appears to be the NIR itself, plus all the infrastructure, kit and equipment necessary to load the NIR with data, including the controversial biometric data and issue the ID cards themselves, alongside passports.

What doesn’t appear to be included are the costs of linking and integrating other system, which will use the NIR to verify identity, into this new infrastructure - or if these costs are included then, at best, they relate to the costs of linking only a limited number of systems (CRB, Driving Licences and Immigration) to the NIR - nowhere in the government’s costings do they appear to have accounted for the costs of integrating other systems, such as Revenues and Customs, Benefits, Contributions (i.e. NI), Police National Computer, into the NIR, systems where it should be obvious to all but the most slavering of idiots such links and connection will be made. In fact, one obvious question to ask about the NHS system is whether not it has been designed, or redesigned at any stage, to enable it to link into NIR in order the verify identity - remember ID cards were touted as eventually becoming an ‘entitlement card’ for access to public services - and if so when was this done and what costs were associated with it.

It’s also worth noting that the Register article quoted Charles Clarke, then the Home Secretary, talking in terms of offsetting some of the costs of NIR by generating income from departments such as the CRB and DVLA, to offset the cost of ID cards to the public, in addition to generating further income from private sector users - at the very least this will mean banks, building societies, finance/mortgage companies, insurers, etc. but will likely go far beyond that in practice.

And let’s not forget that Local Government systems will also link in to NIR in order facilitate identity checks in their electronic systems; at the very least that’s Council Tax, Housing Benefit, etc without going into employment checks, social services, and so and and so forth.

It seems that few if any of the costs of linking and integrating these systems to NIR are included in the government’s quote figures - which goes a long way toward explaining why the LSE came up with a figure three time higher than the government for the cost of the system.

Who’s going to cover these costs? One way or another, we are…

Over time some the implementation costs may be offset by efficiency savings, which may mean that some of the costs of implementation are recouped, but that’s still a pretty big ‘if’ to be dealing with and the reality is that any such saving will take a considerable amount of time to work through the system and the full extent to which efficiency savings will cover these costs is highly uncertain - what typically happens with any technology based ‘product’ is that development costs are lumped into the price that users pay up-front, in order to recoup those costs as quickly as possible and only when those costs have been covered does the price then fall. Tthis is why a few years ago, for example, the cost of a desktop colour laser printer dropped from around £4,000 to less than £1,000 in the space of a year, what happened was simply that the companies making these printers reached the point where they had recouped enough of their R&D costs in sales revenue to make it worth their while dropping the price in order to stimulate market growth.

In short, if NIR is to be self-financing then one way or another we’ll be paying through the nose in the early years to cover development and implemetation costs and only when these have been covered, with the price fall, if at all.

Quite how we’ll be paying and in what for has yet to become clear. The government expects to obtain some revenue from its own departments, but that inevitably means either increased charges for NIR-linked services, like CRB checks, Driving Licences, etc, or that costs to these departments will have to be absorbed into existing budgets - meaning potential cuts in services/jobs - or covered by increase budgets, meaning increased taxation or government borrowing to offset the costs. The same basic principle applies in terms of linking local government systems to NIR, in fact more so as Council have much less scope that central government when it comes to borrowing, so unless they’re given extra money by central government to implement new systems then there’s only one place these costs are coming from and that’s Council Tax.

One should also beware of government projections on revenue from its own departments and services. The perfect example of this is the Criminal Records Bureau, which set its inital costs for Criminal Record Certificates on the assumption that part of the cost of the system would be offset by providing basic certificates which would be available to all employers, covering unspent convictions in addition to the standard and enhanced certificates required from people working in positions of trust or with children and/or vulnerable adults. The basic certificate was to be the cash cow that kept down the costs of the other two, but when it didn’t materialise - and it still hasn’t - the cost of the standard and enhanced certificates suddenly doubled, with little or no advance warning.

Then there’s the private sector who, more than anyone else, are likely to pass on any costs incurred in linking to NIR, including charges for identity verification, on to their customers and will do so more quickly as well - its a simple equation, increased costs equals reduced profits, etc…

Will an ID card actually cost £300 as the LSE suggested? No, not up front - having pinned there arguments on a fixed cost in pushing ID cards through Parliament any substantial increase in the up front cost of an ID card
would be political suicide, especially if the first cards are issued on time, which would mean their appearance within, at most, 18 months of the next general election. Could they end up costing taxpayers/citizens £300 or more once all the hidden costs are factored into the equation - very probably, which is the point the LSE were making all along.

The real lesson to be learned from this week’s revelations about the costs of the NHS system, lessons that need to applied to our thinking on ID cards, are not simply that government IT projects go overtime and overbudget, but how the government actually conceals the real cost of such systems.

I’m no economist, but like everyone else who followed the passage of the ID cards bill (as it was then) and campaigned against it throughout, I noticed how sensitive and issue price was, even amongst the many who didn’t - and probably still don’t - understand the full rage of issues that ID cards and the NIR raise for every citizen/taxpayer - and one thing I think we do need is for someone who is an economist and who understands how government finance works, to go back over the LSE’s figures, bring them up to date and then extrapolate the full costs of the system not in terms of an ID card will cost x amount but in terms of if ID cards are actually issued at the govenrment’s set price then the hidden costs in tax, council tax, cuts in services, bank charges, etc, etc, will be… giving a breakdown of approximately how these hidden costs will apply.

In today’s Indy (behind the PPV firewall as usual, dammit!) Phillip Hensher has a sorry tale to tell of dinner conversation with Sir Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal.

Rees, as he tells the story, was speaking to a senior figure at the Smithsonian Institution and having first complimented them on the Smithsonian’s contribution to the cententary celebrations of Einstein’s annus mirabilis (1905), during which he published three seminal papers, the second of which proposed the special theory of relativity, and their work in general during 2005, which had been designated the international year of physics, he moved the conversation on to note that in 2009 there would be two equally important anniversaries; the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th Anniversary of the first publication of ‘The Origin of Species’.

Naturally, for an eminent scientist, Rees was curious as to what plans the Smithsonian had in train to mark these two anniversaries and was rather perturbed to be told that the Smithsonian were having difficulty in mounting any kind of celebration at all and that it was very likely that the smithsonian would be unable to publicly mark either anniversary; not because they didn’t want to but because of difficulties in obtaining any funding to increase awareness of Darwin and his work.

As Hensher points out, this is a dinner conversation and therefore chit-chat rather than an official announcement, nevertheless one would not generally consider that a eminent scientist of Rees’ position and stature would be prone to exaggeration on such matters, so one has to take seriously the prospect that the world-renowned Smithsonian Institute, which more than any other institution in the US is charged with promoting the public understanding of science, may well find itself unable to adequately mark the anninversaries of Darwin’s birth and of the Origin of Species.

Should we be concerned with this in Britain? After all one would expect that both the British Museum and the Natural History Museum will have little difficulty in securing funding for an appropriate celebration of Darwin and his contribution to our understanding of evolution.

Well, yes, I think we should. Not only would a failure to mark these anniversaries damage the credilbility of one of world’s great scientific institutions, but to allow a situation to develop in which the Smithsonian finds itself unable to celebrate Darwin and his work would be an appalling capitulation to the superstition and mummery of creationism and its bastard progeny, so-called ‘intelligent design’ theory, one which clearly demonstrates the real agenda of ID’s supporters, which is not about having a rational public debate - a debate that ID and its supporters would certainly lose - but about the wholesale suppression of Darwinian ideas.

Disturbing as the idea of a major institution finding itself unable to mark Darwin’s anniversary might be, towards the end of his article, Hensher alludes to an even more worrying prospect, that the Smtihsonian may be funded to commemorate Darwin but only on condition that such an event must be ‘balanced’ by an ‘explanation’ of creationism/ID, treating it a legitimate alternative to evolution - no credible scientific institution could, of course, accept such a condition, which is precisely what would make it so attractive to ID’s supporters as, faced with such conditions, the Smithsonian would surely choose to have no celebration than one debased by theological pseudoscience.

There is categorically no place in science for creationism or intelligent design nor should either of the latter be ‘debated’ or discussed in a science classroom in anything other than the context of demonstrating how superstition has been superceded by rational inquiry and scientific method - if such ideas are to be discussed in the classroom, as seems to be the case as the new GCSE biology syllabus requires that:

pupils should be able to "explain that the fossil record has been interpreted differently over time (eg creationist interpretation)

Any such discussions should place creationism/ID entirely in its proper context, alongside such beliefs as that which held that the earth was flat, that the universe revolved around the earth and that sperm cells were, in fact, homunculi - and backed up by a strict marking regime that treats any effort by a pupil to cite religious texts as scientific authorities or to suggest that creationism/ID is either a valid scientific theory or, worse still, true, as an automatic zero mark on the question. Similarly, if creationism/ID is to be dealt with in science in any way, it should not be confined merely to the realm of the biological sciences, but should be dealt with across the board, not least in Physics, where the best of efforts of its supporters have still failed to deal with obvious problems in their ‘theory’ such as that of creation ex nihilo, thermodynamics, and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle - how does one ‘design’ anything at the most basic level when one cannot simultaneously determine both the position and momentum of sub atomic particles and, worse still, the better the position is known, the less well known its momentum is? Only by resorting to superstitious belief in a non-corporeal supreme intelligence that exists outside the realms of physics, he existance of which - or otherwise - is a fundamentally unscientific matter.

In short, the sole purpose of allowing discussion of creationism/ID in a science classroom must be to explain precisely why neither is a scientific theory at all, a purpose for which both are ideally suited, even if this is not made explicit in the requirement of the GCSE syllabus as it should be.

I’ve drifted a little, for good reason, but getting back to the original point, it is important that we support any efforts by the Smithsonian to mark the Darwin anniversaries in 2009 in true scientific fashion, which means in the absence of any discussion of creationism/ID that does not make it explicit that neither can be considered a scientific theory, much as any classroom debate on the subject arising out of the new GCSE biology syllabus should make the very same point.

The job of scientific institutions, and of science teachers, is to debunk superstition, not support it.

It seems the knuckledraggers in Barking have been having a few unfortunately fiscal problems…

[Published in the Evening Standard last week, by Andrew Gilligan]

Three of the BNP’s new councillors in Barking and Dagenham have been taken to court for owing thousands of pounds in rent and council tax.

The local authority has secured county court judgements against two, a third is being threatened with bailiffs, and a fourth is involved in a council probe into a potential £10,000 housing benefit fraud.

The disclosures will be hugely embarassing to the racist party, which has claimed ethnic minorities are being given a “free ride” by “suffering council-tax payers”.

They come after the BNP’s group leader on the council, Richard Barnbrook, was exposed as the director of a gay porn film, despite his party’s anti-gay stance. Robert Buckley, the new BNP councillor for Mayesbrook ward, appeared at Ilford County Court yesterday after failing to pay his rent for five months. After the hearing, Mr Buckley said his attendance allowance as a councillor would help him pay the debt.

He said: “I had an ongoing battle with the council and eventually I gave up and decided not to pay.”

Claire Doncaster, one of the new BNP councillors for the Alibon ward, was taken to court last year. Rent arrears of £2,280 have still not been paid. Ms Doncaster said: “We are actually getting the money now.” The BNP took 11 seats in Barking and Dagenham in the local elections.

I suppose the council could just deduct the debts out of their allowances as councillors.

[Hat tip: Pickled Politics]

Warning – Not work-safe if your workplace has a policy on accessing offensive material and very long.

No, I’m not Steve Freedom. ‘Steve Freedom’ is the online alias used by Simon Smith, the newly elected BNP councillor for Great Bridge in Sandwell, on the white ‘nationalist’ forum ‘Stormfront’, which means that what you’re about to read are some of the comments and forum posts that Simon has been making over the last five years (he joined the forum in 2001 and has made more than 2,100 forum posts to date), comments that strip away the carefully sanitised, voter-friendly image that the BNP has been at great pains to project in recent years.

This is Simon writing in what he thinks is a safe zone, amongst people who share his prurient views and appalling values and under an alias that precludes him being easily identified. What we have here is the real Simon Smith, warts and all – it makes for very illuminating reading.

I should begin by offering some evidence that Simon really is ‘Steve Freedom’, since his first and most obvious defence against what follows is to claim ‘mistaken identity’, so to begin with, there are these two posts in which he discusses his professional standing:

Don’t worry we’ll win eventually ! 

I’m a teacher myself and so can relate to the thread you submitted about your child having to go to a mosque - there are very very few headteachers worthy of respect - they pay their mortgages and toe the party line - no one will remember their names when they are gone.

We the White Race have a hard fight ahead - but for those who have "Woken" up we have no alternative but to enage the enemy with what ever courage and resources we have at our disposal.

Consider joining the BNP or at least making some financial contribution- every little effort is not wasted, because it’s up to us, there is no one else…

And

I’m sorry silent p, there’s no known cure for swallowing a copy of the "Daily Mirror"…

I’m an ex school teacher, forced out by the religion of "liberalism", no tattoos, but since I’m supposed to be a "criminal" and I now know that JJT earns a bit, I might take up burgling since according to the proffered equation BNP = crook, I might as well act according to book…. 

The "documentary" makers purposely selected items that would put the party in a bad light… All other things being equal, I’ve got better things to do than involve myself with politics – but this is a STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL.

And, of course, Simon’s fifteen minutes of fame came when he sacked from a teaching job at a Roman Catholic school in Solihull after they discovered he was standing as a BNP candidate in European Elections, as Simon notes here on his newly set-up blog:

I was the first teacher to stand for the British National Party. For this I was sacked - because of lack of finance I can’t fight for my rights - so much for the present system of British justice ! Never to be one to steer clear of trouble: Let me be the first elected person in Britain to go on record as saying that the September 11th 2001 attacks on the USA were an inside job to justify the expansion of the American Empire. If I die in a car crash or other suspicicious circumstances you will know why !

Ignore the 9/11 rant for the moment – I’ll come back to that in a while – and concentrate on his first comment. ‘Steve Freedom’ claims, initially, to be a teacher and then later states that I’m an ex school teacher, forced out by the religion of "liberalism" while Simon Smith states that he is the first teacher to stand for the British National Party – is that a coincidence?

Of course not, but then that’s not the clincher that proves that Simon Smith and ‘Steve Freedom’ are one and the same, that can be found in this post:

It took me a long time to come to the same conclusions as most of the folks here…the interest in the subject arose because it is obviously convenient to the Nationalist cause that the "Holocaust" didn’t happen in the way orthodoxy suggests…. never the less it DIDN’T happen in the way orthodoxy suggests AND ENFORCES ! 

I spent over a year reading the info on the net and came to the conclusion that 6 million is a gross exaggeration and that there were no mass killings with Zyklon B…There were of course individual cases of deliberate brutality which must be set against the sufferings of many other people in World War II

The starving disease ridden bodies on the old black and white films were a consequences of the latter days of the war when allied bombing, amongst other things prevented food and medicine going to the concentration camps.

Take some time and come to your own conclusions

(I put together some links on my own humble website http://www.yahho.co.uk/Holocaust.html )

The key information here is to be found in that last line, the reference to my own humble website, which used the domain name www.yahho.co.uk.

Simon was the proud owner of this domain from 1999 until 2004, when it was subject to a complaint of ‘passing off’ from Yahoo, detailed here in the records of Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service, which resulted in the domain being transferred to the ownership of Yahoo.

As Nominet’s records show (pdf), the respondent in this case was Simon Charles Smith, the same Simon Charles Smith who was recently elected as councillor from Great Bridge.

Taken together, these two pieces of information more than satisfactorily demonstrate that Simon Smith is the pseudonymous ‘Steve Freedom’ who has posted regularly on the Stormfront forum for the last five years.

So that’s who he is take care of, but that’s only part of the story. The real story here lies in looking at what some of the many comments that Simon/Steve has posted in this forum tell us about who he is and what he really believes – and that’s what this article is really all about, showing the real Simon Smith that lies behind the voter-friendly veneer imposed on him by the BNP.

All of which makes this exchange between another Stormfront member and Simon, particularly interesting:

[JOEOWENS] 

This was how we conducted Nationalism in the 80’s in Liverpool. Never was a movement using tactics like this (and you had to ) going to get anywhere. From street punch ups to provocative marches, was a recipe for disaster. 

This is why the BNP must at all cost, steer clear from anything that can resemble violence or Holocaust denial. Its not that the press wont call us Nazis (they will ) its the fact the public need a way out to justify voting for us. By carrying on with old tactics the public will be scared to support us.

[Simon]

I’d certainly agree with the notion that "holocaust denial" as you put it, should be avoided amongst Joseph and Josephine Public.. but then again anything that challenges the average attention span should be as well…One idea forming in my mind lately is think and study deeply but communicate superficially, touching on what sales people call the "hot spots"…

The internet, whilst public, imo is a different sphere of interaction. We can expect to engage the more articulate, intelligent and educated on Stormfront. Perhaps there may have been a time when old style Nationalists may have been ashamed of that; I don’t know. Immediate political success is of course important and I don’t believe that it will be affected by the occasional revisionism discussion on SF within the appropriate forum…We have to engage the next generation of Nationalist leaders through a medium such as this…

If the concern is that the forces of decadence will say "such and such " a person said "this and that" on Stormfront, I would say to that person WHAT FORUM DID YOU SAY ? A BIG worry for the enemy would be that Stormfront became even more popular than it is. I understand that SF is something like the forth or fifth largest forum in the world. As you say we are "Nazis" whatever….

Hope to meet you sometime in the flesh Joe …

[JOEOWENS] 

Hi

sorry if i gave the wrong impression regarding image.I don’t mean curb our tongue on Stormfront,but carefull promoting Nationalism to the public.After all,Stormfront is not public in the true meaning.

What i mean is,the people who say we (the bnp ) are watering our views down and selling out,don’t understand the need for this slight manoeuvre from our goals and public mindset.When they do,they will understand.

You will never convince the public six million did’nt perish untill we are in power.

Our people need to be steered back with a sensible and carefull approach,one devoid of hate.If the public hated like we do,Black and Asian ghettos would not exist.

This is now why we must tread carefull and play our enemies at their own game.If people all over the country aggree with us ( and majority do ) then why are we not in power? Its becouse they are scared and not sure were not the monsters the media say we are.Having marches and fighting and calling for eveyone to be sent back,is not going to convince them we are right.

In fact,you will see a black Britain before that.

What’s interesting here is the general level of contempt towards ordinary people that Simon displays - I’d certainly agree with the notion that "holocaust denial" as you put it, should be avoided amongst Joseph and Josephine Public.. but then again anything that challenges the average attention span should be as well – and of, course - We can expect to engage the more articulate, intelligent and educated on Stormfront – not only might the average voter be put off by talk of holocaust denial, but they wouldn’t be intelligent enough to understand this issue either, according to Simon.

All of which leads on to the question of just what kind of views Simon holds on the subject of the Holocaust? Well this should be obvious simply from this short comment:

I wrestled with this subject for a long time….I didn’t want to accept what you may could call the "WN postion on the subject" just to fit in with everybody else… 

The "Holocaust" is the biggest lie of all time….

I know where you are, so to speak..You will need to carry reading on the subect to put your mind at rest…

But if that’s not enough, try this:

The thing is Mark I thought like you about 18 months ago. I did a lot of reading on the matter and found myself substantively in agreement with the folks on the SF board…

There is a semantical (as well as a semitical !) problem with the word "Holocaust". It has to be established what it is that is being "denied". No one denies that hundreds of thousands of Jews died in WWII. It is the means and the extent of the deaths that Revisionists question.

The gas chamber story is as full of as holes as much as the alleged gas chamber roofs are not ! What finally "converted" me to the "Revisionist" camp was the expert witness in the Zundel trial who demonstrated the impossibility of cremating the number of bodies that have been alleged by the "orthodox" school.

A problem with the topic is that the "Orthodox" proponents accept the revisions that the Revisionists prove, but do so in a quite manner with an air of "we knew that all the time"…

Anyway, do some reading. My own recommendation is to go over an account of the 1988 Zundel trial. A little time consuming, but well worth it if you wish to get to the truth of the matter.

Not just Holocaust denial then, but the full ‘Jewish conspiracy’ line as well, which he continues with here:

Umbro drops its Zyklon shoe after Jewish protests

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main…numbro29 .xml

I sent this email to the Telegraph in response

"Dear Sir,

With regard to the “Zyklon” trainers article…

After doing quite a bit of reading on the "Holocaust" , I must say I don’t believe in the "Received Version" that is put out by the mainstream media. I believe we are living in a "Pre Copernican" era on this subject, and whilst it may be painful for vested interests to get to grips with this subject and call me an "Holocaust Denier", "Nazi" etc the truth will eventually stand by itself.

I believe that people who promote the "Orthodox" version of the "Holocaust" i.e. 6 million and mass executions by gas either believe in it as an article of faith or actually know they are propagating a myth whose demise would have consequences for Jewish interests.

I’m not stupid, I know that the Daily Telegraph is controlled by a Zionist lobby and I know that there is no way you would publish this letter in your newspaper. My hope is that this email may be seen by at least one truthfully minded individual before it’s consigned to the trash folder.

The six million figure is not even believed by Jewish “Holocaust” researchers. They do keep quiet on the matter so as not to dispel the myth. In fact the six million is in mathematical terms 6 times 10 to the power 6, a significant mystical Jewish number. The six million was being predicted way before 1945. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

The 1988 Zundel trial allowed independent execution expert Fred Leuchter to demonstrate that the crematoria at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II could not have been used for execution purposes.

Zyklon “B” is not a fast acting gas. You are wrong. Even the article you link to refers to half an hour. The amount of Zyklon “B” used at the so-called “extermination” camps was no more or less than the other concentration camps. Cremation in 20 minutes is impossible. Germany wouldn’t be able to provide the coke for the crematoria for the number claimed.

The pictures of the emaciated corpses we see are of starvation and typhus victims and were taken in the western camps of the Reich. The tragic events occurred towards the end of the war when supplies were being cut off. British autopsies showed that none of the victims died of cyanide. In fact it was still claimed until the early sixties that gassings took place at Dachau and Belsen etc where the witness testimony (which has been debunked) was in no ways different to the witness testimony put forward at the IMT trials with respect to the eastern concentration camps….

I could go, but what’s the point ? You either believe the “received version” or you might have a slight doubt. If you have a slight doubt then research the topic…"

In referring to the ‘emaciated corpses’ Simon is, here, alluding to one of his favourite fictions about the Holocaust, which claims that the appalling state in which the Allies found inmates on liberating the concentration camps was the direct result of Allied bombing disrupting supplies to the camps and not due to the general conditions under which the inmates were kept by the Nazis.

I expect this particular e-mail to the Telegraph got the response it deserved and found its way rapidly to the spam bin, but don’t think Simon’s finished with this subject yet, here’s what he has to say on the subject of those who witnessed the Holocaust first-hand:

The so called eye witness testimony was a stumbling block for me a couple of years ago. Since maturing in my outlook as to how the world works, I realise that those who say they witness "gassings" etc and the like are: 

1/Deluded

2/Or liars including

a)Those who would extrapolate from genuine hardship experienced, to fictional "genocide"

b)Those who are paid.

3/Forced under torture to "confess"

What would be interesting is a list of the "main" witnesses (eg Gerstein, Hoess, Wiesel) who are put out on "parade", with a short debunking paragraph. This would be useful. Has anyone seen anything like this ?

…perhaps with a list of those who saw nothing, eg Red Cross, Christerpherson(? unsure of exact name - it’s something like that ?)

And, of course, it doesn’t stop there:

Originally Posted by Odins-Eye

Let me guess, did they say the predecessor to St Lawrence died in a gas chamber? It always amazed me how many thought Anne Frank died in this way. 

Not only that but the diary was a fraud…. 

[Simon]

 We’re back to media domination of the sheeple’s consciousness and of course the disproportionate representation of Jews in the media with the associated shield/sword holocaust account on which the Zionist Entity is based….

 People are waking up to the truth, but it’s a slow process. God only knows what damage is done before the educated/intelligent can trickle down the Truth about all of this to the Corrie/Footie people…

 (Am I a snob ? Too bloody right ! )

 And…

 Originally Posted by silky3

 Bloody hell! Will the Jews never let up about the holocaust?(em,no daft question)They think it gives them carte blanche for anything that they do.

 [Simon]

 Exactly and that’s why the term was coined, well after WWII…They own the media, banks and the minds of the unenlightened..

 The state of Israel has fed off the "Holocaust", a term I think was coined in the sixties…Never the less at street level , the best thing to say, and to be honest, I don’t think the "Holocaust" is an obsession with Joe Public any more than Revisionism is with Nationalists, is to just shrug the shoulders basically and say "nothing to do with us" etc…Temptation, to be severely resisted is to try and show how clever you may be on the subject..

 The predictable smear attempt is a sign that the enemy (viz globalist parties Lib/Con/Lab) are intellectually bankrupt and will do anything to stay on the gravy train…

 Actually, the first recorded use of the term ‘Holocaust’ in reference to the persecution of the Jews was made, in Latin (Holocaustum) in a letter written by Richard I, which is obviously somewhat before the 1960s, but I’ll let Simon’s ignorance of the subject pass for now and move on to this post:

 Originally Posted by lucian_lacroix

 I’ve seen too many movies of people in concentration camps, mountains of bodies being bulldozed into ditches, living skeletons walking around, etc. Yep, it happened. Maybe it will happen again.

 [Simon]

 Yes indeed. You raise a good point. The pictures are the starting point of the indoctrination process Pictures are very powerful. I first heard the Revisionist perspective over twenty years ago and dismissed it because of the pictures. Interesting how we don’t have any pictures of gentiles suffering at the hands of Jewish commissars in the Gulags isn’t it ? A few observations:

 1) Most of those unfortunate to die, died of typhus/starvation (brought about by lines of communication being cut in final months of war)

 2) It’s not possible to extrapolate from hundreds of dead bodies seen dead to say "six million" died.

 3) The extent to which "It" (The ‘Holocaust’) happened is the real question.) I believe the establishment are going for a "soft landing" with the H story. I believe they are gradually reducing the six million/gassing part of the narrative and speaking more in terms of Jewish suffering etc.

 A ‘soft-landing’ indeed, but still it goes on:

 Originally Posted by Bookworm

 It may be Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation. Chamberlain conceded that it was ‘Absolutely contrary to International law’.

 [Simon]

 I’m sure that’s true. There’s a question. How do we tell people ? How do we feed this into practical politics ?

 The laughable thing is that modern "education" has become so perverted that even the "Auschwitz" myth , according to the "mainstream" isn’t being properly promulgated. Presumably people have to read (etc) in order for them to spread this Zionist gospel around. Do we laugh or cry ? The NWO machine requires ignorance on the part of the population to succeed. When it succeeds, it finds the population has become so ignorant (because of the thrust of liberal Bolshevik education) that it can’t spread its propaganda around !!!

 Truth is forever. The only anchor we have.

 Even when faced with a valid question, Simon cannot drop the subject…

Originally Posted by Roy H.

Jesus, what does the Holocaust (or lack of it) have to do with British White Nationalism, or British Nationalism in general in 2005…

It only makes you look like someone the government can easily have a swipe at and someone the media can easily take advantage of to destroy your image and thus get you less votes…

[Simon]

Some of the points there do have merit, I am not saying they don’t however this was 60 years ago, we are in a batter for the surivial of our race against governments and corporations dedicated to multiculturalism in 2005

That’s a good question. We obviously don’t need to discuss it in non-cyberspace where we have to address more mundane issues. Despite being a public forum, the enemy, i.e. The Globalist Elite don’t go out of the way to draw attention to Stormfront because they’d score a massive home goal. I know where you’re coming from. We’re not telling the "rulers" what they don’t know already anyway. Perhaps the penny might drop one day with well meaning ANL types who whilst certainly not converted to our point of view, will certainly see how their "genuine concern" for humanity has been perverted, manipulated and channelled against an indigenous people trying to preserve their way of life.

I was half listening to a TV program about Einstein earlier. Every other sentence was about "Nazis". The commentator had been to some sort of training session where the pronunciation of the word "Nazi" was spoken in the most ominous and contemptible way possible to the human voice. The reason is obvious. In May the UAF smear leaflets with Auschwitz etc will come out. Quarter educated TV wallers will wag their fingers knowingly and say "well you know where Nationalism lead don’t you ! gas chambers/six million dead and so on"

SF, I think is educational. Who stands to gain the most and who lose the most from a truthful debate of these issues ? I rarely discuss the Holocaust in non cyberspace because I’d be wasting my breath.

The misnamed British Broadcasting Corporation has really gone to town with Auschwitz. I just can’t believe the way in which the "world" preserves these myths. As well as serving as a finger wagging sound bite against Nationalism, the Holocaust acts a foundation stone for the state of Israel. How can a country or any people exist based on a falsehood?

As might be obvious by now, Simon’s views on the Holocaust come complete with the usual ‘Global Zionist conspiracy package’ as this next run of posts illustrate:

 A valid point about the Jews.

 I think because they are so intelligent when it comes to language, inherent understanding of hierarchies and haggling/politics etc they are capable of exploiting the "Homer Simpsons" of our societies. They understand weaknesses in White folks and can manipulate them…. If Homer is stupid enough to let Mr Burns in to watch the boxing match then Homer is the one that needs to be told he is a fool. Can we blame Mr Burns ?

 We need to address our own shortcomings through education. Education that would indeed includes an analysis of the "Jewish Question". (amongst many other topics: Race, Economics, Science, IT, etc etc )

 And…

 This is a delicate area of discussion that will draw fire from the trolls on the board who will present some sort of "hardline" position to disrupt Nationalist momentum.

 I think there is an overiding sense amongst those that care and actually do things, that we walk a tightrope on these matters.

 We cannot deny Jewish Supremacism on one hand, neither can we deny those with Jewish descent in Britain (I seem to recall the figure 300,000) who are not Zionist, and perhaps most, who are not significantly detrimental to Britishness . The threat from Judaiism imho is of Zionism and not genetic swamping… Ultimately, and I may walk a lonely trail on this, I believe even Zionism is a cover for the ruling elites.

 I will venture an opinion on Pat Richardson. If you have the guts to stand for the BNP then you have the right to criticise her, otherwise STFU.

 Many perhap will look up to a certain mid twentieth century military philospher and statesman and hail him as a sort of saint - fair enough -I will not argue. He had a certain number amongst his elite who had certain ancestoral question marks over them moreso than modern day groups. This isn’t easy. Everyone who cares, understands this.

 Guess who the ‘mid twentieth century military philosopher and statesman’ might be? No, go on, have a guess? May this will help:

 Away from the seemingly (?) need to disassociate oneself from Christ or Hitler depending on whether one wishes not to regarded as a “”Jesus freak” or a “Nazi”, both men have been great influential world leaders. I grew up with the Christian faith and whilst rejecting the established church ,( not describing myself as a “Christian” other than in the general sense of performing a “Christian action" etc), the sayings of Jesus Christ are as quotable as Shakespeare ,Plato or Jefferson.

 The Internet has been a great source of knowledge about Adolph Hitler for me. I’ve read the first couple of chapters of Mein Kampf and can’t find anything I disagree with ! I think even now, White Nationalists may be apprehensive about coming to close appreciating Adolph Hitler – In my mind a very courageous and truthful man. I suppose there may be a great fear about identifying with anything Hitler said, the argument being that it could set the movement backwards – perhaps the only thing that will push the “Movement” forward in the long run is the Truth – unpalatable and uncomfortable as it maybe.

 These are some comparisons that came to mind between Jesus Christ and Adolph Hitler:

1 Both vilified by the major ruling powers of the world

2 Jesus killed by Romans because of Jewish lobby – Adolph affectively killed by Allies because of Jewish Lobby

3 Followers of Jesus persecuted after his death – Followers of Adolph persecuted after his death

4 Both drew attention to the lies of the Jews

5 Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple – Adolph threw out the Jewish bankers from Germany

6 Both were courageous men

7 Both were orators who connected with the “common folk”

8 Both came from fairly humble lower middle class families

9 Both have attracted devotees who would die for their respective causes

10 Jesus vilified by the Talmud, Adolph vilified by the (Jewish) media

11 Arguably both have attracted distorted ritualistic/fetishist behaviour from their fans that may have missed out their essential philosophy driving them (Truth/Salvation ?)

12 Neither had offspring – their legacy was who they were and what they stood for.

13 Both spoke the Truth and were willing to suffer the consequences for it

But I digress, slightly, back to the ‘Jewish conspiracy’…

Originally Posted by bombadillo

.. Maybe we overemphasise the jewish angle a bit too much: what we probably have is an emerging global financial elite in which jews have disproportionate representation.

[Simon]

I would tend to agree with that. Although, in front of disproportionate , I would put the word "very". Human nature is to get things with the least effort - Jews are good at business etc when you have unjust law and taxation etc, those with the apptitude to exploit will exploit - the BIG problem in the West is the ignorance,cowardice and laziness of White people - It’s no good blaming anyone else - Our future is in our own hands.

Originally Posted by Helsingor

Oh, and let’s not forget….

Ultimately, the goal of the Globalists is One World Government and so we should analyze things with that framework in mind.

[Simon]

Yes indeed. The reason why the "globalists"/"zionists"/illuminati/elite etc, call them what we will, are successful is that they understand lower human nature: Be it the sheeplike rush for house loans of the populace /sex manipulation of politicians/drugs/fear of a bullet etc etc etc Their rise to power has been along the least line of resistance. IMO, also ruthlessness beyond the imagination of most on this board - including the telling of the "big lie".

A real question for White Nationalist politics is :

Do we educate, or increase political influence by taking on board White ignorance ? (i.e. Playing along with the "Muslim Hijacker" paradigm.)

That last one’s a nice touch – do we educate or increase political influence by taking on board White ignorance… must remember that for next year’s election campaign.

Still, to give Simon his due, he’s no ‘Jew basher’ – look, he says so here….

You are either very naive or a globalist/Zionist shill.

If you are the former, then it’s forgivable.

To take one example quoted. The attack on the USS Liberty was clearly an Israeli "false flag" operation.

BTW I’m not a Jew basher. One of my favourite political commentators is Jewish - Henry Makow at savethemales.ca I’m prepared to learn from anyone.

Although maybe he’s not so keen on Makow after all….

Originally Posted by Call Of The Blood

He [Henry Makow] is a jew, that’s enough for me not to trust him.

[Simon]

I think that’s fair enough, but I’m beginning to wonder if their avaricious nature (along with many Whites) isn’t somehow being used by a higher political layer just as the Jews have used Blacks’ nature to achieve their more visible aims…Basically the Jews in as far as they are "Jews" may not be at the top of Mount Olympus..I do wonder….

As you might expect for all this, Simon also has some very ‘interesting views’ on the subject of race in general, and it just wouldn’t do him justice not to pick up a few of them…

An interesting article. I spent the afternoon reading this and the link given….

It seems to me from this that Jews despite their cleverness, don’t fully appreciate the ULTIMATE repercussions of their collective actions….It seems to me, and I think Macdonald is saying this, that there "isn’t a global conspiracy" per se, but a sum total of consequences from their actions. Dr Pierce would say they do what they do "because they’re Jews"

Interesting that the average Jewish IQ is similar to ours wrt spatial intelligence. They are seemingly very good articulators of pseudoscience (and world champions of hypocrisy !) as befits their high verbal IQs..

I couldn’t help thinking about their semitic cousins (The Arabs) and their evolutionary strategy, Islam….

How about this for some home baked philosophy of my own:

The Jews have a "feminine" survival strategy and the Muslims a "masculine" one…

Jewish families seem to be smaller than Muslims, perhaps emphasising the maternal care to a few rather than creating Allah’s foot soldiers

Jews have monogamy and Muslims polygamy

Jewish religion is inherited from mother. Women married to Muslims have to become Muslims…

Jewish materialism has a hoarding "feminine" quality whilst Muslims prefer to take plunder from the infidels, a “masculine” feature…

Jews like to ingratiate, a feminine quality, whilst Muslims prefer military conquest

Jews have a high verbal IQ, women are usually better linguistically than men…

Islam seeks converts by conquest i.e. whatever women your right hand takes in battle you can take (paraphrasing here something from the Koran)

How about a quickie on the subject of Edwina Currie’s affair with John Major…

I think she’s also a Red Sea Pedestrian ….

The BBC news led with the Major/Currie story and the newsreader without taking a breath went on to talk about Blunkett’s get tough policies with sex offenders…I wonder if anyone else noticed that….

But then I wouldn’t want to think that it’s only Jew that Simon has some clear opinions on…

99 times out of a 100 when talking about Negroes or people from Pakistan , I’m quite happy to speak of them as "Negroes" or "Pakistanis". For the common or garden nigger or paki I think that’s fine…. 

But for people like this, they are Niggers and Pakis with a capital N and P.

There are two women friends of mine who keep getting hassled by Blacks because they have blonde hair all the f****** time. For any Blacks reading this stick to your own bloody women, as ugly as they are !

Simon’s none to keen, it seems, on the new Archbishop of York, either…

Re: New Archbishop of York appointed

Future generations will look back on this sad episode as we look back on the burning of witches, Noah’s ark and the idea of the earth being flat.

Stop the Bus ! The Emperor has NO clothes !!!

Simon’s last comment here – the Emperor has no clothes’ was followed by a photograph of a gorilla – did I mention that he often doesn’t do subtle? Try this…

I suppose the plus points for a White woman who has half castes is that instead of locking them in their rooms when they misbehave she can have velcro ceiling attached in their bedrooms and keep them imprisoned by sticking their heads against the ceilings…

Nice, eh? But then Simon’s well known in Stormfront circles for his compassion towards his fellow man…

Tragedy girl’s dad blasts BNP

THE family of a 12-year-old girl accident victim has blasted the far-right British National Party for using details of her death in a political leaflet.

Amy Houston, a pupil at Our Lady’s and St John’s High School, in Blackburn, died in hospital last November.

She had run into the road and was hit by a car driven by a failed asylum seeker close to her home.

Angry father Paul Houston, from Accrington, said he wanted nothing to do with the leaflet, which has already been distributed across the North East of England and could soon be used in Lancashire.

But the BNP, which has seven councillors in Burnley, today insisted it had done nothing wrong and would continue to use the case to highlight its policy on asylum seekers.

Details of the case have now appeared in a copy of a BNP leaflet called Newcastle Patriot, distributed to homes it is targeting in this summer’s local council elections.

It says: "While Amy’s parents have to live their whole life coming to terms with their daughter’s death, Ibrahim will be back on the streets in as little as two months.

"Similar tragedies are increasingly common, and the situation will get worse.

"Only the BNP will stand up and so no to asylum madness."

Amy’s father Paul, of Russia Street, Accrington, says: "The last thing we want is for Amy’s memory to be used by a party with just one thing on their political agenda, stirring up racial hatred.

"This is very upsetting and makes me very angry. I did not bring up my daughter to be a racist, and I am not one either. This leaflet implies we are supporting the BNP when nothing could be further from the truth.

[Simon]

Demonstrates the power of media brainwashing to overwhelm the natural emotions that anyone should normally feel…..The need to be accepted by the wider community is the driving force…

Sad for him about his loss, but still a real lemming..

That 12 year old girl is our racial kin regardless of what her father says. She is just as much our flesh and blood as his….

He also had a bit of an interesting take on the BBC’s ‘Great Britons’ series…

I’d chuck Churchill, Diana and Lennon out straight away….

Cromwell, Hmmm, a man of conviction and guts, BUT NOT A MAN OF THE PEOPLE…

Nelson was my boyhood hero and still is (CLEVER AND BRAVE. What a target to aim for !?)

Shakespeare, the world greatest EVER wordsmith…

Creativity AND engineering are what differentiate Whites from every other races, IMO…so Brunel for me as a REPRESENTATIVE of his class of innovators. Of course Brunel was a DOER and God knows, we need people like him….

An incredible man who worked tremendously long days… A long list of achievements: Suspension bridges, tunnel under the Thames, steamships, the Great Western Railway, whose track was laid in a phenomenally short time…He made a few mistakes as well but always recovered and pressed on to the next challenge

So creativity and engineering are what differentiate ‘Whites’ from every other race… like the Incas, the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Babylonians…

Perhaps we ought to get back to more familiar territory for Simon…

Make Africa history NUKE IT.

No, we can’t do that. If that was done, how are we going to aid the whites who still live in places like Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) and South Africa take back their countries and restore them to their former status as advanced white-run countries?

Well good for them, I’m sure the ANC are quaking in their boots as we speak… and it’s worth noting that Simon’s no music fan either…

Originally Posted by Louiscorso

Just back from the love music hate racism "festival" in Trafalagr Sq (on a recon basis obviously) many thousands of young mostly white brainwashed morons sit gazing at negros on MC’s singing along to lyrics along the lines of "no place for racists in my land, we the black brothers gonna make our stand" smash the BNP etc

The slogan bedecked t shirt wearing, ginger dreadlocked middle class white halfwits who were there in vast numbers (surbiton must be empty today) were all covered in UAF stickers and SWP paraphenalia, groups of young blacks thronged the fringes of the square in a menacing fashion, I honestly do not think i have ever seen less intergration between a large group of black and white people in all my life Of couse the blacks don’t want to be associated with these idiots who soooooooooooo dearly love them, the women are hideous and the men are the very antithisis of the young black male.

I vented my anger at some of the many police on duty who duly nodded and asked me to move along and signed a few petitions in the name Heinrich Himmler (funny to see some fat disgusting white freak thanking you for your support)

A truly disgusting afternoon, it has realy stiffend my resolve to the BNP, I thought you should all know just what is happening in your capital, I am sure that i was not alone as an "intruder" anybody else there ?

[Simon]

Sounds like a scene from the "Time Machine"

White = sheep-like Eloi

Black = cannibal Moorlock creatures

Actually, it’s not just music that Simon’s not keen on – he seems to have gone off football as well…

It’s hard to say , but I want White Denmark to beat the mongrel "England" team…

Blacks and half Blacks will never be English - Hell wiill freeze over first

I made a post about "Football Nationalism" in the articles section of Stormfront..

 Football is just a drug in my opinion…….RACE is the important thing. A nation can’t measure its worth acording to its Football team’s ability - that’s nonsense…

Not tuning in to the World Cup, eh?

There are obviously more important things than football, but having five Blacks playing for England was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me… 

If you follow the England football team as an expression of "patriotism" without doing anything else , God help you…..

Football is what the gladiatorial spectacle were top the Roman world. A way of channelling feelings of pride, aggression and identity into something that wouldn’t challenge the status quo… 

It’s time to give up footie folks…"When I was a child I thought as a child " etc

It also seems that Simon’s not overly keen on his local club…

Many years ago my local team West Bromwich Albion beat Oldham 1 -0 to reach div 1, but F*** football, my team plays in the all White strip ! (and I don’t mean Leeds !)

(Soapbox time for football - Millwall petrol bombing Bham City because they didn’t gain promotion - pathetic. Football is a religion supported by people who are brainwashed idiots who should wake up and see that the real struggle is a day-to-day affair not a Saturday afternoon spectacle…)

Another thing about football Hooliganism. This ridiculous throwing punches and kicks at opposite fans…You see half a dozen hooligans throwing punches and kick at opposition fans like powder puffs – their target is still standing …Its all macho bol@8cks. Lets all grow up and join in the real fight !

I believe we should tackle (ha ha ) football fans and tell them that the colour of our strip is White….I hate professional football but the real challenge is to harness the raw energy of the supporters. As the Duke of Wellington said with regards to the British army (i.e. the Scum of the earth or similar) before Waterloo “I don’t know what they do to the enemy but my God they frighten the hell out of me”

Which also happens to be the team (WBA) I’ve supported my whole life, in fact, as a callow youth, I stood on the terraces at Oldham with my father on the day we gained promotion, to which Simon refers.

I’m proud of my team, proud of its history and its achievements – but most of all I’m proud to say that racist scumbags like Simon are definitely not welcome at the Hawthorns. There is almost nothing a true Albion supporter is more proud of than the place we hold in footballing history as the first top flight team to field three black players – English black players.

 But I digress into personal matters, let’s get back to Simon and a game of Cluedo…

 Political Cluedo:

 The White race is being murdered at Tudor mansion. Move your token round the board and find the culprit…..

 Just a thought:

 Suspects:

 The Rabbi Green

 Colonel Muhammed

 Professor Blair

 Mrs Non-White

 Mrs PeaCock

 Miss Tartlett

 Murder Weapons:

 The Lead Newspaper

 The Holocaust Sword

 The Coiled debt

 The Candlestick for Racial Equality

 Location:

 Drinks room in house of commons

 The Minds of the Brainwashed

 Bank of England

 London

 Birmingham

 Local Boozer

 I told you he didn’t do subtle – he doesn’t do psychology either…

 The reason why Blacks disproportionately don’t vote is that the frontal part of the brain associated with postponing immediate gratification is not so well developed as in other races.

 I mean having to go all the way down the street and marking cross on a piece of paper doesn’t bring sex, drugs or the latest pair of trainers.

 Judging by the turnout at the last general election, I guess that more than 40% of the population have the same problem in postponing immediate gratification.

 So that Jew and ‘Blacks’ dealt with to some extent, but what about other racial groups…

 This is why the Indian sub continent is a ****hole. the people are pathologically corrupt. Whilst the British Raj was ultimately for us a disaster, it was a time when the Indian bureaucracy functioned in a way that actually achieved things: Railways, sewage, military discipline etc etc

 These people are takers, takers and takers. Our system is by no means perfect, but these business hawk Asians have involved in an environment that makes them deadly amongst vulnerable non-corrupt Whites - and still many of our people don’t wake up.

 But not so pathologically corrupt as to suggest there’s nothing all to be learned from one of them them…

 "..Mahatma Gandhi was a racist, and his opposition to apartheid in South Africa was borne of his resentment at being treated like a "raw kaffir." This isn’t to say that the man’s efforts to secure Indian independence ought to be outweighed by his views about Africans, but it is nevertheless understandable if the descendants of those he thought "only one degree removed from the animal" aren’t at all eager to celebrate his life and works."

[SIMON]

 Despite the fact that Gandhi only made one good film. If we can put to one side the film makers requirment to make Whites look unworthy etc, it’s possible to view Gandhi as a "Nationalist", and see if "we" can learn lessons from him and the way he worked.

 Mmm… can the BNP learn from Gandhi’s methods – no, that conjures a horrible image of Nick Griffin sat under tree wearing nothing but a dhoti… yeuck. Time to move on I think, to a little confusion about Islam…

 Originally Posted by harry barnes

 I fervently hope that my White European kinsmen, and especially those in the UK, will begin now to see the necessity of following the recent Dutch example.

 Islam is a mortal threat to our people and our White children. It must be uprooted from our lands.

 Islam is a racial religion. It is alien to the White race. It must be extirpated. Soon.

 [Simon…]

 TRUE.

 And yet. You have to distinguish between:

 1) Islamification of Britain/Europe - We don’t want it. We are experiencing it because of the underlying economics that have made immigration possible.

2) Middleast Nationalists (who just happen to be Muslims in their own countries) - Iraq was said to be the most secular and welcoming to Western tourists before Gulf War I and II

3) Attempts to make it seem like (Iraqi resistance for example) are committing acts of barbarism…Well what can I say. Mossad (Israeli intelligence) has a long history of committing atrocities to cause outrage against Muslims nations. Jewish controlled USA (with some help from puppet of a puppet Britain) is causing far far more suffering than the execution of foreigners who shouldn’t be there anyway. I don’t think it useful to draw political capital from "events" in Iraq, IMHO - especially as we, unfortunately, are the "bad guys" being cannon fodder for Israel.

So, you get that don’t you? Islam is bad when it’s over here, but okay when it’s off elsewhere fighting Jews. Especially in Iraq where the entire insurgency has all been contrived by Mossad – No, still not sure? Try this…

Originally Posted by Helsingor

I’m actually a bit confused by this latest tactic.

On one hand they tell us to take on the Muslims with open arms in all it’s multicultural glory and yet produce things like 9/11, phony Mossad/CIA beheadings, Hezbollah, etc.

Do they want multiculturalism to crash and burn? It would almost seem so.

[Simon]

Good point. I think they want us to hate Muslims in the Middleast (where they challenge Israeli power) but LOVE them in the White countries (where they undermine White identity.) I notice this in Britain. I think Blair and Co are walking a tightrope on this one. Because of their number and influence in Britain, I can’t see a "British September 11th" - it would upset the multicultural applecart too much . Unfortunately, I can see the authorities framing a White Nationalist for some big crime and then using the coming British version of the Patriot Act to limit civil liberties.

I guess this is why Simon has a somewhat original take on one particular political figure…

GG is in the Red Ken mould. Part idealist, part man of courage, part idiot.

The man would surely hate us WNs. Never the less. Just because someone "hates" us - there’s no reason to "hate" him.

I HAVE A FEAR.

The basis of this fear is this. The liberals, By I which I mean the GENUINE liberals (like Galloway) will , in Britain, become aware and VOCAL regarding(globalism), amongst other things the "911 Truth" movement. I’m sorry, but if you DO NOT believe 911 was an inside job by now, then IMHO you are a lemming.

There are only two parties of principle in Britain. The BNP and the Lib Dems [Respeck](Yes I know at the highest level the LDs are part of the three headed hydra monopoly capitalist system, but lower down, there are people of principle in it)

I believe there are epoch changing events on the horizon. The nationalist cause needs to take on board much.

Galloway is being touted as a hero by many freedom-loving Americans, who surely live under the most evil White (?) Government of all time.

We have to make sure we are not outflanked by Galloway and chums

Somehow, I doubt the Lib Dems will be too keen on receiving Simon’s endorsement.

Meanwhile, Simon is somewhat more sure of where he stands on another political figure, if not on what constitutes libel…

Originally Posted by Lord Kitchener

To take the Labour government to court for crimes against the British Endemic White race.

Could we as nationalists fund the costs incurred between us all and what would the likely outcome be.

I feel its time to take positive action before it is to late.

LK

[Simon]

Eventually. But these are gutless mediocrities that in other life times would be actors and actresses. The harshest punishments should be reserved for those who pull their strings - but I’m sure God has already thought of that…

In Blair case, his strings are the cottaging with Mandy - tips of the iceberg stuff like the Dunblane massacres / paedophile links with the 100 year disclosure rule.

BLAIR IS NOTHING. When the time comes those who really rule will do what they want with him before all our voluntary hangmen come forward.

Blair has sold his soul to the Devil. His increasing uneasy appearance has the look of a man who knows Satan is on the starting blocks ready to collect on the Faustian contract he signed all those years ago. I condemn Blair not for destroying Britain, but for being a bull****ting mediocrity …

Cottaging with Mandy? Better not to ask I think…

So, does Simon have anything like a coherent view on the subject of race? Does this explain anything?

My opinion is based on the following reasoning:

Consider the three main races: Caucasians Negroes and Orientals.

I would say that as a race Negroes as a whole are more masculine, in the superficial sexual sense than Whites who are more superficially masculine than Orientals. This consideration applies to both men and women. On the rants forum I got one of the Blacks to admit Black women are more masculine than White women.

Rushton’s work on race illustrated that Negroes in their native environment evolved more so with an emphasis on male/male competition for females as opposed to the other races requirement to overcome ice age living conditions. That’s not to say White and other didn’t fight for females, because they obviously did – but this component (ie fighting other males) of evolution was less important for Whites than for Blacks (IMO).. So we get higher testosterone and crime with Blacks, thicker skulls to take all those blows fighting for females etc

For superficial White women, and lets remember, just because the average IQ for White’s is 100, that doesn’t stop there being thick Whites at 80 to 90, the primitive attraction towards Negroes for trashy White women is just that, primitive, something of a primordial echo that drowns out the increased ice age intellect “gains” (IMO a White who breeds with a Black is shovelling excrement on the graves of their ancestors)

In consideration of the “femininity ” scale, Oriental women, because of their smaller stature may be perceived by White men as being more feminine than White women. This is of course another superficial judgement.

I have heard that White female Black male breeding is far more common than White male Black female. We see it don’t we ? White male Oriental female is more common than the other way around.

For Whites to “mix” is unfair on their offspring. If a White woman gives birth to a Black’s kid and that individual is female then that female will be less feminine than her mother. I get the sense that the female semi-niglet can only ever “ape” her White mother’s feminity. On the other hand a White man who has a male offspring with an Oriental – that child will invariably be of smaller statue than if his mother had been White. I’m saying the White race is poised between the excessively masculine and excessive feminine. Lets keep it that way.

We as racially conscious Whites don’t mix not because we are so far above the animals that we couldn’t conceive of mixing. We don’t mix because we allow ourselves to be governed by our HEADS and not our HORMONES. Everyone on the forum is physiologically capable of "mixing" but we don’t because we share the dream of the destiny of the White Race.

One people, One destiny, To The Stars !

This last post presents a bit of a problem in terms of trying to put forward a coherent article about Simon’s views on life – which path do I take next? His views on women and gender, or do I follow the path of pseudoscience and his interest in matters conspiratorial.

On balance, I think gender first, we’ll leave the obvious wingnuttery to last…

I agree with the main thrust of the article…

We should EXPECT leaderships and courage from men. When it comes from women it is a bonus….

Men should bear the brunt of the criticism for an increasing effimacy that sees impressionable women take off with apes. Women are less rebellious than men and more willing to jump through the hoops..

Women leaders in the White Nationalist movement, because they are very rare are an inspiration to all and an example that males wishing to recover their "manhood" should follow….

But this is a fight where the frontline soldiers politically and otherwise, by nature’s necessity have to be men…

Most men and women are “followers” of prevailing religion and belief systems, the latter even more so….

So the whole of ‘white civilisation’ is facing collapse thanks to Graham Norton and Julian Clary – that’s it men, you’re just not butch to compete any more and the only answer is to legally recognise hitting women over the head with a club as constituting a marriage proposal – but only if you’re white…

But what kind of woman should you be looking for if you’re a self-respecting white supremacist dickhead? Fortunately Simon has the answer…

 Firstly to use the word "RACIST" - A loaded term is playing into enemy hands.

 There are two types of men. Those who will fight and those who won’t. Our cause depends on men primarily but not exclusively, in these "early" days, where the virtue of courage is necessary.

 With regard to women. There are three types:

 1) Those who won’t "fight"/support under any circumstances

 2) Those who will give genuine feminine and natural support to their Nationalist husband.

 3) Boadicea types who, with very few exceptions are better than many of the best men. These are women for whom the entire race is their child.

IMHO WN men make the mistake of looking for a Boadicea type, woman (3) when they should be looking for woman (2). Women generally have to be lead by a strong man (to be happy).

 You got that? Stay away from the butch ones… I say, stay away from the butch ones…

Men work Women weep. The good women WNs are better than the men, more guts etc etc this fight is predominately for the men – it has to be. The men have got to stop being cissies.

 Although there are some women that macho-man Simon does find a bit scary…

Always amazes me how you scum call the police then start threatening nationalists.. typically you put your women lesbian race mixer half breeds at the front at demos then let your freakish "men" at the back shouting "insults" etc..

better luck (not) this year at RWB you scum

And of course, Simon’s got a theory about all this to go with his advice…

The girls have outperformed the boys in school exams again. This has been attributed to the increasing amount of coursework in various subjects at the expense of “sudden death” exams. I believe the male/female division could be a useful lens through which to view Western society as a whole.

One of the original “Star Trek” episodes put forward an interesting notion: “Male and Female are universal constants”. The implication is that whilst men are “male” and women are “female”, it’s still possible to consider the qualities of “masculine” and “feminine” without necessarily attributing them specifically to “men” or “women”.

Masculine qualities might include bravery, honour, ”breaking the rules” etc

Feminine qualities might include compassion, empathy, ”keeping the rules” etc

Both men and women may possess “masculine” and “feminine” characteristics. The excessively masculine men might end up in prison, the excessively feminine women as cackling soap opera watchers. I suggest a balanced human being will have both masculine and feminine qualities – ideally the man will have the more masculine qualities and the woman the more feminine qualities.

I would suggest that girls “outperforming” boys stems from their “feminity” - this feminity includes “keeping to the rules, working hard etc”. A harder perspective might be that girls are more willing to “jump through the hoops” than their male counterparts. I’m thinking of that quote from George Bernard Shaw that says something like:

“The reasonable man changes himself to suit the world. The unreasonable man tries to change the world to suit himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man”

The implication is that we need “unreasonable men” in these current times and not “rule keepers” . (I’m not suggesting breaking the laws of the land)

I believe that a surge in “masculine” energy is required. The obvious implication is that men should start being “men”. Through out history there have been powerful women who have tapped into their masculine side for the good of their people, such as Boadicia, Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I – so this is not specific to “men”, but I believe the coming ethnic troubles will demand much more of men than the soft living life style we have become accustomed to within the last fifty years has conditioned us for.

Apart from exams and thinking about the world of work itself, the professions require submission to the political flavours of our current times (“Multiculturalism”, “Liberalism” etc). To not acknowledge and accept these flavours is career suicide. There is another aspect of submissiveness (femininity) that is to the detriment of working people and that is the propensity to accept unreasonable workloads for fear of angering those higher up in the organisation.

I would suggest that to the degree that women are in an organisation that organisation will abdicate its negotiating position and adopt a “beggar my neighbour” approach rather than a “collectivist” approach. A collectivist approach I suggest has a “masculine” component – Males more naturally act collectively e.g. : armies, trade unions, football hooligan gangs or political parties.

Civilization/stagnation demands submission/feminity of people but I believe we have to move the pendulum the other way towards Barbarism/creativity with more assertiveness/masculinity amongst our people, (men AND women) as a whole.

And no, finally, we get on to the general wingnuttery. You have caught flashes of this in several of Simon’s other posts, not just the usual references to the good old Jewish conspiracy thing but the odd comment that seems, well, rather more ‘spacey’ – like this one:

I believe in the coming "White Renaissance" – Space travel would be a part of that…

In case you’re wondering what this is all about, Simon seems to be rather of a fan of a particular crap Science Fiction novel which deal with White Nationalists decamping to a colony on another planet to avoid the growing tides of ‘blackness’ over whelming this planet – which as long as this is strictly one-way trip, is not so bad a concept after all.

Damn, I’m digressing again – back to Simon and three post for the price of one…

Hello Ward,

I haven’t got round to reading your book yet, but I feature it on my home page…..(creep creep )

I posted a UFO thread that has fallen off the bottom of the list.

Having looked into this subject, I really think we need to investigate the subject. I believe a White Nationalist movement might be looked back upon in the future as the battering ram of a larger "renaissance" movement incorporating non-mainstream topics such as this.

Sorry if I’m testing the patience of folks on this topic….

May I ask your opinion on this subject ?

—————————————————–

The “Disclosure Project” which is based on the notion of a UFO cover-up has some interesting features that White Nationalists can appreciate.

In no particular order:

1/ The project director describes the difficulty in getting the message out. He describes CNN and the American media as being controlled by powerful interests.

2/ The project itself has had the biggest web cast of all time but is largely ignored.

3/ “IF” there is any truth in the extraterrestrial nature of UFOs then this is A BIG story. For “Holocaust Deniers” substitute “UFO Buffs” ? (perhaps ?)

4/ Steve Greer describes the biggest challenge as getting the “masses” involved. He says that the “goons” that have been responsible for terrorising certain whistle blowers aren’t so terrifying as the indifference of the masses. He makes the interesting comment that the government bases its cover-up on the notion that people do their day jobs and haven’t anything left in them to do anything else…

My own take on White Nationalism is that it forms one aspect of a forthcoming renaissance that will draw on revisionism, genetics, communication possibilities via the net and a general increased consciousness of race. “IF” there is anything in the UFO phenomena, the long term reputation of WN would be enhanced by association with this discipline. No doubt there is the problem of credibility with WN itself that may be further stretched by association with UFO studies.

——————————————————-

Originally Posted by niveus

.. But given the age of the universe, the distance between stars and the time necessary to travel that distance then it impossible we could ever meet. …

(The site http://disclosureproject.org/)

[Simon]

Well, as I say, we don’t fully understand the laws of physics…

Most of what I’ve said, I’m sure of with regard to extraterrestrials.

Now, I’m going to speculate….When they have been seen,(discounting cranks, disinformation, one over the eight etc) they have been humanoid, (eg roswell in ‘47) rather than say like fanciful creatures off Dr Who or fifties space horror films…

As it happens I believe ET is some distant relation - a bit like Negroes…but this is just speculation. To speculate further, the distances involved might therefore, be a lot less than you might otherwise imagine them to be based on this. There is much we don’t understand…

You’ve got to love that last post - As it happens I believe ET is some distant relation - a bit like Negroes – Oh, jeez, would that not turn out to be poetic justice. Off they go into the final frontier in the Starship Lebensraum only to find out that the aliens are black and have ray guns…

As yet more evidence of Simon’s casual acquaintance with reality, try this one…

Yes. If it wasn’t for the "earthly alien" invasion of Britain, I’d be a UFO activist.

(It’s all part of the same thing really All of the things deliberately hidden from public view are aimed at "keeping control" e.g. proper discussion of racial differences, 911, JFK assassination, "holocaust" exaggerations, murder of Dr Kelly etc etc etc etc )

http://www.disclosureproject.org

The world is stranger than most people dare think or imagine.

And that, as they say is almost it… I think I’ve waded through enough shit to give a picture of the real Simon Smith – sadly, to date, there’s been no sign of his amazing dancing bear, but we live in hope – so I’ll leave you with two final comments; one from Simon’s new blog and the other showing Simon the philosopher at work…

I believe going into the 21^st Century, the real struggle for humanity is one of Spirituality versus Materialism. I don’t profess that either the BNP or myself are always right. I’m sure there are good people in other smaller parties. I reserve the right to respect good people in those parties – what ever they might think of me is irrelevant. I hope that the British National Party becomes more than a party, more than even a cultural movement. I hope it is in the Vanguard of a New Renaissance that can destroy the wicked, some would say satanic, Globalist-Materialist world order that keeps many new discoveries, inventions and knowledge undercover, ON PURPOSE in order to maintain control - we might look back on these present times as the "New Dark Ages".

And…

IMO the purist religion is equivalent to the highest philosophy. Different cultures have recognised the importance of seeing the creation as One and have articulated this in different ways: I haven’t studied Cosmotheism, other than listened to William Pierce’s Saturday broadcast which outlined his own position.

To the monotheistic religions it was the First Commandment “Thou shalt have no other God before me…”, to existentialists the importance of “the present moment” to the Hindus “the realisation of the Self”. A generic name for this might be the Law of Unity…

When the mind is clear one doesn’t need religion or rituals. The mystical “oneness” appreciation of reality isn’t so rare and is an appreciation everyone experiences every day – an example would be listening to a fine piece of music or immersed in a tightly reasoned SF post !

In order to appreciate unity or GET back to unity, due to our ignorance it might be that we need more than “The First Commandment”. Laws that multiply as a society becomes more corrupt and tries to get back to its higher state, are mirrored in the individual who must also take on more rules/regulations observances and rituals as his consciousness has also declined and seeks to return to his higher nature.

Rules and Rituals would imply organised religion. What are the elements of organized religion ? IMO and in no particular order:

1) Symbols that identify the adherents e.g. cross, star of David etc

2) “Holy” men – “druid” type characters or “Guardians” (I’m plugging Plato again here)

3) A moral code e.g. don’t steal, marry and have kids

4) A liturgy that is easily remembered and repeated every week at a gathering

Eg “I solemnly promise to uphold the principle of evolving consciousness. I acknowledge the evolutionary destiny of my race whilst not hating any other…etc etc” (don’t laugh) together with songs and poems – the retelling of Ancient Greek and Norse myths

5) Central martyr/hero figures that have served/died for the cause and have been seen as great teachers to the wise and “sons of God” to the masses.

6) A central book e.g. Bible, Koran

7) A self helping, supporting community

Just some of my thoughts…I don’t think a self-styled prophet would have much success with the above checklist if he tried to implement it. I mean, there are too may cranks, egotists and cultists out there already.

(Back to the everyday here…

Near where I live Muslims have been causing trouble. They can meet under the auspices of “Religion” and yet plot political actions. Believe it or not there is a self styled “Muslim Parliament” of Britain.

It would be BRILLIANT if the world wide White Nationalist community could move towards some consensus on a Religion that packs the same political punch as Judaism or Islam.)

Having written the above Balder, I believe I haven’t answered your question but I’ve tried to. Perhaps the rituals just have to evolve…

One last thing, I REALLY like the idea of Valhalla

So there you have it – Simon Smith, holocaust denier, racist, misogynist, BNP councillor for Great Bridge and all-round wingnut. Need I say more…

There seems to be an interesting, if somewhat technical, discussion brewing over at the Graun’s ‘Comment is Free’ ont he subject of Darfur, Genocide and the legal obligations on the international community arising out of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which begins with this article by Brian Brivati and continues with this response from Conor Foley - in the comments of the latter article, Brian has promised a response, which I look forward to with some interest.

Conor’s article also provoked this response from A General Theory of Rubbish, describing Conor’s article as  ‘disgusting shit’, which provides a nice counterpoint to both this debate and the wider debate on the Euston Manifesto by exemplifying the problems which arise when one sets aside rational considerations in favour of amateur polemics and half-arsed emoting - a firly common problem amongst some Eustonauts it has to be said.

Will kicks off his response in what seems to be quite promising fashion:

Genocide evokes a human responsibility upon humanity as one, to act, while legally (as usual) the obligation is muddled through lawyerly crap.

All things being equal one would expect Will to continue his argument is a fairly straightforward and matter-of-fact fashion - sadly what follows dashes any such expectations:

Under The Genocide Convention Article 8 says "any contracting party may call upon competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide." Article 1 says that the contracting parties undertake to prevent and to punish genocide, but it leaves the undertaking inchoate, not legally specific enough to be binding. So far, no nation in the international community has "officially" acknowledged the truth - and the truth being composed of - the economic, political, societal, and historical fruitfulness of thought in practice. Without directional perspectives and individuals oriented towards high moral goals which derive their significance from meta-ethical frames of meaning, the political machine with its strategic rationality has become and maintains itself as a pointless, system-inherent and alienating reality.

You fucking what? If I can try and translate into English, I think what Will is trying to say here is:

1. The Genocide Convention creates a duty to act to prevent Genocide but doesn’t say precisely when that duty to act comes comes into force or what kind of action should be taken.

2. The question of what is, or isn’t, genocide is a moral one, not a legal one.

To some extent I can sympathise with Will’s point - once I’d worked out exactly what he was trying to say - however I do fundamentally disagree with him on when it comes to defining what is an isn’t genocide in purely moral terms and, in particular,  when he goes on to state that:

Genocide is not a disagreement between competing factions - it cannot be mediated away - it is one-sided mass murder. It’s time for us to stop saying "never again," and start saying, "not this time fuckers" and put it into practice.

The problem I have is that while genocide almost always entails mass-murder (and I’ll qualify the ‘almost always’ in a second) not all mass-murder is genocide and I believe that it would be wrong, for profound historical and philsophical reasons, to conflate the two issues.

The Genocide Convention actually defines genocide as follows:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Point (e) is primarily where the ‘almost always’ on mass-murder comes in, as one can forcibly transfer children from one group to another without murdering anyone, as was the practice in Australia during the 1950s where children were shamefully removed from Aboriginal families and put into white-run orphanages in an attempt to eradicate Aboriginal culture. This same abhorrent practice was also used in parts of the US in relation to Native American families, which I mention here not simply to get a cheapshot at the US into this article but because many years ago, while travelling in the US, I spent some time on a Native American reservation and had the opportunity to speak first-hand to people who had been subjected to this practice, all of which makes this a little more personal for me than might otherwise be the case.

Anyway, getting back to the point after that brief digression, the defining characteristic of genocide, as opposed to simply mass-murder, lies in this qualifying statement:

committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part…

This is what raises genocide above mere considerations of mass murder by one, if not, several degrees of magnitude, genocide is predictated on a deliberate intent to eradicate a particular group, and intent that need not necessarily be present even in some of the most heinous cases of mass murder.

To explain precisely what I mean here, I think its worth constrasting the concept of genocide with its more recent ‘cousin’ - ethnic cleansing.

Since this latter term came to the fore, during the Balkan conflicts that arose out of the collapse of Yugoslavia, it seems to be pretty common practice to either conflate or confuse these two terms, which is perhaps understandable as ‘ethnic cleansing’ does sound for all the world like one of those appalling euphemisms that politicians, military leaders, and governmental press officers routinely trot out in an effort to obscure unpalatable truths, terms like ‘collateral damage - i.e. Oh fuck, we’ve just bombed a children’s hospital - and ‘friendly fire’ - I’ve never quite seen the fine distinction with this last one there being something fundamentally unfriendly about getting shot at regardless of who’s doing the shooting. However, there is an important different between ethnic cleansing and genocide in terms of the intent upon which each is predicated.

In ethnic cleansing, the basic intent is to remove a particular group/population from a particular territorial area. This may result in violence and even mass murder, but not always and not necessarily - in fact violence often only enters the picture where members of the group that are being ‘cleansed’ offer resistance to being moved on. In recent times, probably the most successful and least violent example of ethnic cleansing happened in 1972 when the then Uganda president, Idi Amin, summarily expelled a South Asian population of 50,000 from the country, many of whom came to the UK and now form the hub of many Britain’s own South Asian community.

I should say here that terms like ’successful’ and ‘least violent’ are used in a relative sense, i.e by comparision to the militarily-forced ethnic cleansings of the Balkans.

The point I am making is that the fundamental basis of ethnic cleansing is the displacement of a population, not its wholesale eradication - indeed one could readily argue that NATO was in part and inadvertantly responsible for one of the largest acts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the last 20 years or so, given that its intervention in Kosovo resulted in near 60% of the Kosovan Serb population fleeing the country, the majority of whom (estinated at around 100,000) have not returned, but while one can argue about the relative merits and rights and wrongs of NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, few but the most blinkered commentators would accept or even consider that NATO were deliberately following a policy of ethnic cleansing when they intervened.

That ethnic cleansing is not genocide does not make it any less morally reprehensible but it does complicate matters when one comes to consider the circumstances in which a duty arises on the international community to intervene by means of miitary force - could one, for example, have justified mounting a military invasion of Uganda in 1972 to prevent the expulsion of its South Asian community, or would that instead be considered a disproportionate response to a situation in which the use of violence was relatively limited? The moral judgment to be made here is pretty clear and straightforward, but justifying a particular type of response a much less simple and clear-cut matter.

Even where ethnic cleansing is accompanied by acts of egregious violence and mass murder, the judgment as to what might constitute a legitimate and proportionate response - how many people need to die in order to justify and UN Peacekeeping mission as opposed to a full scale invasion and removal of a government? What happens when the violence crosses national borders and boundaries, when one is dealing with insurgencies, partilcularly those supported or condoned by a neighbouring government?

Back in the 1980’s would, for example, the Soviet Union have been justified in intervening militarily in Honduras in order to put down the Contra insurgency against the Nicaraguan Sandinista government that was democratically-elected in 1984, despite the best efforts of the US to manipulate and discredit the election process, which was otherwise certified as having been free and fair by international observers? Can one even judge such a situation on purely moral ground or does the answer one arives at depend primarily on your political views and whose side your on?

One of the debates that crops up as a matter of routine every year in the run to Holocaust Memorial Day is that of whether there should even be such an event or whether, in order to be inclusive of other communities, it should be either replaced or supplemented by a more generic public memorial to the victims of ‘genocide’.

While I have no difficulty with the idea of an annual memorial event/day for historical victims of mass murder within reason - one can take such things a bit too far and end up dealing with events that are now so historically remote than any and all apologies and commemorations become entirely meaningless exercises in unnecessary moral self-flagellation - I would not support the idea of replacing HMD with a generic event for two basic reasons.

The first is purely a matter of historical context - the Holocaust is a part of European history and has shaped, to varying degrees, the collective identity of the continent. On that basis I see no problem in a specific memorial dealing with the Holocaust as unique historical event any more than I would object to Americans holding events on the 4th of July or the French holding events on Bastille Day - its our history and should not be lost or subsumed into global events simply because some groups who, by and large, weren’t around at the time, feel that they have no part in it.

More important than that, on a moral and philosophicl level, I see the Holocaust as being, if not a unique event then at least one that as near unique as makes no difference. History is littered with the most horrific examples of ethnic cleansing and mass murder and yet, as I see it, the Holocaust stands apart from most, if not all, of these events precise due to the circumstance in which it took place and - crucially - the intent of its perpetrator. Nazi Germany did specifically set out to eradicate the Jewish, and other, populations of Europe. not displace them and move them out of their territory but actually excise everything from their culture to their very genetic characteristic from the human race - and for me that raises the Holocaust itself, and indeed the whole concept of genocide above other forms of mass murder.

Morally, ethically, philosophically and legally, I believe that genocide, as it it defined in the convention in terms of the clear intent of it perpetrators, must remain distinct from other forms of mass murder, otherwise the very concept of genocide will become so diffuse and devalued over time as to become largely meaningless - and if we do devalue genocide as a concept then, by extension, we devalue the Holocaust and everything the proceeds from it.

I’m not suggesting here that this invalidates Will’s point about the situation in Darfur - the question of whether that merits or requires military intervention is a separate one and not what I wanted to get into here - but unless it can be shown that the intent of the Janjaweed is specifically to eradicate those it has, and still is oppressing and murdering, then what’s happening in Darfur is NOT genocide and should not be called genocide - in which case Will would be better served by putting forward rational arguments which extend or clarify international duties in respect of mass murder and not seeking to redefine the concept of genocide in order to justify intervention.

As today marks the public launch of the Euston Manifesto it comes as no surprise to find one of its authors, Norman Geras, popping up in the Guardian with yet another of his trite expositions on the ‘geography of the left’.

It would be unfair to say that the position of the Eustonauts hasn’t moved on somewhat in the six weeks or so since the first appearance of the manifesto - at the time of the Manifesto’s intial launch, John Lloyd had this to say on the subject:

What has, however, been horrifying to see has been the disappearance, or even non-appearance, of any consideration of the nature of the regime of Saddam Hussein that was destroyed by the invasion. That which had been a prime object of left politics - the removal of dictatorship, made more urgent in Iraq’s case by the mass murderous and sadistic character of the Saddam regime - has dropped from consideration, or is given only formal recognition. What had once been an imperative - an expression, and where possible more than an expression of solidarity with the suffering under such a dictatorship - has been vitiated by the main aim of much of left politics: a cultivation of anti-Americanism. In many parts of the left, that has meant close alliances with fundamentalist Islamic groups, whose policies on civil and human rights, including equal rights for women and gays, are deeply reactionary. It has at times seemed to mean rhetorical support for those seeking to terrorise Iraqi, and other, societies out of any move towards democratic rule.

The depth of the difference between those who adhere to this view, and those of us who see the decision to confront Saddam as the right one (if overdue) now forces an explicit recognition of two broad camps on the left. The first has developed a critique of western (especially US and UK) foreign policy, the records of the Blair and Bush governments, the war on terrorism and many other issues which is uncompromisingly hostile, regarding above all the British and American administrations as irredeemably imperialist and reactionary. We see in some of their actions - specifically in their willingness to confront tyrannous and murderous regimes - a progressive approach, which should be supported - even as other elements in their policies, including many of the decisions taken (or not taken) to prosecute the war in Iraq were wrong, even disastrously so.

Now we find Norman Geras taking a much more expansive view of the Great Rift Valley of the left:

But a longer answer is worth spelling out for what it reveals about the "geography" of the left in relation to the Iraq war, and how this is simplified by some of the war’s opponents. Their story is of a three-way division within left-liberal opinion, comprising: (1) those who supported the war, the "left hawks" or "muscular liberals"; (2) on the other side, but merely marginal, a small body of anti-war opinion - people in and around the Socialist Workers party and Respect - actually wanting America to come to grief in Iraq, supporting or making apology for the so-called resistance and its murderous methods; (3) in between these, the largest sector of anti-war opinion, opposing the war for a combination of reasons, prominent among these the belief that it was likely to turn out badly.

This mapping of the terrain underlies the mystification over how people who opposed the war could support the Euston Manifesto, and also the upset over criticisms directed at the left, when according to that map they apply only to a few souls on the far and hard left.

The real geography, however, has been different. Within the large "middle" sector of left-liberal opinion opposed to the war there has been, from the start, a differentiating subdivision - between those who opposed the war without being in denial about the considerations on the other side of the argument, and those who precisely have been in denial about them. This latter group extends well beyond the far left.

The signs of denial are abundant in the recent public life of the western democracies: in the banners and slogans for that Saturday on February 15 2003, from which one would never have known that Saddam’s Iraq was a foul tyranny; in the numbers of those on the left unwilling to allow, many indeed unable to comprehend, why others of us supported a regime-change war; in a constant stream of comment in liberal daily papers and weeklies of the left; in the excommunications issued and more recent calls for apology or recantation; and, most seriously, in the perceptible lack of interest in initiatives of solidarity with the forces in Iraq battling for a democratic transformation of their country, part of a wider lack of enthusiasm for the success of this enterprise given its origins in a war led by George Bush.

So, six weeks ago, the left was divided into two broad camps - the Eustonauts (comprising the forces of pro-war decency and the new-found anti-war friends who’ve now seen the light and agree that Saddam was a complete bastard after all) and the ’stoppers’ (Respect/SWP and their unauthentic in-denial fellow travelling useful idiots).

Now it seems that, having noted the existance of a sizeable strand of rationalist left-wing criticism of Lloyd’s over-simplistic view of the current geography of the left, Norm has come up with a revised set of boundaries which neatly divide the left into four broad camps - the pro-war decents, the anti-war left who’ve now seen the light and agree that Saddam was a complete bastard after all, the unauthentic anti-war left who’re still in denial and still fellow travelling useful idiots, and the hard core ’stoppers of Respect/SWP.

Ah yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

This is all very much in keeping with one of the more obvious subtexts to rationalist criticism of the manifesto itself, a view which sees its over-reliance on abstractions and platitudious statements of values as a sign of deliberate disingenuity on the part of its authors and main supporters; poorly executed disingenuity in many respects as most of the Manifesto’s biases are so obvious that authors could have saved themselves trouble of writing several sections simply by adding ‘America - Fuck Yeah!’ and ‘Israel - Fuck Yeah!” to the preamble.

To be fair, this is not an issue that is in any way unique to the Eustonauts. If you’ve been around the left for any reasonable length of time you’ll have seen it all before several times over, the latest ‘new democratic front’ to appear from nowhere clutching its shiny new (and carefully sanitised) manifesto and claiming to be the ‘authentic voice’ of the left - It’s sad to have to say this but left-wing politics tends to spawn these kind of set-ups with much the same frequency that Proctor and Gamble launch ‘new improved and best ever’ versions of the brand-leading washing powders and to much the same effect - you use them for a bit, find you can’t see any real difference between this new, improved version and the one you used to buy and then come to the conclusion that only new thing about it was that it said ‘New’ on the box.

Its long been one of the hallmarks of the hard-core ideological wing of the left that their values and ideals can turn on a sixpence and change overnight, but their methods and modus-operandi remain pretty much constant - which is not always such a bad thing as this odd character trait at least helped to spawn this classic piece of comedic dialogue:

BRIAN: Are you the Judean People’s Front?
REG: Fuck off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People’s Front. We’re the People’s Front of Judea! Judean People’s Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: Wankers.
BRIAN: Can I… join your group?
REG: No. Piss off.
BRIAN: I didn’t want to sell this stuff. It’s only a job. I hate the Romans as much as anybody.
PEOPLE’S FRONT OF JUDEA: Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.
REG: Schtum.
JUDITH: Are you sure?
BRIAN: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.
REG: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you’d have to really hate the Romans.
BRIAN: I do!
REG: Oh, yeah? How much?
BRIAN: A lot!
REG: Right. You’re in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People’s Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah…
JUDITH: Splitters.
P.F.J.: Splitters…
FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People’s Front.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters…
LORETTA: And the People’s Front of Judea.
P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters…
REG: What?
LORETTA: The People’s Front of Judea. Splitters.
REG: We’re the People’s Front of Judea!
LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.
REG: People’s Front! C-huh.
FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?
REG: He’s over there.
P.F.J.: Splitter!

Interestingly, while Geras seeming has no problem with making sweeping, inaccurate generalisations about
the nature of those left-wing critics of the manifesto who can’t quite so easily be shoved under the carpet or dismissed as hard-core stoppers, he’s pretty quick to try shoot down the idea that the manifesto is pro-war:

A third reaction is that of people who see the manifesto as pro-war - referring to the Iraq war. The short answer here is: no, it isn’t. This is stated as clearly as can be in the document itself, and it is a plain fact that a number of the original signatories opposed that war.

If Norm has a point here then its a minor one and one predicated on a very narrow reading of the nature of the real debate - and the real divisions over Iraq that do exist on the left -  and, to a considerable extent, it’s this deliberately narrow reading of the debate which forms the tell-tale heart of the manifesto. It may well be stretching a point to suggest outright  that the manifesto is ‘pro-war’ but not to point out that it, and its core supporters, are solidly anti-accountability on the question of whether the US & UK government acted illegally in prosecuting the war and/or lied to their respective legislatures and, of course, their respective citizens in putting forward a case in support of the 2003 invasion.

This is where the rational left most clearly diverges in its view of Iraq from most of the Eustonauts.

If anyone’s in denial here its Geras and the rest of internationalist Power Rangers of the People’s Front of Euston who seem incapable of accepting that the vast bulk of opposition to the Iraq War on the left was based on rational value judgments of the overall situation in Iraq and beyond, including the question of the impact on such an invasion on neighbouring states, regional stability and the terrorist threat faced by the West after the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre, the case - or in reality lack thereof - put forward by the US and UK governments in favour of the invasion, the motives, apparent and suspected, of those political leaders who pushed most strongly for the invasion and, yes, the likely impact of the invasion on the lives of the Iraqi people, taking in everything from the plusses - Saddam’s removal from power - to the potential minuses ranging from turning the country into a terrorist’s playground to the risk of ethnic and religious conflict, civil war, the balkanisation of the country and the possibility of this all winding up with a Shi’a dominated, pro-Iranian Iraq.

No I can’t say for certain to what extent individuals might have considered all these factors - and quite a few more besides - or what weight they may have placed on any particular issue but if one spends a bit of time tracking around the rationalist left-wing blogs, particular those that have been openly critical of the manifesto, one will find that all these issues and more have been worked through in some considerable detail, often to accompaniment of half-baked amateur pro-war polemicists explaining loudly in the comments that none of this matters but they’re right and everyone else is wrong and that’s the end of it.

It also matters to many, if not most of these people, that the primary case put forward in support of the invasion - an imminent threat based on the presumption that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction - turned out to be… well, not to put to fine a point on it, complete bullshit and that this whole shooting match was predicated on a series of lies, misinformation and fabrications. And not unsurprisingly, when people get to thinking that the political leaders have basically taken the country into a war on the back of tide of hogwash they get to thinking that the democratic thing to do is maybe try to hold some of these people to account for their actions and not just take the attitude that truth about how and why the invasion of Iraq came about doesn’t really matter because Saddam was a bastard and had it coming to him anyway, so it doesn’t really matter in the long run.

One of manifesto’s more obvious pieces of errant sophistry keys right into this point in stating that:

In connecting to the original humanistic impulses of the movement for human progress, we emphasize the duty which genuine democrats must have to respect for the historical truth.

Which would be fine were not for the fact that a fair number of the most enthusiastic Eustonauts have spent the last couple of years pitching the line that the Iraq War was a humanitarian venture and then even if, in reality, it wasn’t well then that doesn’t really matter as long they believed it was.

Throw in fairly standard lines like this one from Geras in the Times, last week:

“Understanding” noises about terrorist atrocities — in London or Madrid, but especially Tel Aviv and Haifa — as having their roots in poverty, oppression and injustice are equally common, though these voices are at a loss to explain why there have been movements in the past fighting these evils that didn’t resort to randomly blowing up civilians.

…which is, again, pretty typical of the kind of crap we’ve had to put up with from the ‘decent’ wing of the People’s Front of Euston for the last couple of years - as far a they’re concerned they can freely chuck around trite aphorisms and blatant straw-men all they like but try to put up a counter-argument that consists of anything less than a 10,000 word dissertation and you’ve got no arguments at all.

Quite why the Eustonauts are unable to accept or even acknowledge the existence of a mainstream left-wing position which holds that while we - meaning the US and UK in particular - have a moral and ethical duty to straighten out the mess that invasion of Iraq has created and generally get the country back into some sort of reasonable state before we fuck off and leave them to their own devices, this duty does not obviate the need to hold to account those who lied and dissembled in order to take us into this war in the first place is perhaps easily understood if one looks closely that the manifesto itself and recognise that, in total, it contains only one definitive ‘real-world’ policy statement - this one:

We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law — in the interests of global democratization and global development. Humanitarian intervention, when necessary, is not a matter of disregarding sovereignty, but of lodging this properly within the "common life" of all peoples. If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a "responsibility to protect".

The Eustonauts position is not simply one in which they are in denial about the real ‘geography in the aftermath of the Iraq war or about the truth as to how and why the war came about in the first place but one in which denial is a absolute prequisite of their position because to acknowledge that they were wrong over Iraq and that they are wrong both in their characterisation of the real nature of mainstream left-wing opinion and in their dismissal of the need for accountability for the lies and fabrications that were used to justify the 2003 invasion would be to see the centrepiece of their manifesto and their very raison d’etre, disappear up its own fundament.

UPDATE: Very good article on this same subject by Curious Hamster, writing over at the Sharpener.

Bob Piper picks up a nice little story from the ‘you couldn’t make it up file’:

Most people won’t have heard of the England First party. There’s no real reason that you should have done because they’re crackers, but they did persuade the people of Blackburn and Dawen to elect two of these divvies on to their local Council….

…What the England First Party don’t tell you on their web site is…. one of their newly elected councillors whose manifesto called for a ban on mixed-race marriages…. is of African descent.

Picking up from Bob, there’s a couple of other things that this lastest bunch of knuckledragging idiots also neglect to mention on their website. for one thing they’ve apparently - or should that be hilariously - been ‘proscribed’ by the BNP, which rather makes you wonder just what kind of far-right nutters we’re dealing with here if they’re considered too extreme for your average bunch of far-right twats…

…or perhaps not, as a little digging around for information on the provenence of this group turns up an all-too familar name lurking in the background, as the EFP’s domain name turns out to be registered to a particularly nasty little fascist cocksucker by the name of Simon Sheppard.

As some of you will certainly know Sheppard has more a bit of previous form - for one thing he was thrown out of the BNP in 1999 for distributing an unauthorised leaflet which resulting in the BNP’s regional organiser being hit with a High Court injunction - this same leaflet also Sheppard sent down for 9 months for publishing and distributing racially inflammatory material.

Ordinarily, I’d leave it at that but having seen the written exchange between Sheppard and Nick Griffin over this leaflet, it really is for too funny (and illuminating) not to publish in full.

Of course, the story starts with the leaflet, itself, from which this extract is taken - it should give a good idea of where Sheppard is coming from:

Jews are in England unlawfully, since the Edict of Expulsion of 1290 has never been repealed. Now these illegal immigrants completely control our news and TV and never miss an opportunity to portray the MULTI-CULTURAL MESS [his caps, not mine] as a normal state of affairs.It was Jews who wrote the Race Relations Act, now called the Public Order Act, a law used exclusively against British Men who defy THE NEW TYRANNY in which people are afraid to say what they think…

This prompted the following letter from Griffin…

Do you know anything about the purported BNP leaflet sent out supposedly from PO Box 531, Hull?

It has led to John Tyndall and our Yorkshire Regional Organiser having injunctions taken out against them by the National Exec of the Labour Party. If any more go out they’ll go down for contempt of court.

Also, its hysterical tone could only put off ordinary people and can only do us harm. The police are now looking at it from a Race Act point of view. If you are responsible for it, forget any future co-operation on publishing projects. If you are not, and someone has used an address you control without your permission, expect your front door to come flying off its hinges shortly – unless you contact the police straight away to point out that it’s nothing to do with you. Thirdly, if you’re not connected with the address at all, but have an idea who it is, please let me know straight away.

Thanks

Nick Griffin

Nick’s obviously not a happy bunny here… not that this deters Simon, who responds…

Dear Nick,

Thank you so much for your support of our common Nationalist cause. It’s always gratifying to receive messages of encouragement and support when fellow BNP activists are up against it. We are reassured that the BNP leadership is solid and united in its firm stand against the cosmopolitan forces of pseudo-liberal evil.

I would also like to thank you for your unwavering loyalty regarding the updating of ‘The Mindbenders’. I know that you have acquired (as a result of your trusted position within the BNP) a file of materials for the updating of this essential and important publication, and although we may have our minor political differences, I’m happy that you are mature enough to see beyond these and release the information, so that the greater objective is achieved.

I am a relatively recent convert to Nationalism, having only been a member of the BNP for three years or so, but in the course of reviewing numerous earlier Nationalist publications, such as ‘New Nation’, ‘Nationalism Today’ and ‘The Rune’, I have been impressed by your consistent political line.

Yours,

Simon Sheppard

Do you get the feeling that Simon’s missed something here - like the little matter of the leaflet? Nick does…

Nick Griffin wrote:

Yes, thank you for that, but would you please answer the question?

N

All of which leads to this:

Dear Nick,

HULL BNP MEMBERS ARRESTED FOR DISTRIBUTING ELECTION LEAFLETS

I designed the leaflet. It was approved in conjunction with David Hannam, who is the organiser for the new Hull branch. On 7th and 8th June, in the rain, with occasional help, David and I put out approx. 1,500 leaflets in the Hull Avenues area. We successfully leafletted Mandela Avenue, Wigger Way, Pakistani Avenue and Victoria Falls, the four main avenues, as well as Politically Correct Way and a goodly proportion of the inner-city cesspit which adjoins it. At midday on 8th June we were stopped by a local Community Policeman in St. Ninian’s Walk, as we were en route to leaflet Chinese-Chippy Avenue, and following radio reference to Special Branch a senior officer came by car to survey the leaflet and instruct the CP to arrest us.

David spent 5 hours and I 6 hours in the cells before being given tape-recorded interviews. I in particular gave a robust defence and said that the police were being manipulated to nullify certain groups’ political opposition, and also that the law under which we were held was invalid; since Jews are in England unlawfully, their laws are void: "No cause can arise from an illegal act."

I also told the police that they should be ashamed of themselves for arresting members of a political party for putting out election leaflets two days before an election.

While I was in the cells my flat was searched, although apparently perfunctorily, and the remaining 1,500 leaflets seized.

We have both been bailed to appear on 14th July on the basis of an "alleged offence or charge" of "DISTR RACIST PAPERS" which, of course, does not exist as an offence.

Three hundred replacement leaflets, entirely different in content, were hastily printed and distributed along Chinese-Chippy Avenue early in the morning of 10th June. These leaflets stated "This leaflet replaces an election Communication which was confiscated by the Police."

On page 7 of the June 11 issue of the Guardian the following report appeared:

"Labour yesterday blocked distribution of an anti-Jewish leaflet published in the name of the British National Party which – polls suggest – has little or no chance of a seat.

"Labour went to court in London to have an injunction in place until next week to prevent the leaflet being distributed anywhere in the country. The party argued it was an incitement to racial hatred. The leaflet, urging the public to vote for the BNP in yesterday’s election, was published by the Hull BNP."

The matter seems to have been entirely ignored by the local newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail. Probably the bulk of the Labour Party’s chagrin is due to us taking the political initiative using a locally-directed, humorous leaflet with a strong and appropriate message.

Today, Sunday 13th June, the Avenues has been leafleted by the "Hull Anti Nazi League" – "Last week the Avenues was polluted by the distribution of a poisonous leaflet from a supporter of the nazi British National Party…"

For the information of BNP members the Hull BNP leaflet will be posted on the heretical.co.uk website within the next few days.

Simon Sheppard

Now the more observant amongst you will notice that Simon still doesn’t appear to work out that Nick’s a bit pissed-off about the leaflet and the BNP getting nailed with a High Court injunction - clearly he hasn’t got his thinking head on yet, so it’s no real surprise to see him get this last missive from BNP HQ…

Dear Mr. Sheppard,

It has been reported to us – and we understand that you do not deny – that you were responsible for publishing a leaflet bearing the party’s name but never authorised by the party, which has been the subject of a court injunction against the BNP Regional Agent for Yorkshire & The Humber, Richard Mulhall.

This is in violation of Section 8, Sub-Section 2, of the BNP Constitution, which makes it clear that:-

    "All publication of party literature at local level and on local initiative will require the consent of the party’s national head of Publicity. This consent may be obtained by the prior submission of any such literature for inspection by the party’s head of Publicity or by the prior granting to the local officer concerned by the party’s head of Publicity of authority to print such literature as he or she sees fit – which consent shall only be given to those judged to be competent in that endeavour."

As neither of these conditions were observed in the publication of the leaflet in question, you have been deemed guily of an offence against the party Constitution. In view of the very serious nature of this offence, and the potential damage done to the party in consequence, it has been directed by the Leader of the party that your membership be terminated with effect from the above date.

Yours faithfully

(signed)

Ian Dell

(Officer in charge Internal Security and Discipline, BNP)

Please feel free to add as many oo-er missus comments you like at finding out that the BNP has an officer in charge of ‘internal security and discipline’.

You should get the general picture, but in case that’s not enough to convince you - and for many people just the name Simon Sheppard is convincing enough - then here’s a very short sample of hsi other work:

Firstly, some men claim that only a particular kind of women go with immigrants. This is not true. I actually measured this (sitting at the side of a shopping mall with a clipboard over several weeks) and confirmed that the tendency to race-mix was led by women. Further, the tendency was expressed by women of all ages, ugly and attractive, and across all social classes. (I am excluding from this analysis Unstable Females, who are the first to defy social conventions, and who pave the way for others – when women see that UF’s successfully get away with it, they follow suit. UF’s in the past would have been burned as witches, or similarly persecuted, in order to prevent this.) You can see this for yourself, from the "common slapper" picking up a nigger at a nightclub to Princess Di opening her legs for Dodi al-Fayed.

Sheppard claims to have a degree (BSc) although this has never been verified and, frankly, I doubt any university would ever lay claim to having educated him - although If anyone did go to university with him. He also claims to be a psychologist and has self-published a couple of books, which are sold through his website, from which one can also view some of his other ‘work’, which he claims to be ’suppressed science’ but which is best described as ‘complete and utter bollocks’.

It appears he’s also banned from Hull University; Hull College; University of Lincolnshire and Humberside Library; All branches of ‘IT in the Community’; Brown’s Bookshop; York University Library; RIOD Library, Amsterdam - he is certainly banned from all public libraries in Hull, for reasons which should be apparent from this letter:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter of 17 November about my being banned from Hull’s Public Libraries. I do not deny using blunt language, in the Yorkshire tradition of plain speaking, but it is far better that anger provoked by blatant totalitarian censorship be directed at the culprits rather than misdirected. I shall not be planning any bombing campaign of public buildings, nor will I encourage anyone else to do so, but I can well understand the motivation of someone that did. It is my opinion, and I am certain that it will be the verdict of history, that our "public servants" are guilty of criminal fraud.

1. The selection of journals in the Central Library is just one area where employees of the Council abuse the public trust by selecting publications to promote their own political agenda. It is their duty to serve all the people of Hull, not just ethnic minorities who were brought into this country against the wishes of the British people, a policy for which no democratic mandate was ever obtained.
2. The staff at the Central Library have been informed on several occasions that many of the "photographs" in their books are forgeries. They continue to issue those books knowing them to be fraudulent. Anyone who knowingly perpetuates a lie is a liar.
3. Numerous displays have been allowed in the Central Library which I find extremely offensive. Recent examples include the promotion of homosexuality and "Why British women are turning to Islam." At the same time, my own library display, particularly about the Anne Frank Diary, was banned, when my only objective was to present the truth. In fact I have spent many hours studying the original Dutch text of the Anne Frank Diary and my conclusions are not unfounded.

The truth is only suppressed by State officials when criminals are in power. In summary, I stand by the text of my leaflet, 13,000* of which have now been distributed in the Hull area and beyond, that the Central Library, and practically every other source of information, has been taken over by liars, cheats and traitors.

Yours faithfully,

(signed)

Simon Sheppard

As you might guess, the photographs that Sheppard claims to be forgeries relate to the Holocaust.

Sheppard is also the founder of the Redwatch website, which rather embarrassing still includes its ‘noncewatch’ section even thought its main, and probably only contributor, Ian Keith Gomeche, has a history of psychiatric problems… oh what the hell, let these guys explain the story.

In short, Sheppard is racist - with anti-Semitism a particular speciality - homophobic and mysogynistic, in fact he’s about as foul as its gets when it comes to far-right knuckledraggers irrespective of whether he’s bullshitting about his academic background as well.

If some of the EFP’s policies weren’t evidence enough of the kind of low-grade morons that the good people of Blackburn and Darwen are going to be stuck with on their  council - particular favorites of  mine include…

All Upper Houses to be abolished in the newly devolved nation states, should they exist, and to be replaced by a British Isles Forum Of Nation States to be sited on the Isle Of Man… or we can all meet round Uncle Nigel’s if the sea crossing looks a bit choppy

The EFP believe that the multi-racial experiment is a disaster for the stability and social well-being of our country, and that the continuous liberal policies of endorsing and positively embracing this phenomenon are at the expense and suppression of the indigenous population as a whole. The Race Law Act will be repealed and free speech will once again be available to anyone who opposes this draconian and restrictive restraining order. Hey, you guys go ahead and repeal the ‘Race Law Act’… if you can fucking well find it!

The EFP are in favour of a return of Capital Punishment and believe firmly that if ‘one lives by the bullet, then one should die by it’. No chance of you guys living on your wits, then…

We will endeavour to stop the Americanisation of our country, and in particular, the impact that it has on our inner city youth, whether it is in the display of clothes, gang affiliation, degenerate music, language or simply the aspirations to mimic American contemporary lifestyles and attitudes. WTF? Degenerate Music? Hello, and welcome to Top of the Pops and stright in at number two this week it;s Handel’s Messiah…

Abortion. This will not be abolished, but in all cases other than rape and foetal disability, the women and or couple will need to explain to a councillor why she/they require an abortion. Who’ll do what precisely? Refer them to the Abortion committee? That’s COUNSELLOR, shit-for-brains!

The Queen must become more nationalistic and less pro-internationalist. If the will exists amongst her subjects that she no longer speaks for the people of this country, then a referendum shall be held to determine whether we become a Republic or not with an appointed President as the new head of state. This I’ve got to see - ‘we will fight them on the racecourses and in the banqueting halls…

And, of course, in their usual endearing fashion, there’s plenty of waflle about St. George - who was born in Lydda, Palestine to a Palestinian mother and and Cappadocian father - which in modern terms makes him a Turk. Then again St George is also the patron saint of syphilis - can’t help thinking that that’s not unconnected…

Still, if that’s not convincing enough, then just remember the kind of company these tossers keep.

Blair shame at ban on Jews

The banning of Jews in the year 1290 was a shameful moment in our history, he said.

The country was "all the poorer" for being devoid of a Jewish community.

The prime minister’s hard-hitting outburst was made in the programme at a London concert marking the 350th anniversary of Jews being welcomed back.

The decision to reverse the explusion - in 1655 - was an important step towards Britain becoming "a tolerant and multi-cultural society", he said.

A side from noting the irony of a Scot (Blair) apologising for the actions of a King of England whose tombstone sports the following inscription:

Hic est Edwardvs Primus Scottorum Malleus - Here lies Edward I, Hammer of the Scots

Can anyone honestly say their reaction to this isn’t - what a grovelling, obsequious, little piece of shit!

Does anyone seriously believe that Blair really gives a flying fuck about the expulsion of the Jew from England in 1290 when he’s not giving a speech to a Jewish audience at a concert marking the 350th anniversary of decision to reverse the expulsion - I’m sure Blair lies awake at night agonising over just what a major-league bastard old Edward Longshanks was…

…at least when he’s not worrying about how he’s going to broach the subject of an apology for that nasty business with Boudicca when he next bumps into Romano Prodi.

What the fuck are we going to get next? Maybe a letter to the Prime Minister of Mauritius apologising for the negative impact tjhat the extinction of the dodo has had on their fucking tourist industry…

Still, seeing as Blair has no difficulty apologising for the sins of long-departed historical figures, that does give me an idea - why not try blaming Captain Henry Morgan for Iraq War and Dick Turpin for last year’s bomb attack on London. you never know, we might even get a public inquiry…

You’ve gotta love this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, not just one but two bona fide comedy classics and we’ve only had the semi-final so far…

First up, there’s the Lithuanian entry by LT United, who’re apparently the biggest thing on the alternative scene over there. How can I describe this? The Flying Pickets on speed?

Just see for yourself here…

And then there’s the mighty Finns, Lordi, with what has to be the funniest thing I’ve seen in years - seriously I was honestly watching this last night with tears of laughter rolling down my face.

How to describe it adequately? Well first it is sooooooo crap that it is really is hysterically funny - just imagine a collection of villains from Power Rangers have formed a late 1980’s Ozzy Osbourne covers band and you start to get some idea of just what this is like. It’s Spinal Tap meets the Class of Nuke ‘Em High.

Oh fuck it, just see for yourself and keep a close look out for the singer’s batwings about half way through - absolutely fucking priceless…

Whatever else you do tomorrow, just make sure you see the two performances and vote for both of them