Local elections are funny things at the best of times and while we wait for the results of those councils who delayed their count to today to see if the picture that emerged overnight holds true - No Labour meltdown, Tories hit the ‘magic’ 40% without making a convincing breakthrough and Lib Dems getting squeezed - Sandwell has managed to buck the national trend and deliver a result out of keeping with the overall tone of the night.

The headline story of the night, as David Nikel rightly observes, is that there is no headline story - the BNP failed to make any gains at all, even in their key target seat in Princes End.

David will, no doubt, not mind if I point out that, as a Lib Dem candidate, he came a somewhat distant second to Steve Eling in Abbey Ward (which also happens to be the ward represented by Bob Piper). Facing off against Steve was always going to be a tall order, not only is he the Deputy Leader of Sandwell Council, but as chair of the now concluded SRB4 programme in Smethwick (amongst other things), his guiding (political) hand is inextricably linked in the minds of the local electorate to the massive improvements in the local environment in recent years, especially the investment in the area’s public green spaces, which includes the jewel in the borough’s crown, Warley Woods. Annoying as the problems caused by litter can be in Bearwood, I do wonder a little at the wisdom of campaigning so heavily on the environment against someone with Steve’s track record.

If anyone visits the area and gets to see how much of an improvement there’s been in our local parks and amenities, they’ll certainly come to understand the frustrations that Steve, Bob, myself and other local residents share at Witless Whitby’s instransigence over renovations to Lightwoods Park, which although physically in Sandwell, is the legal responsibility of Birmingham City Council  - which reminds me that BCC never did respond to my FOIA request for a copy of the title deeds to the park.

Unlike Bob, I can’t say I saw any signs of negative opposition campaigning in my own ward, which is right next to his, geographically speaking, largely because I saw no sign of any opposition campaigning in my part of the ward at all other than from the ‘Red and Green Alliance Party’ who got all of 66 votes.

Looking at the results in more detail, perhaps the unacknowledged story of the night is that of the desperately disappointing results for the Tories in Blackheath and Great Barr with Yew Tree, both of which exemplify precisely why Tory councillors were complaining bitterly about the breakdown of the cosy ’status quo’ of recent times that ensured that they and BNP stayed out of each other’s hair in their respective target wards.

The Tories must have had high hopes of picking up Blackheath, having made gains in the ward from Labour at the last two elections, but the combination of a popular and well established sitting Labour councillor - Bob Price - and the presence of a BNP candidate who took 6oo+ votes, most of which appear to have come from the Tory/Anti Labour vote of previous years looks to have cost them their best chance of making a gain on the night.

Great Barr and Yew Tree looks like much the same story, if maybe a bit more depressing for the Tories, who not only lost a sitting councillor to the Lib Dems but rolled in a very poor fourth with, again, the BNP appearing to be the main beneficiaries of the collapse on the Tory vote.

Labour’s one gain on the night, in St Paul’s ward in Smethwick, is another that reflects somewhat poorly on the state of the local Tory party. The ward is one the Tories made two gains in back in 2004, when all three seats were up, on the back of a nakedly communal election which lined up three Sikhs for Labour against three (newly acquired Muslims) for the Tories, at least one of whom, so I understand, has made some (rebuffed) overtures about crossing the floor since becoming a councillor.

This time out it was a Tory up for re-election, but not the one who won the seat in 2004, against a fresh Labour candidate, Pat Davies, who took the seat with a comfortable majority.

However if there is real story to tell about this election then it this…

One of the things I often here from people who’re a bit cheesed off with the local council is the suggest that what the ruling Labour group could do with is a bit more ’serious opposition’.

My usual response to this tend to be ‘Serious? Competent would be nice for a change?’

Even a number of our councillors are wont to comment on the general poor state of the opposition parties in Sandwell and their inability to present a real challenge either at the ballot box or on the floor of the council chamber.

It says much about the parlous state of the local Tory party that in several wards where, for the first time, the BNP put up candidates at this election, it was largely they and not Labour who lost votes to the BNP. It may well have cost them a win in Blackheath, where the Tories have done well in the last two election from a solid community base built around the local trader’s association, and it did cost them a seat in Great Barr, although that’s somewhat less surprising as the area around the Scott Arms pub, on the Birmingham border, was at one time BNP/NF central prior to their move into Tipton. In several other seats, the BNP took a sizable bite out of the Tory vote, even pushing them down into third and fourth place in some wards.

To some small extent, the BNP, despite their failure to make any gains, have benefited from a small, racist vote that, in the past, has seen the Tories as the best available fit for their prurient views whether local Tories have actively courted that portion of the electorate or not. However, looking at the number of votes that the Tories lost to the BNP, it would be too simplistic a response to suggest that this stems either from local racists finding a more conducive political home or from Thatcherites jumping ship in protest at Cameron’s move to the centre, as long-serving Wednesbury councillor, Bill Archer, tried to suggest mere days before the election.

Despite their all too obvious deficiencies as a political party - and in the case of Cllr Simon Smith, especially, as a human being - the BNP are having some success in capitalising on local disillusionment with the mainstream parties. In the case of Labour, we’ve known this for a while. What we discovered last night was that its also happening to the Tories, for all that elsewhere the party’s fortunes have been improving. That is, I think, not a reflection on Cameron or on the national Tory party - what the local Tory are most pissed off with is the state of their own local party and their abject inability to function as a credible opposition - that, as much as any mid-term unpopularity that Labour is facing, is what has fed votes to the BNP in Sandwell.

Will any of this register with Tory Central Office, I wonder?

The easy option would undoubtedly be just to write last night off as an odd local anomaly, especially as Sandwell is a solid Labour area, despite part of the borough falling under the Halesowen and Stourbridge parliamentary constituency, for which the Tories have aspirations at the next general election, but that would be a mistake as for the Tories there are lessons to be learned from last night’s results.

What has happened in Sandwell is that, but for the very few areas in which Tories still have claim on a solid vote, they have ceased to function as an opposition or even as a meaningful political party and have come to rely, instead, on purely cynical methods to try and dent Labour’s local standing, whether by consciously cultivating a communalist vote in wards with a significant South Asian community - even if that means putting up candidates whose application to join the panel of candidates have previously been rejected by Labour out of well founded concerns about voter registration anomalies and the risk of ‘entryism’ - or by way of ‘unexpectedly’ finding themselves unable to put up a candidate in wards where the BNP have been putting up a serious challenge to Labour, a failure that, until this year, was quite coincidentally mirrored by the BNP in wards where the Tories has sitting councillors, or fancied their chances.

Comparing last night’s results with those of previous years in which the BNP have been successful in winning seats in Sandwell, what seems clear is that we have just about found the limits of the BNP’s capacity to take votes from Labour in an election where the two mainstream parties - Tory and Lib Dem - behave like an opposition and put up candidates.

By contrast, three of the four sitting BNP councillors had the benefit of being given a clear run by at least one of the two mainstream opposition parties, allowing them to position themselves to pick any anti-Labour tactical votes.

In Sandwell, the Labour Party has done its bit to stem the recent run of BNP electoral successes and has no qualms in make our objective for the coming year’s local elections clear - four BNP councillors is Sandwell is four too many and we will continue to work for the goal of a BNP-free Sandwell - but we cannot do this alone.

We will need the assistance of the Lib Dems and, especially, the Tories, but not as allies or partners is electoral pacts. All we need from them is that they should ditch the electoral cynicism and start behaving like real political parties and a real opposition.

That’s Sandwell’s story for 2007 - Labour taking the fight to the BNP and the Tories losing ground due to their inability to function as an opposition, which is I would say this to Tory Central Office…

Get the hell in here and sort your lot out.

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Moving further afield, as I’ve covered one or two not quite so local election stories in the past week or so…

Staying with the BNP for a moment, its been a source of much personal amusement to note both the wild conjectures on the election page of their website, where theay whether they might win 30, 40 or even 50 seats at this election.

So far its four and, by no coincidence whatsoever, their election pages still seem to be ‘awaiting’ the results of their West Midlands candidates, in Sandwell’s case more than 12 hours after they were announced.

Is there, perchance, something you’re not keen to tell your members, Nick?

Results elsewhere in the West Midlands have been mixed, as expected.

As predicted, Labour dropped seats to the Tories in Birmingham in a straight fight between Blair’s unpopularity and Witless Whiby’s incompetence.

Even more predictably, John Hemming’s making allegations of unethical behaviour and ballot irregularities… again. I should point out here that even when he was on to something, in 2004/5, the presiding ‘judge’ at the election court who ordered fresh ballots to be held in two Birmingham wards still found time to refer to John’s testimony as, IIRC, ‘unreliable’.

Labour dropped three seats in Walsall, but there may be a bit of controversy to come as its been alleged that is one closely contested seat, Labour were denied a recount on a 15 vote margin because the tellers had had a long day and it was unfair to keep them up any longer (?). Who said that democracy never sleeps, eh?

Dudley turned in a decent result for Labour - three seats changed hands with two gains for Labour and one for the Tories, with UKIP losing their only seat in the town.

And speaking of UKIP, Confused of Arboretum Ward, Worcester - aka Melanie Heider, failed in her bid to be become the joint Conservative/UKIP Councillor for the ward, turning the town’s most marginal seat into a solid Labour majority in the process.

Whether this might have anything to do with her neglecting to tell the Tories that she’s joined UKIP seven weeks before the election is anyone’s guess, and frankly I doubt that in light of Melanie’s obvious memory problems - she managed to forget to resign from the Tory Party and tell UKIP she was Tory candidate as well - that she’ll be able to illuminate us any further.

Spare a thought, however, for the UKIP candidate in the same ward - no one told him anything, least of all his own party.

Oh, and apropos of George Ashcroft, the Tory candidate in Telford who was identified by the BBC, a mere week before the election, as having been a regional NF organiser in his self-admitted misspent youth, he won his seat, which for me is both bad news - he did beat a Labour candidate after all - but also good news as it does show seem to show that his past, of which he has soundly and genuinely repented, did not turn out to be a factor in the election.

George, who’s posted a couple of comments here since I wrote about his situation, seems pretty bright and articulate as local-ish Tories go - a distinct improvement on most of Sandwell’s lot - and at a mere 30 may have prospects of moving on to brighter thing, having got over this particular hurdle. Indeed, for a party looking to put its reputation as the ‘nasty party’ behind it, George’s experience of putting his past membership of an even nastier party behind him could provide some valuable insight and experience for the Tories to draw upon.

As for his local party leader, Andrew Eade, who declined to talk to the BBC on its local election coverage when he could have done the decent thing and stood up for George, I’m of the view that he needs to go and grow a backbone. It comes to something in a situation like this that a Labour Party member with a long track record in anti-fascist activism, like myself, is prepared to speak up for George and give him a fair chance, but not the leader of his own party on the council to which he’s been elected.

And that,as they say, is a wrap except to say that next year we’ll have our sights firmly fixed on unseating BNP group leader, James Llloyd…

…if he’s not disqualified first for voting illegally on this year’s council budget.

Mmm… I’m not normally one for taking too conspiratorial a line on things, especially when that leads me to veer in the direction of something suggested by John Hemming, but in this case I’ll make something of a minor exception.

Only yesterday, John Hemming responded to the arrest of two Birmingham Lib Dems, a sitting councillor and a candidate at this year’s election with these remarks:

One Lib Dem Candidate and a Lib Dem Councillor in Birmingham have been arrested in respect of allegations about the 2006 Local Elections. The real question is why this has been done two days before the election (this morning) rather than after the election. (Mohammed Saeed and Cllr Zakar Ullah Choudhry)

Superficially it appears that the police are intervening in the election itself. They arrested one of our candidates in the 2006 election. He, however, was found to have not committed any offence (the postal votes found with his wife were his, his wifes and their children).

We know that some form of setup is going on because a postal vote was misdirected to the same Lib Dem Candidate’s house. It is a bit like harrassing people with Pizzas and Taxis instead we have harrassment with postal votes.

And yes, one does have to agree with John that the timing of these arrests is a little inconvenient, coming only two days prior to polling day, especially as the allegations relate to last year’s election, rather than those scheduled for tomorrow. Whether this is indicative of police intervention is rather less certain as the timing here could stem from the timing of the complaint/allegation and when and how information supporting the allegations sufficient to justify arrests was provided to the police.

Today, Birmingham is back in the news - a mere 24 hours before polling begins - as figures for differences in postal vote registrations between 2004 and this year appear have found their way to the BBC via the usual back door.

Post votes down after fraud probe

More than 20,000 people have dropped off the register for postal votes in the wards in Birmingham at the centre of fraud allegations three years ago.

In Aston and Bordesley Green - both the focus of the investigation - the number of postal voters is down by 80%.

A High Court judge said the widespread vote-rigging which took place in the city’s 2004 council elections would have “shamed a banana republic”.

Figures seen by the BBC suggest the problem was worse than first thought.

In four other wards, where there were allegations of fraud at the time but no formal enquiry, more than half the postal voters have disappeared from the list.

Elsewhere in the city, the figures have remained about the same.

The numbers began to fall when West Midlands Police and the city council carried out an audit to check that existing voters knew they were registered.

They have continued to drop since the introduction of new computer checks.

The timing, again, could be considered to be either convenient, or inconvenient depending on your political persuasion.

The question, therefore, has to be asked as to precisely what is going on here and, in the case of this last story, how this information came to be ’seen’ by the BBC - ’seen’ in  this case, is the usual journalistic euphemism that alludes to an off-the-record briefing having been given, as opposed to a ‘leak’, which happens when documents actually change hands.

The police are, of course, one possible source and not necessarily always averse to quietly feeding the odd titbit of information to journalists to send a ‘we’re being vigilant and doing a good job’ message to the public.

A much more likely suspect, however, is Birmingham City Council, whose public reputation for competence in administering local elections has taken rather a pounding in recent years as a consequence, first, of the problems that arose over ballot fraud and, only last, after it miscalled the results in Kingstanding and briefly handed a seat on the council to a now ex-BNP candidate, necessitating yet more legal proceedings to put in place the correct result and councillor.

The third possibility is, of course, a local politician or party.

Labour has nothing to gain, of course, from this information reaching the press and the timing is particularly damaging to its interests.

The Lib Dems, it has to be said, have motive both a Labour main competitor in several wards, including those to which the story refers and also, rather more cynically, the may be something to be gained from using a story of this kind to deflect attention from yesterday’s arrests - although that would be a riskier tactic as such a move could easily backfire and lead voters to think that LDs past effort to highlight electoral fraud were now starting to look rather like the pot calling the kettle black.

As for the Tories, anything that mires both Labour and the LDs in the appearance of sleaze is a win-win for them and, despite controlling the council in a coalition with the LDs, they remain rivals especially in light of the party’s all too obvious national strategy of trying to put the squeeze on the LD’s vote in order to make gains against Labour.

Finally, one cannot rule out the possibility of either communalism or internal rivalries within local minority communities as a motive.

Plenty of motive then, and no great shortage of opportunity one suspects either - to the press, a good story is a good story.

As for having the means, perhaps the least convincing would be the communalism or internecine community rivalry conjecture as this requires both the existence of such rivalries and access to information that could only come from one of two sources, the police or the council.

All of the other possibilities are plausible - they all to some degree, have access to the information in question and none could genuinely claim to be, I think, unaware of how news of a sharp fall in postal vote registrations would be presented by the press or the impression it would create in some parts of the local electorate.

So we come back to one question - cue bono? Who benefits? Or rather who benefits most?

The police? Marginal at best?

Politicians/Parties? Possible but on the back of yesterday’s arrest risky, for all that it afforded John Hemming the opportunity to rise one of his favourite hobby horses on the Today programme this morning - without any mention of his own party’s local difficulties of course.

The council, itself?

Mmm. Very possible as one of two major elements of the story given particular emphasis in BCC’s apparent success in cleaning up its voter registrations, and the council’s Chief Executive - also on the today programme - showed no real awareness of or concern about the political implications of the timing of this information reaching the press and seemed entirely sanguine about the whole thing.

As things stand, this story - which also makes the Birmingham Post’s coverage of yesterday’s arrests, which includes precise figures on registrations - is playing out in way that gives the impression that most, if not all, of the fall in postal vote requests stems from the council’s efforts to curb the risk of fraud.

This is not, however, an entirely accurate picture of the situation as it fails to acknowledge fully an number of other factors that may, and almost certainly have, impacted on the overall number of requests for postal votes.

One, which did get a mention, is simply that some voters are likely to have decided not to request postal votes out of a lack of confidence in the system stemming from the city’s past problems with fraud.

Another factor that will have some impact is voter ‘churn’ - some of those who requested postal votes in 2004 will not be making such a request this year because the no longer live in the city, and as many of those who request postal ballots out of necessity rather than convenience are likely to be older people and people with disabilities, who would otherwise struggle to get to a polling station, one also has to factor in a degree of attrition by way of death.

One more factor that has failed to get any mention at all is that the attention given to issues of electoral fraud has also altered the behaviour of local parties - in previous years the main parties have been actively promoting the use of postal votes, as this piece by PoliticalHack from the 2005 general election shows. (You’ll notice that on this occassion, it was the LDs who were pushing registration from their local office in line with the policy of the national party).

This hasn’t stopped entirely - it is, after all, perfectly legal is done according to the law - but it is going on in a much less high profile while - the big push by all parties to get as many postal votes in as possible of a couple of years ago has dried up, no doubt for fear of creating an appearance of possible impropriety in light of the all the adverse publicity surrounding electoral fraud in the city.

What’s needed here, in light of today’s reports, is two things - first clarity as to the circumstances in which the figures on postal voting made the press a mere day before the election. Who released this information, why and whose authority if any? And was it release a matter of bureaucratic expediency or was there any political motivation behind both the release of this information and its timing.

Second, there needs to be a proper analysis of the fall in postal vote registrations over the last couple of year - one that seeks to adequately differentiate between those past registration that can reasonably attributed to possible fraud, as opposed to those that stem from loss of public confidence, ‘natural wastage’ (e-hem) or the reining in of active and overt promotion of postal votes by political parties.

Or is that too much to ask of a local authority whose capacity to adequately run an election has, in recent times, been subject to scrutiny and called into serious question.

Via Bob Piper comes the news that at tonight’s full meeting of Sandwell Council, local councillors of all parties - but for the three BNP members present- voted to officially commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day in Sandwell, each year.

Well done, especially to Cllr Mick Davies, Bob and Tom Watson MP, whose efforts, support and good offices have taken this motion from a conversation on Bob’s blog, back in January, to a clear commitment to remember those who died in the Nazi death camps and those British servicemen who gave their lives in the cause of liberating the survivors of those camps.

I’m also intrigued by Bob’s report of the BNP’s efforts to move an amendment to the main motion that would have effectively blamed the Nazi’s for the deaths of Armenians, Iraqis, Iranians, White Christians and, apparently, “the indigenous people of these islands” - although quite what Hitler had against the Beaker people escapes me at the present time.

What else can one say - I can think of nothing, certainly, to match the words of the late Jacob Bronowski on the occasion of his visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the filming of ‘The Ascent of Man’… just watch the video.

If I possess anything that could be considered to be a personal ‘credo’, then it lies there in the words of Bronowski.

I’ve not done much local stuff for a while but with local elections in the offing there are a few bits and pieces that are worth picking up.

We’ll start with BNP Councillor for Great Bridge, Simon Smith, who on last night’s news stated:

“Oh I’m no apologist for white working class scum” before go on to say that they would all be swept away by a BNP government.

Quite how they’d be swept away he didn’t specify, although I we’ll see Smith looking to bulk order Zyklon ‘B’ to do the job.

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.

Simon Smith, writing as ‘Steve Freedom’.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that Smith (who is unemployed, BTW) is the Councillor who thinks that Adolf Hitler had much in common with Jesus Christ and holds views such as this, when it comes to voting:

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.

In other local BNP news, investigations are continuing into allegations of electoral fraud after a Mr Andrew Smith of Wednesbury claimed that his signature had been forged on the nomination papers for BNP candidate, Scott Dale, who is standing in the Friar Park ward of the town.

Similar allegations have been coming to light in Birmingham, where a Jamaican woman whose signature also appears on the nomination papers of a BNP candidate in the Handsworth and East Lozells ward also claims to know nothing about how their signature got there, while over in Aston, a Mr Abid Hussain has claimed that his father signed the nomination papers of a BNP candidate after being tricked into thinking that he was signing signing a petition.

And the BNP’s response to this?

Their regional organiser, Simon Darby, blamed the stigma attached to supporting the BNP for some of the stories, and suggested there should be a law banning the questioning of nominees, claiming that this amounts to harassment.

Picking up on another story that ran in The Stirrer, last month, I have been reliably informed that it is, indeed, local BNP group leader and failed publican, Jamie Lloyd, who is under investigation for having voted at Sandwell Council’s annual budget meeting despite being more than two months in arrears with his council tax, actions that could result is criminal proceedings and Lloyd being disbarred from office.

Lloyd’s excuse appears to be that he didn’t know that it would be illegal for him to vote at this meeting dues to his being in arrears, despite having been issued with a letter by recorded delivery reminding him of this. Lloyd claims that this did not arrive until after the meeting, an excuse that might just wash were this his first year as a councillor and his first budget meeting - except that it is isn’t, Lloyd was elected in 2004 and Sandwell MBC’s records show that he has previously attended an annual budget meeting held on 8th March 2005, although the following year (2006) he entered his apologies and did not attend the meeting.

Presumably Lloyd ‘forgot’ the two previous reminders he would have received, much as he forgot the identity of the men who shot up his former pub when asked for information by the police.

Word also reaches me that another BNP councillor may also be in difficulties over their attendance at this meeting, although for rather different reasons. Can’t reveal too much at the moment as investigations are on-going but the words ‘benefit’ and ‘fraud’ have been cropping in conversation rather a lot of late. Confirmation of this will be forthcoming as soon as I get it.

Finally, I can report that Alan Burkiit, the former Tory councillor convicting of trying to pimp his learning-disabled girlfriend (IQ around 50, apparently) has now been formally disbarred, although eh did cling on to his councillor’s allowance to the very last minute with the result that there will have to be a by-election immediately following the full council elections in May, where had he resigned at the time of his conviction, his now former seat could have been including in these elections.

I’m not a great one for gossip and rumour, at least not as it relates to my own side of the political divide, but if what I’ve been told over the weekend is correct then life is possibly going to become very interesting indeed for one local MP.

Adrian Bailey is the MP for the constituency of West Bromwich West, and if you’re not from these parts then that may be about as much as you’ve ever been told about him.

Baliey has been an MP since November 2000, when he won the seat in by-election caused by the retirement (to the House of Lords) of his far more illustrious predecessor, Betty (now Lady) Boothroyd, who was, of course, the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons, and for all that he’s known to be an ultra-loyal Blairite, that hasn’t particularly helped him climb the greasy pole - to date he’s reached the dizzy heights of Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department of Work and Pensions, i.e. an unpaid bag-carrier for, first, David Blunkett and, latterly, John Hutton.

Avid political watchers might also recall that he got into something of a spat with Tom Watson, following Tom’s resignation as a junior Defence Minister, having signed a letter calling on Tony Blair to set a firm timetable for his departure as Prime Minister:

Mr Bailey, who is in the neighbouring West Bromwich West constituency, immediately jumped to the Prime Minister’s defence and accused Mr Watson and his fellow rebels of being “destructive to the party”.

He said: “I believe a leader who has won three general elections should be trusted to time that exit.”

And he said Mr Watson and the others, who he said were “the younger MPs” were acting in a way that could be disruptive and not in the best interests of the party.

Bailey’s outburst in the local press hardly went down well with local members; two senior local councillors even described him as being ‘out of touch with voters’ - none more so than members of his own CLP if even half of what I’ve been told over the weekend is true.

To say that there’s dissent in his CLP ranks would seem to be rather an understatement. Outright revolt may be rather closer to the mark and this may well lead to moves to unseat Bailey as the CLP’s chosen candidate for next general election.

From what I’ve been told, the relationship between Bailey and a significant portion of his CLP has been deteriorating for some time, although matters really started to come to a head before last year’s local elections, at a time when the local party was expecting to come under serious pressure from the BNP - Labour lost three seats to the BNP at that election, all in Bailey’s constituency.

Two events, which took place in the run in to those elections, appear to have brought tensions to head within the CLP.

First, Bailey is alleged to have been deeply involved in efforts to unseat a well-respected and long-serving local councillor in order to insert one of his favoured supporters into the seat, a move that backfired spectacularly when the councillor in question stood down rather than fight what was expected to be a fairly bitter and acrimonious selection contest, leaving Bailey’s preferred candidate to fight the election and lose the seat to the BNP - this despite boundary changes having moved a sizable Asian community into the ward in question.

To compound matters, Bailey is also held by CLP members to have been behind a decision to delay the CLP’s annual general meeting from March (before the election) to the following July. This decision was taken out of the hands of local members and forced on the CLP by Regional Office on the pretext that fighting the election was more of a priority and the CLP did not need the ‘distraction’ of an AGM, although the view of many in the CLP is that this delay was engineered solely to avoid Bailey having to face a mutiny amongst the CLP membership.

As a direct consequence of the AGM being delayed, the sitting officers of the CLP chose, en bloc, not to stand for re-election when the AGM was eventually convened in July, leaving it in the embarrasing position of finding itself unable to fill the post of CLP Treasurer at its own AGM, forcing it to wait a further two months until an appointment could be made.

Eight months on and word is, again, reaching me of serious dissention within CLP ranks, this time over an attempt to railroad through Bailey’s reselection as the constituency’s candidate for the next general election.

The issue, as I understand it, is one of timing. Last year, the local elections were put forward as a pretext for delaying the CLP’s AGM for several months. This year, with the CLP under much the same pressure from the BNP in the upcoming local elections - early predictions suggest that Labour could lose another 3-5 seats to the BNP, most of which, again, will be in West Bromwich West - not only is the CLP’s AGM going ahead on its usual schedule but it seems an attempt has been made timetable the selection process for the next general election before the local elections, as well - a move that many in the CLP are interpreting as an effort, on Bailey’s part, to get his nomination reconfirmed before Blair heads off into the sunset. Bailey, it seems, is less than confident of the getting the full backing of the party machine without Blair standing over it and has been trying to push things through accordingly.

Whether the current rumblings of discontent amount to sufficient will to unseat Bailey is difficult to assess as yet, although he appears not to helped his cause one bit by the manner in which his supporters have attempted to fast-track his reselection.

Apparently, a timetable for the reselection, that would have seen it done and dusted before the May elections, was ‘agreed’ by a meeting of the CLPs officers at which two of those present were paid employees of Bailey’s constitutency office. Although this timetable has now been rejected by the CLP executive, in a meeting that has been described to me as ‘heated’, a number of members are now asking questions about whether these two individuals should have withdrawn from the officer’s meeting due to what seems a pretty obvious conflict of interest, as well as raising more general questions about whether its appropriate to CLP members who are employed by the MP to take an active role in debates/votes where their employment gives rise to such a clear and obvious conflict of interest.

Far from smoothing the way to a secure candidacy at the next general election, this latest round of procedural shenannigans appears to have made many CLP members all the more determined to open up the constitutency to other prospective parliamentary candidates and at least take a look at the alternative candidates who may be on offer. A poor result in the local elections and further losses to the BNP could harden the resolve of Bailey’s opponents even further, not least as another of Bailey’s employees is current having half his salary paid by the local Labour group in order than he can coordinate local campaign activities against the BNP. However, to date, there seems to be a considerable amount of dissatisfaction amongst local activists as to the conduct of this ‘campaign’, which many consider to be notable only for its lack of impact thus far.

Whatever happens, it seems likely that the upcoming selection process in West Bromwich West will be be one to watch. It’s too early to say, for certain, whether the knives are actually out for Adrian Bailey, but talk to a few of his CLP members and one gets the distinct impression that they’re being sharpened at the moment.

[A few corrections made for typo’s and accuracy - especially as there appears to be a journo watching]

It’s often said of politicians that you know when they’re is deep trouble because it then that they become the story and not the issues.

I wonder if the same can be said for a newspaper?

On Monday of this week, I posted an article on the closure of The Lagoon public house, in Tipton, a hostelry that was well known, locally, as the de facto headquarters of the local BNP, in which I noted with some curiosity that the only local newspaper to pick up on the story, the independently-owned, Wolverhampton-based, Express & Star (which has no connection whatsoever with Richard Desmond’s Express and Star group, which published the Daily Express, etc.) completely neglected to mention the pub’s BNP connection; an omission made all the more curious by the fact that its licencee, named as Jamie Lloyd in the report, is, in fact, Councillor James Lloyd, the leader of the BNP group on Sandwell Council.

Strange, thought I (and quite a few others who’ve contacted my since I ran the story).

Even without the BNP ‘angle’, the mere fact that a councillor is to appear before a licencing panel of his own Local Authority because the Police has requested the closure of a pub of which he is the licencee as a result of violent incidents involving a machete and a semi-automatic weapon is something most would consider a matter of legitimate public interest, especially as the pub, itself, in situated in the same ward that the councillor represents. And its not as if the reputation of the pub and its regular ‘clientele’ is not common knowledge locally, nor is difficult to make the connection between ‘Jamie Lloyd’ and ‘Councillor James Lloyd’ either by way of his political affiliations or by a simple search on 192.com, which shows him to be the only James Lloyd residing in Tipton.

And yet the Express and Star appear either to have been unaware of these facts at the time of publication, or simply decided they were of no relevance to local people.

A puzzle, I’m sure you’ll agree, and that became rather more puzzling on my being alerted to an interesting little exchange that’s been taking place of late on one of Stormfront’s forums…

Okay, a quick ‘who’s who’ is in order here.

‘Ontology’ is former BNP member (and briefly a Birmingham City Councillor), Sharon Ebanks, who was expelled from the BNP last year following her unsuccessful efforts to retain, in the courts, the seat she had been ‘awarded’ as a result of a miscount in last year’s council elections. As to why she was expelled from the BNP, there are conflicting accounts - Griffin alleges an assortment of ‘misconduct’, including anti-semitism; Ebanks claims that the BNP welched on a promise to cover her legal costs, despite advising her to defend the election case, and got shot of her when she complained about it and demands they cough-up.

Ebanks has since set up her own political party, which she has been actively promoting on Stormfront, much to the consternation of those forum users who are still members of the BNP - think ‘Life of Brian’ and ’splitters!’ and you’ll get the general picture.

‘White Resistance’ is one of the BNP members with whom Ebanks have been having a few ‘running battles’ of late, frictions which culminated in the posts shown in the screenshot, in which Ebanks ‘outs’ ‘White Resistance’, identifying him as the BNP’s local organiser, Steve Haddon (pictured below with Nick Griffin - Haddon is pasty-looking guy on the left) and also as being a journalist in the employ of the Express and Star newspaper - the same newspaper that some would consider to have soft-pedalled the story of the closure of The Lagoon by omitting all references to its BNP connections.

Mmm… Curioser and curiouser, as Alice might say.

As the Express and Star does not ‘byline’ its stories in either its online or print editions, there is no obvious way to confirm whether the information about Haddon’s employment given by Ebanks is correct - although ‘White Resistance’s’ response to Ebanks remarks do appear to confirm both that she has correctly identified his real world identity and that of his employer:

I keep my job because people can’t be sacked from their jobs for being a member of political parties. The E&S would be rather hypocritical if they did sack me considering its past views on this very subject. Again, nice try though.

What can one say?

Well, what one cannot say is that Haddon (if the information supplied by Ebanks is correct) has had any involvement or influence over the E&Ss coverage of the closure of The Lagoon - for all one can tell he might just as easily be assigned only to the coverage of local Sunday League football.

And, yes, he (as ‘White Resistance’) is quite correct in noting that he cannot (legally) be sacked because of his political affiliations or membership of a far right political party.

But that does not mean that the possibility that a journalist working for a local newspaper may also be a local organiser for a far-right political party with a well dopcumented history of racism and anti-semitism, is not a matter of legitimate local public interest or that such an occurance, if shown to be true, will not cause many local people to harbour serious misgivings about the Express and Star, or to consider somewhat more carefully the editoral intent behind some its stories, such as this one, which attacks a fairly routine swimming initiative as if it were the arrival of the Barbarian hordes…

A swimming session for women and children from ethnic minorities in Wolverhampton has sparked complaints from regular bath users who say it is encouraging segregation.

The weekly session, at the city’s Central Baths on Thursdays between 7pm and 8pm, has been introduced to encourage groups who would not normally get involved in swimming.

But it has come under fire as “political correctness gone beserk”, with council bosses today admitting a number of complaints had been received from members of the public.

Blinds costing around £1,000, funded by Kellogg’s Swim Active programme, have also been installed to improve privacy.The sessions replace a former aqua aerobics class. Council chiefs say they are aimed at Muslims, Sikhs and any other ethnic groups “with religious or cultural issues which would otherwise prevent them from taking part”.

Does one hour a week for people - actually women - who because of their religious/ beliefs cultural beliefs would not be able to make use of open public sessions really merit this kind of vitriol? Is this really ‘political correctness gone berserk’ or ’small-minded reporting gone berserk’?

Or is there a more subtle and consciously divisive intent on display?

Who, outside the E&S, actually knows - as the newspaper does not byline its stories we cannot even say for certain which ones Haddon may or may not have worked on, let alone whether his political views ‘colour’ his reporting - in fact, if the editor of the Express and Star is aware of Haddon’s afilliations, they may even go so far as to actively keep him off stories where his political opinions could, if (or rather when) exposed, turn out to be something of a liability to the newspaper.

One thing I have pondered carefully since receiving the information that appears to link ‘White Resistance’ with Haddon, and Haddon to the Express and Star (props to Lancaster UAF), is whether it would be unethical, on my part, to make use of this information - and as you’re reading this now, it should be obvious I’ve concluded that it isn’t.

The balance to be struck, as always, is that between legitimate public interest and individual privacy - does the right of the public to know that a local journalist has been identified as a BNP organiser in the town in which he works trump that of the individual’s right to privacy - a tough call at the best of times and one made tougher by the fact that Haddon is at best only a semi-public figure in a fairly minimal sense and only by virtue of articles published on the BNPs own website.

But then Haddon (if it is him) does work for a noticably right-wing newspaper that does, frequently, take a rather confrontational line of matters of race and ethnicity’ and the newspaper does serve an ethnically diverse area in which recent electoral gains by the BNP have caused some measure of unease amongst local minority communities, who quite naturally see the active presence of a racist political party as something of threat to the area’s otherwise pretty good track record on tolerance and diversity.

On balance, and on this occasion, the public right to know shades the argument because that right will necessarily inform local people’s perceptions of the Express and Star - Haddon’s political views could, conceivably, introduce a measure of bias into his reporting of some stories, bias that may not be corrected editorially given that the newspaper, itself, is one that expresses markedly right-wing views on many issues. Knowing this to be a possibility permits the public to adjust its perceptions of the newspaper accordingly and (hopefully) take a rather more sceptical view of its contents that they might otherwise have done had they been wholly unaware of Haddon’s background - again assuming that Ebanks’ claims are not a complete dud.

You’ll note that I’m neither calling for Haddon to be sacked due to his political affilliations, nor advocating protests outside the offices of the Express and Star - the former would be unlawful, the latter rather ill-advised and a little silly - it’s better to keep the BNP in plain sight, where you can keep an eye on them and openly challenge their pruirient views and values than drive them underground.

No, to simply be aware of the possibility that a local journalist may also be a BNP organiser is sufficient in this case, given that there are some small uncertainties as to the accuracy of the information and that there is no extant evidence to suggest that Haddon is or has been using his position as a journalist to quietly introduce BNP propaganda into its pages - and given the editorial stance of the Express and Star one has to wonder who could reasonably tell for certain if he had?
If the information supplied is correct then this is rather a matter for the Express and Star to ‘manage out’ as it sees fit and a matter in which the public interest rests simply in the knowing and not in seeing any particular action taken against the individual in question, unless concrete evidence did emerge of unethical conduct on his part.

And with that, I’ll sign off after the manner of the great Hunter Thompson.

Res Ipsa Loquiter

UPDATE: 24 Jan 2007

Lancaster UAF have kindly ‘asked the question’ of the local NUJ Chapter and received this response:

‘As regards this Haddon chap, it was raised at a meeting of Wolverhampton branch last week and all the former and current E&S members present did not
know of this guy.

Next day I checked with their reception and no one of that name could be found at the company.

It seems to be a phantom at the moment but there is the possibility that this person might be on some far-flung weekly or using an alias…’

Possibly not a journalist then, although it should be noted that the BNP does have form for using aliases on its website and public communications to conceal the identity of members; such as its press secretary Stuart Russell (real name) aka ‘Dr Phil Edwards’.

Russell/Edwards’ claim to a doctorate is, according to the excellent Disillusioned Kid, rather dubious:

As an adjunct to the above, it might be worth briefly considering the provenance of the article’s author. “Dr Phil Edwards” is in fact a pseudonym adopted by the party’s press secretary Stuart Russell. Even his doctorate is dubious, he claims to have taught quantum mechanics at the University of Nottingham, although when I directly challenged him on the issue of his qualifications he dodged the question. Make of that what you will.

And, indeed, a search for evidence to verify Russell’s claim to have taught quantum mechanics turns up absolutely nothing, not even a single citation on a published academic paper, which is the minimum one would expect to find for a theoretical physicist with a doctorate - the only Stuart Russell who does turn up in a search, and then only be citation, is a highly-regarded Professor at UCL Berkeley and a specialist in artificial intelligence, and I can be absolutely certain this in not the BNPs Stuart Russell, not least because I’m already familar with his work.

Finally, on Russell/Edwards, the plot thickens even more thanks to this transcript of a Radio 4 science programme, ‘Checkup’ from July 2005…

MYERS

Okay, let’s take another call now. And we’ll go to Grantham and Dr Stuart Russell is there, hello?

RUSSELL

Yes hello. When I was involved with the Nottingham University Psychic Research Group we used to have an orthopaedic surgeon came to give a talk on hypnosis as used in anaesthesia, I wondered if - that was Dr Ian Fletcher - I wonder if as time’s gone by whether this has actually progressed at all?

WILKINSON

I think that’s a very, very interesting area Dr Russell and it’s an area where if you’re a keen hypnotist you’re trying to push it forward a great deal all the time and that the problem, as I understand it, with hypnosis or other things perhaps like acupuncture is that not everybody is as susceptible as the next person to hypnosis or say acupuncture…

I can find no formal record of a Psychic Research Group at the University of Nottingham, although Dr Alan Gauld, a former president of the Society for Psychical Research is a retired Reader in Psychology at the School of Psychology of the University of Nottingham - but then that’s still a hell of long way from teaching quantum mechanics and suggests, at best, that Russell may have spent some time at Nottingham University as an undergraduate - at worst he may just own a few of Gauld’s books and be leeching off his academic reputation as a backstory to this own doubtful claims.

None of this answers the question as to why the E&S failed to make the BNP connection with the closure of The Lagoon or discover/disclose any of the other information that journalists working for its local rival, the Birmingham Post & Mail group, seem to have had little difficulty in uncovering.

Nor, indeed, does it shed any light on why Sharon Ebanks thought ‘Haddon’s’ (alleged) employment at the Express & Star significant enough to taunt him with it - if Haddon’s just the teaboy or a newspaper packer, then what difference does his being the local BNP organiser make?

And then there are these two comments, from a poster in Wolverhampton…

Amazing! So the only people who work for a newspaper are journalists or paperboys/girls? How do they get by without management, advertising, sales, production, distribution etc etc?

I see no mention of the term ‘journalist’ in the ‘expose’

Steve Haddon’s job has no influence on the content of the paper, hence why the witch hunt ground to halt with the ’switchboard has no listing for him and enquires to journalists on the paper have resulted in ‘never heard of him’ responses.

Comment by Pasty looking guy on the left(Just in case you got him mixed up with Nick Griffin!) 01.19.07

and

‘If it shown that the information given by Ebank is wrong, then of course I’ll post a correction’

????

Comment by Pasty looking guy on the left(Just in case you got him mixed up with Nick Griffin!) 01.24.07

And post an update, I have, as soon as I had confirmation on information from ‘GeorgeP’ also posted on the 19th.

But then, why is ‘Pasty looking guy…’ getting quite so jumpy, here, just because a question or two is being asked?

Another conundrum…

Thanks go out to The Stirrer, who followed up my story on the impending closure of The Lagoon Public House in Tipton by speaking to its licencee, who I can now confirm is, indeed, Councillor James Lloyd, the leader of the BNP group on Sandwell Council.

The BNP councillor who runs one of the most notorious pubs in the Black Country has called time in his efforts to keep it open after fights on the premises involving guns and machetes – news that will shake the party’s claim to be tough on law and order.

James Lloyd who runs the Lagoon in his own Princes End ward in Tipton told The Stirrer last night that he probably wouldn’t even turn up at a meeting of Sandwell’s licensing justices today where it’s future is due to be discussed.

The police want the place shut, and Lloyd who has been the licensee for two years told us:  “I’ve only got 12 months left on the lease, and I’ve run out of steam with the place.”

He said that the pub wouldn’t re-open after closing time last night.

A nice, easy decision for the licencing panel that meets today, then, and welcome news for the local community.
None of this, of course, addresses the question of why the Express & Star appear to have soft-pedalled the BNP connection to this story, but its nice to see that at least one local journalist knows how to do their job properly.

It’s long been known, locally, that the Wolverhampton-based Express & Star newspaper is no great friend of the political left, so much so that it long ago earned itself the nickname of the ‘Excess & Swastika’ for the rather obvious right-wing bias of much of its content.

Even by the E&S’s usual standards, some of the omissions of fact in an article that made the front page of the print edition on Saturday, make one begin to wonder quite how far the paper is ‘leaning to port’ these days.

PUB FACES THE LOSS OF ITS LICENCE

A Tipton pub that was at the centre of a machete attack, shooting and brawls is set to lose its licence after a request from police to the council.

Nothing too unusual there, you might think. Most areas, after all, have at least one ‘rough’ pub that’s better known for the problems caused by its regular punters than for the quality of it beer.

This is just a local interest story, then… or at least that’s how it looks until you find out the name of the pub in question.

The Lagoon in High Street, Princess End, will learn its fate next Tuesday after police asked Sandwell Council to revoke its licence.

The Lagoon does indeed have a bad reputation locally, but its local notoriety stems from something rather more that simply incidents of violence on its premises - the pub is also what amounts to the local headquarters of the BNP in Tipton. It is (or was, as I’m informed that it is currently closed, pending Tuesday’s meeting) both the favoured watering hole of the BNP’s local ‘foot soldiers’ and the usual venue for its meetings, a fact that you might have thought that the Express & Star would have mentioned in its article, especially when one has read the report that Sandwell Council’s Licencing Panel is set to consider on Tuesday, which reveals that its actually the Police who are seeking the closure of the pub on the ground of ‘the prevention of crime and disorder and public safety‘.

Knowing that you might well wonder quite what would possess any licencee in their right mind to allow their pub to be used as the de facto local headquarters of a far-right racist political party, let alone one in which trouble is know to follow closely in its wake?

Well, the rest of the report, which details two of incidents about which the Police have expressed particular concerns, also provides the answer to that question, even if the newspaper, for reasons known only to itself, fails to make that answer explicit to its readers.

West Midlands Police has put together a report listing problems at the venue which will be considered by licensing bosses.

The document details incidents that occurred at the pub throughout last year.

It states that on June 2 a fight took place in The Lagoon between three customers.

The report said designated premises supervisor Jamie Lloyd separated two parties involved and allowed one man to leave. “The departing participant at this time had received what can only be described as a good beating, with loss of teeth,” police said.

The following day the victim of the attack returned to the pub with another man who handed him a semi-automatic weapon which was fired at and narrowly missed Mr Lloyd.

In November it was reported that people in the bar had been threatened by a man wielding a machete and that Mr Lloyd had again been the target of the attack.

Before moving on, I should correct on minor omission in the article, Jamie Lloyd, who is named as the designated premises supervisor by the Express and Star is also cited as the Licence holder for the premises in the report to Sandwell Council, but that omission is of little significance when compared to the other major piece of information omitted from the article, which relates to the activities of Mr Lloyd when he’s not engaged in running a pub.

Jamie Lloyd, so my sources in the area assure me, is none other than Councillor James Lloyd, BNP member, councillor for the same Princes End Ward in which the Lagoon is situated and current leader of the BNP group on Sandwell Council - an assertion that appears to be confirmed by several articles on the BNP’s own website in which Councillor Lloyd is routinely referred to as ‘Jamie’ . In fact, and by way of irony, this photograph (below) of Councillor Lloyd, which was used to promote his parliamentary candidacy at the last general election (in which he stood in West Bromwich West) has been identified by my sources as actually having been taken on the car park of The Lagoon.

Now I don’t know about you, but I can’t help being just a tad curious as to why the Express & Star appear not have made the connection between ‘Jamie Lloyd’, publican and licencee of a pub that is well known as the BNP’s HQ in Tipton and BNP Councillor James Lloyd, not least when a qucik scan of the local electoral roll reveals that there is but one James Lloyd listed on the electoral roll in Tipton.

Has the paper simply not done its homework on this story, or does it not think that the people of Tipton have a legimate interest in knowing that when their Council’s licencing panel meets on Tuesday, the question before is not simply a matter of the future of the pub itself - my understanding is that it is to be sold off by its owners for redevelopment as flats, anyway, but also whether a fellow councillor, one who sits on no less than ten different council committees as BNP group leader, is unfit to run a local pub to the extent that even his customers appear to have been trying to kill him?

As things stand, it seems doubtful that tomorrow’s licencing panel can arrive at any conclusion other than that The Lagoon should close, and the pub certainly will not be missed by its neighbour. But then spare a thought for Tipton’s other licensees who, on the closure of The Lagoon, now have the face the possibility of acquring the custom of a its former regulars (and everything that goes with such dubious company) - my local source suggest that the landlord on one Tipton pub, which has already had the doubtful pleasure of the BNP’s company since the closure of The Lagoon, has already taken to closing his pub at lunchtimes so as to limit his personal exposure to them.
If anyone at the Express and Star would like to respond to this article and explain how and why it managed to miss a rather interesting (obvious) and newsworthy angle on this story then, as is always the case, the comments boxes are open.

By way of Snedds (who seems to approve ???) it would appear that Harriet Harman has set out her personal sales pitch for the Deputy Leadership, one that includes such observational gems as…

There will be no national renewal of the Party without the women in the Party as equal partners driving that change.

Err, Harriet. Can I just point out there will be no national renewal of the Party unless everyone is on board as equal partners driving that change. While it certainly important that we have women on board in the process, its also equally important (to me, at least) that we have our ethnic minority members on board and afforded equal status and consideration as well. And our gay, lesbian, bisexual and, indeed, transexual members (I’m sure we must have some). And both our religious and no-religious members. And our [insert category here] members…

You see my point?

Without wishing to dwell overmuch on this particular issue, I note that Harriet also makes the following point:

It is crucial that we reflect the strength of women’s representation in the Party by having at least one woman in the leadership team of leader and deputy leader.

So 50% of the Party’s members are actually women? Have Harriet even asked?

Look, I hate to put this bluntly, but equality, in this particular situation, is best served if one of two members of leadership team is a woman AND (please take careful note) has been elected into that position solely on their own merits and abilities as politician. Anything but that and the position of the (successful) female candidate may well be hopelessly devalued.

Like it or not, there is a substantial difference between becoming Leader or Deputy Leader because you are chosen by members as the best person for the job and being elected to that position because you are the best woman for the job in a election from which all male candidates are excluded.

There is also an obvious logistical problem if the Party holds elections for both offices simultaneously and attracts candidates of both genders for both positions, in so far as under Harriet’s suggested ‘rules’ - there is no way of knowing which gender of candidate is actually eligible to become Deputy Leader until the result of the ballot for the Leadership is known, even though, in a simulataneous election, members will have the option of voting for candidates both genders for both positions. So unless there’s an undemocratic stitch-up before nominations open in which members of the PLP agree that only men, say, will be put forward for the Leadership and only women for the Deputy Leadership, the whole process could easily descend into farce.
Under such a system, there would be a real possibility that the outcome of the Leadership election (assuming that is announced first) could result in one or more legitimately nominated candidates being excluded from becoming Deputy Leader (by virtue of being the same gender as the victor in the Leadership ballot) after the ballot for Deputy has been taken and despite one (or more) of the excluded candidates having got more votes than the individual who asctually becomes Deputy Leader, simply by virtue of gaining the most vote amongst candidate of the opposite gender to the newly elected leader.

Does that make sense?

Okay, Quick illustration. Jim and Jane run for Leader, Mike and Mandy run for Deputy. The ballot is held and votes are cast.

Jim wins the leadership election with 55% of the vote over Jane. Mike is now ineligible for the Deputy’s position, meaning that Mandy wins by default, but Mike actually got 65% of the votes in the actual ballot.

Democracy in action..? Of course not!

The other thing to say here is simply that if we cannot manage to elect someone to a senior position in the Party on merit, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or any other personal characteristics you might want to the throw in for consideration, then we really aren’t the Party that think we are and are nowhere near being the Party that we should be.

The other point I want to pick up lies in this section…

6. Community activism as a key part of party membership

The most successful local Labour Parties are at the heart of their community, from running local councils to leading community organisations, to running campaigns on the issues that matter to the local neighbourhood. Activists in Camberwell and Labour Party involve themselves in running community activities which are too numerous to mention but which include the People Care Association, which supports the elderly who live alone, including providing dinner on Christmas day, others run the Saturday music school at the local church.

First and foremost, running a local council is NOT ‘community activism’ being, by definition, a political activity carried out by local politicians who hold a political office.

Yes, Harriet, politicians DO exist outside the narrow confines of the Westminster Village.

Look, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with CLPs and Branches supporting local community activism, or with members taking a direct involvement in community activism and campaigning, but if that’s all I was interested in doing I’d simply join a local charity or community organisation and not have joined the Labour Party.

Political party’s ‘do’ political activism as well, one might well say that this is axiomatic of being a political party rather then a charity or community organisation.

One of the main reasons why grassroots party membership is dying on its arse out here in the real world, not just in out own party but in the others as well, is because local government and local politicians are now so hidebound by centrally imposed rules, regulations, targets, restrictions, constraints, quangos and interfering busybodies like the Standards Board that its getting to be nigh on impossible to do anything fucking political at local level.

Look, if you want local politics, then you have to have local politicians who are allowed to do political things and make political decisions, which can be supported by local political parties and local political activists who run local political campaigns - and if you do that the local people have a reason to join their local party.

If you don’t want all that, the you might as well forget the whole shebang, abolish local councils altogether and just appoint local adminstrators from Whitehall.

Seriously, if you think that community activism is somehow a substitute for, or alternative to, political activism then you should be applying for the job of Chief Executive of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, not standing for election as Deputy Leader of a major political party.

Right, so that’s Hazel Blears and Harriet Harman out of the running for my vote, with Jon Cruddas looking good so far - who’s next…

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, t