Sunday 9 May 2010

The General Election 2010 (Part 1?): The Good & The Bad News

Obviously top of the list of good cheer is the humiliation of the BNP: nearly 90% of their 300-odd (and we mean VERY odd) candidates loosing their deposits (that approaching £150,000!); not one single MP elected (and that goes for UKIP too); Griffin only managing third place (the knives will surely be out for him now); all 12 BNP Barking and Dagenham councillors thrown out (and that includes the man in beige Richard Barnbrook, GLA member and possible prospective new furhrer, plus Bob Bailey, BNP group leader on the council, who was caught on camera in a street fight with local youths who clearly took offence at his presence in their neighbourhood).

Add to that the chance that any deal done between the Tories and Lib Dems will significantly tone down the Tories anti-immigration fervour or a minority Tory administration at least find it tough to bring in any 'back to the '90s' 'immigration in the tens of hundreds' legislation, unless Nu Labour (or Nu Nu Labour or whatever rebranded entity comes out of this less than momentous non-victory) chose to vote the way of their anti-immigration rhetoric and support any new Tory immigration bill; and finally, the Daily Mail amusingly is blaming UKIP for costing the Tories the general election, and hence being sure of bringing in their more restrictive immigration policies (and, given how confused UKIP's own immigration policy is, one that looks even tougher than their own)

On the bad news front obviously comes the fact that the BNP actually increased their share of the vote but that was largely down to standing in nearly three times the number of seats as in 2005 (338 vs. 119 seats / 563,743 vs. 192,850 votes). However, top of the list surely must be the fact that Woolas managed to scrape back in by just 103 votes (wonder what difference the 212 votes polled by Gulzar Nazir of the 'Christian Party' would have made if he hadn't of stood?). Looks like his dirty tricks won out in the end?

Oh, and another bit of good news: the BNP website has been down since their night of shame (though a whingeing message has now gone up, stating "Fellow British Patriot, Welcome to the temporary website* of the British National Party", replete with the usual photo of il Duce Griffin trying hard to look statesman-like whilst not breaking out in side-splitting laughter) bizarrely still claiming that "Britain's fastest growing political party, with over 100 parish, district, borough and county councillors, a seat on the Greater London Assembly and two seats in the European Parliament." Obviously they still believe their own propaganda.


* Possibly they can no longer afford to pay their webmaster having dumped so much money in lost election deposits and s/he has pulled their contribution to establishing the envisaged bright shiny new white post-election future.

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