I’ve noted previously that one of our local newspapers, the Express and Star, appears to have developed a somewhat remarkable propensity for either ignoring or downplaying local stories that might reflect poorly on the BNP, hence the paper’s coverage of the closure of the Lagoon Public House in Tipton due to, amongst other things, the failure of its landlord to report serious violent incidents that took place in the pub and his subsequent refusal to turn over CCTV footage to the local police, complete failed to mention either that the pub, itself, was effectively the BNP’s local headquarters, or thats landlord, James Lloyd, was a local BNP councillor and leader of the BNP group on Sandwell Council.

So it is that I was hardly surprised to find that another little local interest story relating to this same councillor was, yesterday, quiet buried away in a single column at the foot of page five of the newspaper.

Before getting into the story itself, its worth reflecting on a couple of salient points.

First, in one looks at the BNP’s local election manifesto for this year, one finds that aside from its usual political incoherence – more of which in a moment – it makes the usual authoritarian play on the BNP’s claim to be ‘tough on crime’, albeit that this year’s rhetoric is somewhat more carefully crafted than usual.

We must have strict sentencing. We must support the victims of crime and be harsh with the perpetrators. We in the British National Party are not concerned with the rights of the guilty – they give up their civil rights when they commit crimes against innocent individuals, and hence also against the community. Knife crime and violent crime must attract severe sentencing. Life has become a cheap commodity – those that threaten or take life as a result of thuggish behaviour can expect to be treated accordingly.

Quite why the BNP have sudden come over all coy about their law and order policies – which includes hanging paedophiles and other sex offenders (again there’s more to come on this one) – is anyone’s guess but for all that they’ve taken to using a more euphemistic turn of phrase, then general intent is same as it always was, as was clearl evidenced by another of their sitting councillors and prominent local Holocaust denier, Simon Smith, when he said, that week, that he was ‘no apologist for white working-class scum’ who would be ‘swept away’ by a future BNP government. And he may well be sincere in is opinions – he’s certain not prone to apologising from his own stupidity.

Be that as it may, their manifesto makes its usual pitch that the BNP will be tough on crime, hard on criminals and supportive of stiffer sentences, all of which brings me back to the Express and Star and the story that appeared in an altogether non-too-prominent position last night, which simply notes that a Ricky Lloyd, of Tipton, appeared before a local magistrates court, yesterday, on charges of dangerous driving and other motoring offences (expect the usual no licence, insurance or MOT) and was committed then to appear at Wolverhampton Crown Court because the magistrates considered that their powers were insufficient to deal adequately with the offence/offender.

What this amounts to is that magistrates have taken the view that Lloyd’s action, and his prior criminal record, merit a stiffer custodial sentence that could be handed down the magistrate, so they sent him to the Crown Court, where a judge can throw a substantially larger book at him.

Ricky Lloyd, so it turns out, is the oldest son of – yes, you guessed it – local councillor, BNP group leader and failed publican, James Lloyd, and judging on the strength of this story from December 2005, which tells how the same Ricky Lloyd had been committed for trial at Wolverhampton Crown Court on a charge of attempted robbery, its rather as if both the court and the relevant local prison might do well to install a turnstile and provide Lloyd with a season ticket.

Before moving off the subject of the BNP and crime – its a pretty extensive subject, after all – I should note that a rather interesting rumour has come to my attention which, if true (and we may well know either tomorrow or possibly Thursday if it is) will rather put to the test the BNP’s policy on dealing with sex offenders, as my understanding is that in the next day or two a national daily newspaper may well identify a BNP candidate, standing for election in the West Midlands, as having been convicted, some 12-15 years ago, of a serious sex offence – my informant suggests rape, although this is yet to be fully confirmed as the trial, apparently, was moved outside the local area.

More on this, naturally, as and when the full details of the story emerge.

Digging though BNP manifestoes is, of course, a rare treat and well as an excursion into the Twilight Zone in which real policies and common sense are but occasional and all too fleeting visitors – and this latest offering is much the same as ever.

There are a number of particular highlights…

The BNP’s plan to cut council tax by 50% is a lulu. The claim that they’ll be able to do this by removing education ‘budgets’ from local authorities to central government, who will then dispense funding to local areas to pay for schools from a central fund.

There are three obvious problems with this ‘plan’.

First they wouldn’t actually be removing education budgets from local authorities, as the funding they’d get from the central government pool would still be an education ‘budget’ – what they’re actually talking about is taking away the requirement for local authorities to raise part of their education budget from local taxation.

Second, and even more obviously, the mere fact of taking the raising of funds education spending away from local taxation does not mean lower taxes – it just means that you pay the tax somewhere else, so loathe I am to treat the BNP like a real political party rather than the bunch of low-grade moron they are, the question has to be asked as to which central government taxed they intend to raise in order to pay for this and by how much will they go up? In order to pay Paul, which Peter(s) do they intend to rob? Income Tax? VAT? Corporation Tax?

Or are they talking bollocks…

Problem number three follows on from number two – the suggest that council tax will be cut by 50% simply be removing education funding to central government rather presupposes that local authorities actually spend 50% of their council tax revenues on education in the first place. Is this true? Perhaps someone might take the time to either confirm of deny these figures.

The manifesto also includes is obligatory lies and misrepresentations when it comes to immigration:

A large proportion of the burden of paying for asylum seekers and other migrants falls directly on local authorities (as was candidly admitted in a recent report commissioned by London Councils and compiled by the London School of Economics) and this is another reason for the huge hike in council tax bills (which strange to say has coincided with the massive tidal wave of migration to this country).

Actually, the report – which you can download here – does not directly connect the alleged “burden of paying for asylum seekers and other migrants” with ‘huge’ increases in council tax bills, what the report does note is that local authorities do face increase costs in London arising from population mobility, some of which is directly attributable to immigration, some of which isn’t – the report takes in both mobility arising from inward (and outward) migration and internal mobility – people moving around within London and between London and other parts of the UK. In particular it is critical of the current inflexibility in funding arrangements for local government, particular in terms of the revenue support grant, which it argues prevents local authorities from reaping the full economic benefits for migration while leaving them to struggle with the costs arising from population mobility.

Taken as whole, migrants put more into the UK economy that they take out in services and support, the surplus from which pays towards the cost of services and support for what the BNP have taken to referring to as Britain’s indigenous population.

The problem this report highlight is that the overly centralised bureaucratic nature of the funding relationship between central and local government makes local government finance unresponsive to rapidly shifting patterns of demand, which is very different issue indeed.

It also makes the laughable point that:

Lastly local authorities are either obliged (through central government or European regulation) or they do it for their own treasonable politically correct reasons, to implement a whole host of costly schemes and grants to ethnic minority and multi-cultural groups, causes, projects and initiatives, including foreign language courses and interpreters which both drain away financial resources that could be put to much better use, and at the same time erode the social cohesion of the local communities.

Treasonable? WTF?

So far as I can recall, treason still requires that one be found to plotting, making or supporting an act of war against the UK, or the overthrow of the UK government – shagging the reigning monarch’s wife/husband might also still on the books as well – which rather raises questions about the BNP’s own plans as, according to a number of ex-members who’ve spilled the beans after being officially ‘unpersoned’ by BNP leadership, the real strategy of the party hinges on the idea that the BNP will step in and take power in the wake of rampant social disorder, which they believe will be the consequence of immigration – which does seem to suggest that they’re planning for the overthrow of democratically elected government in the UK, themselves.

That being said, its a rather strange and draconian view to take that sees funding creche facilities in a local Gurdwara as being ‘treasonable’ – all of which goes to show only that for all their efforts to present a ‘voter-friendly’ facade, they still cannot quite reign in their impulse for indulging a bit of good old-fashioned lunatic wing-nuttery.

Speaking of descents in complete madness, try this one for size:

We vigorously oppose the building of new houses on green belt land. Although there is a drastic housing shortage, we recognise that this is largely caused by the massive influx of bogus asylum seekers and economic migrants. Anyone who supports new housing schemes is indirectly facilitating the influx of these migrants.

Really?  Funny, I was actually under the distinct impression that the vast majority of green belt housing developments were being undertaken by the private sector, with the most of these properties falling well outside the price range of economic migrants and, especially, asylum seekers. In fact all the evidence I’ve seen, including that contained in the London Councils/LSE report that the BNP cite – incorrectly – as evidence for the cost of migration leading directly to council tax hikes, shows that the real housing pressure arising from migration is centred on the private-rented sector. Very few migrants arrive in the UK with the wherewithal to buy their own property and only those specifically seeking asylum have any entitlement to social housing, so it hardly follows that building £200,000 ‘Barrat ‘boxes’ on the outskirts of Ruislip is facilitating an ‘influx of migrants’.

If you indeed to place restrictions on housing developments specifically to inconvenience migrants, of all kinds, then what you legislate to prevent is not green-belt developments but the redevelopment of urban brown-field site and, especially, conversion of properties into flats/bedsits and the letting of single rooms – which is actually where you’ll find the majority of migrants. Unfortunately, stories 15 migrants crammed into a shitty two-up, two-down in Hackney don’t really fit the BNP’s lies about migrants getting a preferential deal.

By now, you should get the general picture, which as I said earlier, is that their election manifesto is a completely undeliverable litany of lies, falsehoods and bullshit. This is where, in one respect, the BNP do differ markedly from the German Nazi Party – before plunging Europe into World War Two, Hitler did manage to turn around the German economy and make the trains run on time, while the BNP, had they the remotest chance of taking power, would completely fuck the economy up in a matter of days.

To conclude, I cannot resist flagging up what the BNP have to say on the subject of ‘culture’, itself a rather alien concept to most the party’s members who remain firmly convinced that its some sort of naan bread.

Culture is a much neglected but very important subject. We wish to create a society of stakeholders where residents feel it is their community and that they are a vital part of it. Promoting the culture, the history, of a district is a vital ingredient in helping to establish a local community feeling. These local cultures developed over centuries of human interaction. The liberal regime has deliberately tried to destroy local particularism in a bid for conformity and dull uniformity.

So all the funding that goes to local history societies is a myth?

Local councils would be responsible for encouraging local festivals and officially celebrating events such as St. George’s Day, St. Andrew’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and St. David’s Day.

St Patrick’s Day? But that’s an Irish holiday and Ireland hasn’t been part of UK since 1921, other than for the bit up north which is half full with the descendents of Scottish Presbytarians.

Oh well, I guess if nothing else we have some advance of notice of the first annexation – Dublin is new Sudetenland and all that jazz.

Local councils would also be expected to celebrate and mark traditional festivals such as Easter and Christmas. No public body would be allowed to officially celebrate or mark a non-indigenous festival or holiday.

Do think you could make your mind up here?  On the one hand you’re saying that council’s will have to celebrate Easter and Christmas, but you also say that they won;t be permitted to mark a ‘non-indigenous’ festival or holiday?

Just where the fuck do you think we got Easter and Christmas from in the first place?

Did my school use the wrong version of the Bible or something, as I’m pretty sure that it said that Jesus was born in stable in Bethlehem and died in Jerusalem, not that he was born just outside Newport Pagnell and crucified in the middle of Slough…

There is nothing ‘indigenous’ about Christianity whatsoever – it began as a messianic Jewish cult and arrived in Britain via the Church of Rome. If its ‘indigenous’ you’re after then surely you should be directing councils to erect replicas of Stonehenge all over the place and appointing their own local Druids to lead the annual summer solstice festivities.

Skipping on a tad, just because the next bit is rather dull and uninteresting, we come to this…

The schools, libraries, museums and civic theatres would all be expected to contribute in different ways all year round to the cultural health of our local communities. BNP councillors would actively encourage the development of living participation spectacles, historical re-enactments and pageants, particularly involving schoolchildren.

Fuck me, anything to try and justify putting kids into uniforms – all a bit unhealthy and fetishistic if you ask me.

What historical re-enactment do you have in mind here? Edward I’s expulsion of the Jews, perhaps? Or maybe we you’re looking for people to set up a local branch of the Kristnalnacht re-enactment society for those of us who fancy something a touch more contemporary.

No, tell you what. How about we go for re-enactment of the D-Day landings, the Battle of El-Alamein and the Liberation of Western Europe? What do you reckon? Good idea?

…although we will need someone to play the Nazis… any volunteers?

Hey, guess what? I’m just buzzing with ideas today, in fact I’ve come up with the ideal slogan for the BNP’s election campaign! Never mind all this ‘people like you’ crap, try this instead…

Vote BNP. Because stupid is as stupid does.

Perfect!