Royton and Chorlton
Off I go to Royton near Oldham to help distribute anti BNP materials. The meeting point is half a mile from the Vets where I took Hooch recently to see a working dogs specialist.
A couple of hours then amidst Countryside Alliance booklets and the trappings of rabbiting is revealling. There is underlying anti-gypsy feeling, founded on occasional cases of dog-napping and what people believe is an incident of malicious greyhound poisoning in the vicinity. Two dogs dead in 48 hours. Here and elsewhere in the area it's feelings about travellers and other groups that the BNP play to.
The fascists are standing in a whole swathe of urban and semi-urban seats straddling the pennines. Bury North, Rochdale, two Oldhams, Denton and Reddish, Ashton and onwards into Yorkshire. They are also standing in leafy Cheadle.
They have little or no great chance of a breakthrough MP wise but they are going in the mayoral in Stoke, and in various County Council seats. But the main purpose almost everywhere is to soften up target wards for 2006 and 2007 and build support round some of their vile ideas or at least a cleaned up public version.
Newsnight later carries a story of a BNP councillor and sometime seller of nazi memorabilia who is doing the community politics thing on local estates and reaching out to Black Britons, Sikhs and Hindus. His lapel carries a badge : "Don't Unpack, You're Going Back". Invidious.
Having good councillors doing that community politics in the first place and dealing with fears and feelings too is the only real insurance policy against the nazis. Poor councillors, weak councils, party fall outs and schisms generating independent vote-splitting candidates. Well these are the building blocks of BNP success.
From 2001 to 2003 Oldham had a Lib Dem council. They lost it against the trend in 2003 and the erstwhile leader admitted that they were not up to the job. They could, he said in so many words, say anything and do nothing in opposition when they had power they had to make hard decisions.
One of my fears from a General Election with any level of couldn't-care-less tactical voting is that Tories (and one or two Lib Dems) will win seats. And that the trickle down from that to future local government elections will weaken councils and leave room for fascists to work their tricks.
Here in Oldham West the BNP have targeted the two Royton wards as well as Glodwick and others.
Although I know exactly where I'm going there is a lot of traffic and I miss the group. My phonebook has none of the right people in it and wards cover quite large areas and kerb crawling round to find them is not an option. So it has to be Plan B.
This is stuffing envelopes in Chorlton Co-op Rooms for Keith Bradley. I make it back for the second half of the action and am amazed to find almost 40 industrious souls folding, stuffing and stamping 11,000 plus envelopes like a well-oiled election machine.
The main run is a friendly call to vote to those with PVs. The second run targeted letters to Asian voters. Both include a summary of the general benefits of having a Labour government for working people, pensioners, patients and schools.
The second talks about going forward with tolerance and respect with three specific calls for a Labour vote :
>>>
* Labour is committed to toughen the laws on incitement to religious hatred. These moves are opposed by both the Lib Dems and the Tories.
* I did NOT support military action in Iraq. It is simply misleading of other candidates to suggest otherwise. Parliamentary Hansard 18.03.03 shows that with Tony Lloyd and Graham Stringer I voted against the war.
* Labour has a commitment to state-funding Muslim faith schools.
<<<
The second point is vital. The Lib Dem PPC has been putting out cheeky lies which say that Keith voted for the war. It is a matter of public record that he did not.
It was of course useful to have some 50 Lib Dem MPs and a few Tories and Nationalists supporting the Labour-led (139 MPs) rebellion on the war. But it galling for a man who has taken no visible part in any anti-war activity to be telling fibs like this. After a full rebuttal and a lull he has picked it up again.
Keith has also included a paragraph in his election address pointing out the duplicity of the Lib Dem pretender.
We're all done and some are off to the pub while others like myself finally go home to get our tea. A big topic of discussion on the way out is the funeral of gangster Desi Noonan. the second of the gang to die. His funeral will be nearby. One police estimate predicts there will be 11,000 mourners. And Kate's school is being closed for the day as the wake is 100 metres away from the gates.
The last gangland funeral this side of town saw a drive-by shooting at the wake. Keep well clear is the advice.
A couple of hours then amidst Countryside Alliance booklets and the trappings of rabbiting is revealling. There is underlying anti-gypsy feeling, founded on occasional cases of dog-napping and what people believe is an incident of malicious greyhound poisoning in the vicinity. Two dogs dead in 48 hours. Here and elsewhere in the area it's feelings about travellers and other groups that the BNP play to.
The fascists are standing in a whole swathe of urban and semi-urban seats straddling the pennines. Bury North, Rochdale, two Oldhams, Denton and Reddish, Ashton and onwards into Yorkshire. They are also standing in leafy Cheadle.
They have little or no great chance of a breakthrough MP wise but they are going in the mayoral in Stoke, and in various County Council seats. But the main purpose almost everywhere is to soften up target wards for 2006 and 2007 and build support round some of their vile ideas or at least a cleaned up public version.
Newsnight later carries a story of a BNP councillor and sometime seller of nazi memorabilia who is doing the community politics thing on local estates and reaching out to Black Britons, Sikhs and Hindus. His lapel carries a badge : "Don't Unpack, You're Going Back". Invidious.
Having good councillors doing that community politics in the first place and dealing with fears and feelings too is the only real insurance policy against the nazis. Poor councillors, weak councils, party fall outs and schisms generating independent vote-splitting candidates. Well these are the building blocks of BNP success.
From 2001 to 2003 Oldham had a Lib Dem council. They lost it against the trend in 2003 and the erstwhile leader admitted that they were not up to the job. They could, he said in so many words, say anything and do nothing in opposition when they had power they had to make hard decisions.
One of my fears from a General Election with any level of couldn't-care-less tactical voting is that Tories (and one or two Lib Dems) will win seats. And that the trickle down from that to future local government elections will weaken councils and leave room for fascists to work their tricks.
Here in Oldham West the BNP have targeted the two Royton wards as well as Glodwick and others.
Although I know exactly where I'm going there is a lot of traffic and I miss the group. My phonebook has none of the right people in it and wards cover quite large areas and kerb crawling round to find them is not an option. So it has to be Plan B.
This is stuffing envelopes in Chorlton Co-op Rooms for Keith Bradley. I make it back for the second half of the action and am amazed to find almost 40 industrious souls folding, stuffing and stamping 11,000 plus envelopes like a well-oiled election machine.
The main run is a friendly call to vote to those with PVs. The second run targeted letters to Asian voters. Both include a summary of the general benefits of having a Labour government for working people, pensioners, patients and schools.
The second talks about going forward with tolerance and respect with three specific calls for a Labour vote :
>>>
* Labour is committed to toughen the laws on incitement to religious hatred. These moves are opposed by both the Lib Dems and the Tories.
* I did NOT support military action in Iraq. It is simply misleading of other candidates to suggest otherwise. Parliamentary Hansard 18.03.03 shows that with Tony Lloyd and Graham Stringer I voted against the war.
* Labour has a commitment to state-funding Muslim faith schools.
<<<
The second point is vital. The Lib Dem PPC has been putting out cheeky lies which say that Keith voted for the war. It is a matter of public record that he did not.
It was of course useful to have some 50 Lib Dem MPs and a few Tories and Nationalists supporting the Labour-led (139 MPs) rebellion on the war. But it galling for a man who has taken no visible part in any anti-war activity to be telling fibs like this. After a full rebuttal and a lull he has picked it up again.
Keith has also included a paragraph in his election address pointing out the duplicity of the Lib Dem pretender.
We're all done and some are off to the pub while others like myself finally go home to get our tea. A big topic of discussion on the way out is the funeral of gangster Desi Noonan. the second of the gang to die. His funeral will be nearby. One police estimate predicts there will be 11,000 mourners. And Kate's school is being closed for the day as the wake is 100 metres away from the gates.
The last gangland funeral this side of town saw a drive-by shooting at the wake. Keep well clear is the advice.
posted by Chris Paul at 11:58 PM
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