BNP Question Time

After watching the much hyped Question Time on BBC1 last night featuring the BNP leader Nick Griffin I can honestly say I learned next to nothing about the BNP as a political party or about any of it's policies.

What I watched was a carefully orchestrated attempt by the BBC and the main political parties to destroy, smear and demonise Nick Griffin in a sustained personal attack.
The audience was almost totally hostile and as the programme ended you had to remind yourself you had just watched Question Time and not an Old Baily trial for a child murderer.

The problem with this approach is that Nick Griffin is just the leader of the BNP at this moment in time, in the near future he could be replaced by a far more charismatic individual without any past baggage who does well on TV, the BNP polled nearly a million votes in the European elections (6.4 per cent of the total) and not every one of these people is a racist nazi.

Over the last ten years the Labour party have taken for granted they would always get the white working class vote and have ignored the fact that many of their core voters have increasingly felt let down and marginalised by this Government and have started to look elsewhere for answers to their problems, with a long recession, unemployment at 3 million, the MP expenses scandal and the Banking fiasco this should not be a shock to any experienced Labour politician, however, it actually took a black guy in the audience and an Asian Tory Baroness to acknowledge there are many people in the UK who are worried about uncontrolled immigration, another big concern for many people especially those living in poorer multi-cultural areas around the country with high unemployment and a failing education system.

Jack Straw gave an absolute hopeless display during this part of the debate and like many other Labour politicians seems to be in absolute denial just why so many people gave their vote to the BNP last time.

Benefit Busters or A4e Sham?

Over the last two weeks I've been watching a programme on Channel 4 called 'Benefit Busters'.

I missed the start of the first episode and for the next twenty minutes I honestly thought I was watching a new comedy series with 'over the top' characters thrown in for added hilarity, It turned out the programme was actually a real 'fly on the wall' documentary following a few long term unemployed people from the North East of England trying to get back on the job ladder with the help of a company called A4e.

The programme is unintentionally funny at times until the more you watch the more you realise the hopelessness and despair many of these job seekers have to go through while taking part in the A4e course which looks to be yet another 'back to work' sham paid out of the public purse. The A4e group leader Hilary is probably the most awful person in the programme as she constantly patronises and humiliates the unfortunate job seekers. If there was ever someone not suited to a job it must be her.

Most of the jobs on offer are temporary positions which allow the Employer to dismiss any of their work force without any notice, as it takes up to four weeks to restart any benefit claim this leaves many of the job seekers in a difficult position where the security of a life on benefits looks far more secure than gambling on poorly paid casual work.

A4e receive £100 for every job they hand out and it turns out that the company have secured a deal from the Government worth £145m, not bad for a firm started 20 years ago in Sheffield by the now very wealthy Emma Harrison to help unemployed Steel workers, it turns out that David Blunkett the former secretary of state for work and pensions is also heavily involved in this company, in fact he registered earnings of £30.000 from A4e in the 2008 parliamentary register of members interests under the heading 'remunerated directorships'. Nice work if you can get it.

It seems to me that if this government truly want ordinary people to work in this country they should increase the minimum wage so that anyone working 40hrs a week can actually support their family comfortably instead of forcing millions of families into a life of debt while the obscene bonus culture in the City is still alive and kicking and shows no sign of being curbed.

The real problem now is that basic UK wages are so low they have been caught up by social security benefits which are themselves the minimum amount needed to live. Large trade unions have been dismantled and pension plans have been torn up or devalued, poorly run banking institutions have been propped up by countless billions or nationalised, foreign labour has been been brought in to push wages down even further while boardroom salaries spire out of control.

The gap between rich and poor is widening all the time and even though free market capitalism has been a complete disaster things just don't seem to change, it really does look like a case of the blind leading the blind.

　

Voting

I got to my local polling station at Margate bowls club in good time this morning, very nice there too, certainly a bit more up market than the building in St Paul's Road Cliftonville where they normally set these things up. I almost felt I was voting in a posh part of Thanet!

Although I knew who I was going to vote for in the local KCC election I did have a problem with the European vote and voting for the same party, I am a long term Euro-sceptic and I certainly could not vote for any party that supports the European union in it's present state and refuses to give the British public a referendum on the EU reform treaty.

It seems power in Europe is increasingly concentrated in the hands of unelected people we can't get rid of, even the MEP's are not individually elected, we have to vote for a political party then the party decides who the candidates are. Even the central Bank in Frankfurt is unelected.

This all boils down to a gradual erosion of British democracy taking place and if we are not careful a creation of an undemocratic Europe we will be stuck with until it predictably self implodes .

Euro and KCC Elections

With the local Kent County elections coming up on Thursday I imagine it must be pretty difficult for any candidates from the three major political parties to go door knocking at the present time.

I doubt whether they would get through a couple of hours canvassing without being verbally abused by a member of the public or at best having a few doors slammed in their face.

Of course, these local elections have little to do with what the majority of Westminster MP's have been getting up to, but nevertheless, I'm sure many people will either not bother voting this time or will cast a protest vote for one of the lesser known candidates.

Hopefully those planning a protest vote will only do this in the European election, while in the KCC election vote for genuine candidates who not only live in the area they plan to serve but will also put in the time and effort needed to do the job properly with regard for everyone who lives in the area and not just pay lip servce to their peers.

No (MP) expense spared

At last the 25 year old MP expenses scandal at Westminster has been fully exposed by the Telegraph, many politicians have benefited from this in-house arrangement over the years but very few will suffer any real hardship now other than acute embarrassment in their local constituencies.

Many MP's will either stand down and some will obviously lose their seats at the next election but like most political scandals the only real losers are the general public.

When forthcoming election ballot cards are sent out in future they might as well remove the surnames and just print MUG on each card, because that's how it feels voting in any UK election at the moment.

Goody or Baddie?

As the English media strip the last piece of flesh from the recently departed Jade Goody, I wonder if some of the hacks who have been praising her saintly and brave behaviour over the last few weeks might cast their memories back a couple of years and recall the very different stories they wrote with such gusto back then?

In a media frenzy they collectively screamed and scrawled how Jade was the reincarnation of the devil for her 'racist' performance on the celebrity Big Brother show.

The media outcry over the programme prompted 50,000 knee-jerk complaints from the public, Goody was removed unceremoniously from the show, countless character assassination articles and comments from various media sources followed and even Tony Blair and Gordon Brown got involved. Jade Goody was a national pariah.

And what prompted this outcry? Well, Jade had turned into a bit of a bully on her celebrity return to BB, she had argued with Indian Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and had called her "Shilpa Poppadom" during a row. When asked if she had been threatened racially by Jade, Shipa said 'no it was just bullying' and she could handle Jade perfectly well by herself.

But Oh no! that was not going to satisfy the outraged white middle class media, oh no, they had all firmly decided to be offended on behalf of every Asian or black person in the country, maybe even some of Jade's own black relatives, (Jades Grandfather is black). Maybe even some of Jades mothers Muslim friends (Jades mum Jackiey was a practising Muslim who performed prayers while in the house). This footage was cut from the nightly TV updates.

If you were a follower of Alternative Medicine or Raiki you might think that all this hateful, negative energy towards Jade may even have caused her cancer. The level of hatred towards the girl was pretty astounding, all the more so considering there had been no mention or reaction from anyone when fellow contestant and black man Jermaine Jackson had called Jades family 'white trash'.

It seemed during these last few days that some form of reality was sinking in with all those close to Jade Goody, the realisation that she was actually nearing the end of her life and the media circus was about to end, one can only hope so.

You can take the boy out of Arsenal but you can't take the Arse out of the boy.

Sorry but I couldn't resist it!