You may well have been handed a copy of this leaflet in the past day or two, it's all worthy stuff - especially the jibe about 'British jobs for US models' (click to enlarge) ...
... but ... but ... if you look go to the HOPE Not Hate website, you'll see that this leaflet was published by Searchlight (originally a decent bunch of coves who made it their job to document the activities of the National Front and later the BNP, their magazine was so good that the fascists themselves subscribed to it). One branch of Searchlight, the Searchlight Educational Trust is a registered charity. Their 2007 accounts show that the government smiles favourably on them - from pages 3/4:
A major project this year was the publication of Young Citizen, a 12-page glossy magazine distributed to 400 schools all over the country. Written mostly by young people, it covered a number of themes around citizenship in a diverse society and resisting racism, in a project to promote cohesion in a diverse society... The magazine included a message from Ruth Kelly, who at the time was the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The competition winners were invited to a reception at the Department for Communities and Local Government, where they were presented with their prizes. Rob Flello, MP, then took them on a tour of the Houses of Parliament.
There's no full breakdown of income, but Note 10 on page 14 states that "A grant of £5,000 was made by Unison for sponsorship of the Barking and Dagenham “Street Games” project in 2006. This money was spent during 2008. A grant of £20,000 was made by the Home Office in 2006 towards the “Young Citizen project”. This money was spent during 2007."
It'll be interesting to see how much the government bunged them to produce the 'Lest We Forget' leaflets, if and when they publish their 2009 accounts!
Anyways, while the government are free to say what they like about their political opponents, is it acceptable for them to use taxpayers' money to co-opt venerable institutions such as Searchlight to mount a campaign against a single, specific party? In an election that doesn't matter that much? One of the reasons I joined UKIP was because the UK government, acting via The Electoral Commission, deliberately tried to bankrupt them because of an administrative oversight*. I thought, if The State hates UKIP that much, they can't be all bad (and they're not, I'm happy to report), so think what you like about the BNP, I'm just not comfortable with this.
* A fair summary at 'Notes to editors', point 3 here - the rest of the whining on that page is yet more government propaganda. I must try and find out what happened to that appeal, BTW.
The implications of an argument
2 hours ago
9 comments:
"It'll be interesting to see how much the government bunged them to produce the 'Lest We Forget' leaflets, if and when they publish their 2009 accounts!"
gbp0.00. Anything else would be an obvious, provable breach of electoral law that even the Slough Tory and Aston Labour constituency parties wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, much less government ministers.
The unions and the Labour Party may well have put up some of their campaign budget toward the leaflet, but that's, err, not government money.
Yes I'm not sure that's actually tax pounds being spent there. Party supporters' money, possibly without their being particularly aware of the fact though, yes.
JohnB & Paul (from HPC), I wish I shared your optimism.
As a connoisseur of fakecharities, I'd say that this particular leaflet is government funded - it refers to 'the mobilisation' of trade unions (who in turn are funded by the government) and 'community groups' (?), for example - and the related websites are stereotypical fakecharity websites. I went to printing college for three years, I know about this stuff, even the typefaces and print quality (excellent) look like other stuff that the UK government does.
But we'll find out in two years or so, once they publish their 2009 accounts.
No - if it hadn't mentioned the BNP by name, and had instead focused on 'community cohesion is great, racists are bad', there might be a chance. As it is, none: that's genuinely the sort of thing which means people going to jail.
(even if your views on government PR departments' attitude towards electoral law are very negative, which I don't think is borne out by any actual behaviour - voter fraud has always been centred on constituency parties - it can't have escaped the notice of all concerned that there'll be a new government in 12 months who're far less left-leaning and keen to do some new-broom-ing...)
(and yup, it's probably done by the same comms agencies, copywriters and typesetters who do similar bits and bobs for government)
So the government is funding party or at least anti-party activism. I think that is a greater threat to democracy than the BNP could be.
If they were, it would be. They aren't, so it isn't. Jeez.
At the risk of sounding like a crank, Searchlight always struck me as a Jewish/Mossad-type organisation who were in bed with MI5. There was a long article in Lobster magazine about this about 15 years ago. Back when I was a dumb teenager and involved in Anti Fascist Action, Searchlight always seemed to focus it's attention on selling out all it's rival anti fascists.
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/intro/search.cgi?zoom_query=searchlight&zoom_and=1
I suspect it's worse than a mere fake charity. And don't you think it's pitiful that the entirety of the Hope leaflet is about the photos not being English enough. Perhaps they could've found time to talk about BNP policy failures?
NVM, I don't mind Jews and have great respect for Mossad, though it wouldn't surprise me if these rumours were true.
As to your last paragraph, don't forget who the leaflet is aimed at - I doubt that many BNP voters would be dissuaded by an argument about Ricardo's law of comparative advantage and the downsides of protectionism.
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