And the new name for 'centre-right' is ...

Commenting on the successor to the Independence & Democracy Group ...

Graeme Atkinson, the European editor of Searchlight, the respected UK journal that reports on the activities of the far right told EUobserver: "This basically is the far-right 'lite' forming a group, a community of interest, with Ukip's help - right-wingers more of a populist than fascist character."

Stick me down as a "moderate extremist" then.

HOPE Not Hate

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.