BNP

Needless to say, the BNP is a pathetic party of mindless xenophobes with moronic policies. Their election leaflet has come in for a ton of criticism too, and rightly so.

My dad picked up on their use of a Spitfire at the very top of the leaflet:

The Spitfire was used in a war against your philosophy, you cretins.

Amusingly enough, the Spitfire pictured on the leaflet was actually used by Polish pilots, not British ones.

On the other side, the following is listed: “TRAFALGAR – THE SOMME – DUNKIRK – D-DAY – THE FALKLANDS”. What is this? Some kind of war-mongering jizzathon?

The leaflet also says you should vote for the BNP: “Because it’s not racist to oppose mass immigration.” Well, maybe it’s not racist. But it is downright moronic and fascistic for these reasons.

There doesn’t appear to be any attempt to tailor this message to a Scottish audience. A paragraph rants about “Lab-Lib-Con” — but there is no mention of the SNP, Scotland’s largest party. And the leaflet contains absolutely no information whatsoever about any of the BNP’s candidates.

Beneath this, is the by now familiar section on “Why We’re All Voting BNP”. You know, the one containing stock photographs which have been used in this way without permission. And the models aren’t even British. The “pensioners” are actually an Italian couple who do not hold the BNP’s views.

Christian Party – Christian Peoples Alliance

I got no leaflet, so I took a quick look at their website. I am not a Christian, so I haven’t spent long looking at the website. Reading their manifestos, their main policies include beginning each meeting of the European Parliament with Christian prayer and enforcing “an EU-wide day of rest” every Sunday.

A bit like the Greens, they also want the economic system to be controlled more, but are vague on how to go about it. Apparently limits will be placed on “complex instruments”. All-in-all, they actually seem very similar to the Greens, but with a God bit in the middle. Not a party for me, but they don’t seem quite as nutty as I first feared.

Duncan Robertson (independent)

It’s a complete mystery. Does anyone know who this person is?

Jury Team

No leaflet again, so I took a look at the website. There is not much there policy-wise apart from a general hatred of party politics. Understandable given recent events, although I am not totally against political parties as I outlined in the previous posts about how to reform politics in the UK.

There is something quite refreshing about Jury Team though, which is that the candidates are apparently totally independent of any kind of party control. Jury Team’s number 1 candidate in Scotland, Alan Wallace, has a blog which is an interesting read. He seems like a measured chap and in the (admittedly rather little) research I have done, there has been nothing that has offended me in the slightest.

There really is very little information policy-wise though. Indeed, Alan Wallace’s blog goes out of its way to point out that it doesn’t really matter what the policies are — what counts is that he will be open and transparent. It’s very well saying that, and I don’t doubt it. But it would be better if there was a little more information on exactly what I might be voting for if I place my cross next to “Jury Team”.

No2EU – Yes to Democracy

Cheese-a-rama. Where have I seen this before? Does anyone really think that the current rise in unemployment has been caused by the EU?

The message from Bob Crow makes No2EU sound a bit like UKIP, but with added socialism thrown in for good measure. Loon-tastic. Like most frustrated socialist parties, they seem to long for a way of life that hasn’t been seen since… well, 1972.

My dad noted that the party’s logo is quite odd. The way it’s written looks like “no²eu”. I wonder what the rationale behind turning the word “to” into a number 2 then the squared symbol is!

Amusingly, this Scottish leaflet invites voters to an “Eve of poll rally — Euston, London”. I’m sure all those out-of-pocket Scottish workers will really easily find the time and money to attend.

A bit of research reveals that No2EU is actually a coalition made up of the following organisations: RMT, Alliance for Green Socialism, the Communist Party of Britain, the Indian Workers’ Association, the Liberal Party, the Socialist Party, Socialist Resistance and Solidarity. Communists? Solidarity? Indeed, Tommy Sheridan is number 2 on the list in Scotland. Yup, that seals the deal. I shan’t be voting for these people.

Socialist Labour Party

We got no leaflet, so I looked at the website. It’s a little bit scary. The design is garish and primitive, and the first words apart from the title are: “Scargill. VOTE SLP JUNE 4TH” That’ll be Arthur Scargill’s vanity party then.

Click on the link and you are told that this is “one of the most important elections since the Second World War.” Eh?

Ukip

This Ukip leaflet has the same sort of naff symbolism as the BNP one, with a huge image of Winston Churchill dominating the front of the leaflet and making an appearance on the other side. “Say no to the European Union”, the leaflet proclaims, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Winston Churchill actually called for a “United States of Europe”. Ho hum.

Ukip provides some information on their candidates. Their qualifications? One is “Scotland’s best-known horse whisperer.” Another is an “experienced geophysicist.” Still, at least it underlines the point that “Ukip candidates are real people, not career politicians!” — and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Still, you wouldn’t catch me voting for this lot. In these corruption-aware times, it would be a bit silly to vote for Ukip, who are kings of the art. They also have a track record of telling massive porky pies about the EU.

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For another view, I liked Currybet’s take on the election leaflets he received.

I wasn’t going to write about Simon Hughes. Although I’ve felt like saying a lot, I was just going to keep a lid on it. But I can’t keep the lid on any more. As with Mark Oaten, I’ve not been a particular fan of Simon Hughes’ in the past. But I respect him a lot more today than I did this time last week.

There is some pretty weird logic going on about this. Apparently Simon Hughes should be condemned — not because of his homosexual relationships, oh no!, but because of his lying. But if you want to know why he felt the need to lie about it, just look at The Sun story that broke it. It was filled with homophobic jibes about “Limp Dems” and “another one biting the pillow”. And if you think that’s just me having a sense of humour failure, do you really think any newspaper, even The Sun, would get away with calling, for instance, a black Tory a “Coonservative”?

The thing is, Simon Hughes did not reveal that he was gay. He did something far worse — he admitted to being bisexual. Because being bisexual opens you up to prejudice and attacks from both straight and gay people, it’s a pretty big step for Hughes to take. It also means that he was right when he said that he didn’t lie, although it could have been misleading, when he denied being gay.

People say, “oh, why couldn’t he have used the Cameron defence?” They forget that the Cameron defence happened in 2005 and drugs are cool things that Average Joe uses. Apparently the 1980s were quite a hostile time — even more hostile than it is right now — to be gay. I wasn’t around in 1983 so I can’t say, although I have no reason to doubt that. If in the early 1980s he was asked if he was gay and just batted away the question without denying it he would have been accused of being evasive, and people would probably have said he was gay anyway (not that denying it helped Hughes on that front anyway).

Given that you apparently have to be married with kids to be accepted as a top politician (similar rumours about Gordon Brown’s sexual orientation continue to hound him because he left it until he was a bit old to have kids), it should be no surprise that Hughes wanted to keep it under his hat.

Look at this from idiot Lowri Turner (via Martin Stabe):

…I don’t think gay men make good party leaders or Prime Ministers. This has nothing to do with what they do in bed but everything to do with their lives in general.

Before I am accused of prejudice, I should say that not only are some of my best friends gay, but probably most of them are. I work in the media, for goodness sake. [aaaaaarggfghghghgh] It is precisely because I know such a lot of gay men that I can say that I don’t think many of them are capable of representing the interests of the vast majority of people.

Their lifestyles are too divorced from the norm. They are not better or worse, but they are different.

Gay men face challenges of their own, but they do not face those associated with having children which is the way most of us live…

What a grade-A idiot. And it’s because of these sorts of views, which are clearly still common in today’s supposedly enlightened society, that Simon Hughes had to deny that he was a bisexual.

Another reason why Simon Hughes is apparently fair game is because of the Bermondsey by-election. You know, that one where dissident Labour members launched homophobic attacks against the Labour candidate. There was a Liberal leaflet that called the election “a straight choice” — although it doesn’t say anything like “Simon Hughes is the straight choice” as most people are trying to make out. “A straight choice” is a very common term to use on election leaflets — even Labour used it last year, so it’s a bit much to be criticising the Liberals for using it against Labour almost a quarter of a century ago.

I was watching BBC News 24’s weekly political roundup last night, and this very issue was discussed. All of the pannelists condemned the slogan. The irony seemed to be lost on all of the guests — the programme they were on was called Straight Talk. So they were on a homophobic television programme, were they? Actually, they probably were. Paraphrasing guest Ann Leslie: “Haha, did you see The Sun? They called him a Limp Dem! AHHahahaah!” None of the other pannelists or the presenter suggested that the homophobia might be a bit out of order. Must be the liberal Biased BBC again, huh?

As for the “I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell” badges, have a read on Wikipedia — gay homophobes, eh? Obviously it looks a tad ironic given this week’s news about Simon Hughes’ private life. But since Hughes didn’t actually have anything to do with the badges, I think he can be let off on that front.

I used to think that bloggers come in all shapes and sizes, from right across the political spectrum; almost like an (albeit slightly more tech-savvy) microcosm of society as a whole. Obviously there are a lot of poor people who can’t have access to the internet, but in general I thought the above at least had the potential to be true. But a couple of issues have me wondering now.

I vaguely recall this being a talking point in the recent past: Are there any bloggers out there who actually support ID cards? The answer would appear to be no. (I am actually an ID cards agnostic, although that means precisely that: agnostic.)

And the reaction in the blogosphere to the proposed 90 days legislation was overwhelmingly negative. I hear that Harry’s Place hinted at being in favour of it, although I wouldn’t know because I don’t read crazy blogs. Has anybody spotted any bloggers supporting the proposal? Leave a link in the comments if you have, because I find it astonishing that there can be so many bloggers out there who were so heavily against the proposal when opinion polls led us to believe that a majority of the public at large supported 90 days.

This struck me on Wednesday. Obviously I had heard about the opinion polls and all the rest of it. That a majority of the population supports banging people up for 90 days for no good reason is not much of a surprise given that a majority also support the death penalty and whatever else. But I had spent the whole day blogging about it and reading blogs, and it felt like the world and its dog was fully against 90 days.

Obviously bloggers have a very wide range of opinions. But thinking about it (if you excuse me for using crap right / left terminology) most of the right-wing blogs come in the shape of libertarianism who are (usually) as angry when civil liberties are eroded as they are when taxes are increased. Those to the left of Labour are against it because for all their faults they at least tend to defend civil liberties to the hilt. Hell, even most Labour bloggers found this one difficult to bear, choosing either to sheepishly admit that their party was wrong on this one, or just stay quiet about it. Meanwhile, the liberals are… liberal.

Then I went off the computer. And I switched on the radio. The difference between the public mood on the radio and television and the public mood on the blogosphere is striking. It appears as though Joe Public is very different to Joe Blogs.

Me personally, I’d lock ’em up and throw away the key.

That’s an actual quote that a caller made on BBC Radio Five Live on Wednesday evening. When I woke up in the morning David Davies and David Cameron were on receiving calls and texts along the lines of, “I’ve voted Conservative all my life, but never again; not after what happened yesterday.” Sometimes there was the same kind of language that has been used by The Sun this week — traitors, betrayal, all of that. All-in-all I think I only heard about two texts speaking out against 90 days on the radio.

Back on the blogs, everybody’s kicking the shit out of The Sun!

So what explains this? Is it that most bloggers are middle-class metropolitan types who “don’t live in the real world™”? I doubt it, because this is actually one issue where you can’t throw this easy accusation around: metropolitan types are actually far more likely to be affected by a terrorist attack than, say, a remote Northern fishing village is.

Or could it be that bloggers are actually better-informed about the issue? That would be a pretty pious stance to take.

Am I just reading the wrong blogs? What is it that makes Joe Blogs so different to Joe Public?