Iain Dale on the Perils of Saying Something Nice

Iain Dale wrote last week about the adverse comments he received when twittering some appreciative comments about a political opponent.


Two important areas where this applies.



This country will be poorer for a generation because those in power have built a false image of infallibility. Further, if the climate change exaggerations are not forgotten, the impact will be much longer than that. The Conservatives should learn from this.

Finally, I hope that Iain Dale should keep on appreciating the good things in the Conservative party opponents, criticizing the conservatives who he thinks as wrong, as well as recognizing (and apologizing) his own errors. The general political debate is richer for it.

Balance Sheet Accounting for the UK economy





Liabilities – examples


  1. The National Debt £800bn
  2. The Final Salary Pension of public sector employees £1,000bn
  3. State Pension and disability benefits       say £1,000bn
  4. NPV of PFI schemes







When Strong Politics incites the Thugs







Alternative details on the BBC.

Vyacheslav Yaroshenko,

Magomed Yevloyev,

Anna Politkovskaya,

Telman Alishayev

Stanislav Markelov

Anastasia Barburova

Does the Prime Minister Tell Porkie Pies?

Douglas Carswell today accused the Prime Minister of telling lies. Here is the comment just posted.


 Interviewed by Nick Robinson today, the Prime Minister categorically said that “I have always told the truth”. On that point I think we should believe him.

Why? you might ask. What he says is clearly at odds with the facts.

The problem is that Gordon Brown (along with Peter Mandleson) have moulded New Labour around projecting a message and image. That message is not objective reality, but the image necessarty to win power and retain it. Couple this with Brown’s decade-long building of his own power base to become Prime Minister through scheming against every opponent. What results is someone like a communist who saw the imminent revolution in every newspaper paragraph, or an alcoholic in denial. They can only see what fits their reality. To see objective reality would cause his own self-destruction with a comment like

“We are in the worst economic mess since the second world war, and many of my actions as Chancellor have made this worse for Britain. As Prime Minister, despite trying to do my best, I have made mistakes that our children will be still paying for in their retirement. I have run out of ideas and energy on how to improve the situation, shall therefore be tendering my resignation with immediate effect.”

Giving the BNP voters a message of hope


BNP supporters include many hardworking, but unappreciated people. Their lives can be turned around by a confident Christianity that values them.


 The Political Establishment reviles the BNP, either describing them as beyond the pale, or denigrating them for views they do not necessarily hold. In so doing they guarantee that the BNP will build a core following that will endure. Instead we should understand the people who voted for the BNP. The recent Channel4-commisssioned Yougov survey of electors highlighted the issues.


  1. BNP voter families are poorer than national median, but less than 10% below. Indeed, if you allow for the concentration is the lower income areas (Burnley for instance), they are about average.
  2. They are disproportionately manual workers (36% v 20% in the population), male (61% v 48%), and read the most down-market papers (33% v 20%). There are few professionals (11% v 36%) and few readers of the quality papers (6% v >12%)
  4. They feel discriminated against as compared with immigrants, such as the feeling that immigrant families can jump the queue in getting a council house (87% v 56%), and feel that white people suffer unfair discrimination (70% v 40%)


There is something else that can be inferred from this data. Despite being of near median family income, they display signs of being below the average educational levels (more Sun & Star readers and lots of manual workers). That means there must be something else that characterises these people. I would suggest that they are hardworking people. The sort of people who two or three generations ago who do any job rather than claim dole; who would be horrified if their children had sex before marriage; who would be proud if they could go through their working lives without a day off sick; who would work long hours to afford the luxuries; who would be proud of their council houses and keep their gardens in a better state than a National Trust property. They are the sort of people who a generation ago would have bought their council house, and immediately change the front door to a mahogany-look one with a brass knocker to show their status. The same generation who would have seen the next door house being allocated to a single mum, who having had three children by different fathers, gets more cash and benefits through a few minutes of drunken sex, than they ever could by working 60 hours per week. They are the people who should be proud of what they have achieved, but looking round now say “should I have bothered?” (or something stronger). They resent those who get things easy, and the hectoring state who taxes their pleasures (smoking and drinking). They have been deserted by their natural political party, who, in being multicultural and inclusive has lost its dogmas and its passion. The final straw is when they support a party who seems to answer their concerns, they are treated as outcasts by the political establishment. That same political establishment, who having for years actively encouraged the politicians to gorge themselves at the public trough, now dither in sacking them.


Like the worst gangs, the BNP encourages these people to blame this on other groups – on the muslims, the immigrants, the corrupt politicians or the foreign imports – then provide a strong solution. But the solution is to turn inwards, rejecting outsiders, rejecting foreign imports, rejecting customs. It is also to say that by a strong government that they can believe in, they can get the esteem that they lack. But this will not be the answer. Crushing ones opponents never brings peace; harsher punishment does not reduce crime, nor does protecting jobs make us richer, or even reduce unemployment. Like the communists of yesteryear, they believe with the right plan, ruthlessly implemented they can solve all problems.


The answer is not to revile such people, but to see them as achievers, who have been lead astray. One hundred years ago, they would have been the people who packed the churches during the revival, cheered loudly on the terraces on Saturday afternoon, sung lustlily on a Sunday morning and repaired to the club afterwards. The churches again need to accommodate them. To provide them with strong dogmatic statements, not tortuous arguements about gender-inclusiveness and sexual orientation. To provide them with a strong sense of faith, that believes its past achievements and what it can achieve, not a faith that is no better than any other. The BNP followers, I would suggest, are made up of people who have been lead astray, but are not fundamentally evil. They are sinners whose lives can be fundamentally changed by a confident faith.



Channel 4 commissioned a massive poll of 32,000 electors, of whom nearly 1,000 voted BNP in the Euro election on 4th June. This is the website analysis.

 First, who voted BNP? They were mainly men: they voted divided 61 per cent male, 39 per cent female. (Men comprise just 48 per cent in the electorate as a whole.)

 They were also more working-class. In the country at large, professional workers outnumber manual workers by 20 per cent to 18 per cent. Among BNP voters the pattern is very different: 36 per cent manual workers, 11 per cent professionals.

 One third of them read the Sun or Daily Star as against one in five adults generally; just 6 per cent of BNP voters read the upmarket papers (Times, Telegraph, Guardian etc), which is less than half the national average.

 Yet the household income of the typical BNP voter (£27,000 a year) is only slightly below the national median (£29,000) – and not that far below that of a typical Conservative voter (£33,000).

 It is not money that marks BNP voters apart as much as their insecurity. Just 19 per cent of BNP voters are “confident that my family will have the opportunities to prosper in the years ahead”. This compares with 59 per cent of Labour voters, 47 per cent of Lib Dem and Green voters, and 42 per cent of Conservative voters.

 Among UKIP voters the figure is also fairly low, at 28 per cent, which suggests that UKIP also picked up the votes of many who feel the traditional parties let them down – and not just on Europe.

 Not surprisingly, BNP voters regard immigration as the top issue facing Britain. Fully 87 per cent of them told us it was one of their top three or four concerns. (This compares with a still-high 49 per cent among the public as a whole.)

 But when people are shown the same list and asked which three or four issues “are the most important facing you and your family”, the figure falls to 58 per cent. True, this is three times the national average of 20 per cent, yet it means that for almost half of BNP voters, immigration is NOT among the worries of day-to-day life.

 We also find that most BNP voters do NOT subscribe to what might be described as “normal racist views”. Just 44 per cent agreed with the party in rejecting the view that non-white citizens are just as British as white citizens.

 Yet the feeling is widespread that white Britons get a raw deal. Seventy seven per cent of BNP voters think white people suffer unfair discrimination these days. But that is also the views of 40 per cent of the public as a whole.

 The average British voter is more likely to think that discrimination afflicts white people than Muslim or non-white people. And only seven per cent of the public think white people benefit from unfair advantages, while more than one in three think Muslim and non-white people receive unfair help.

 Thus the BNP is tapping into some very widely held views, such as the desire to stop all immigration, and the belief that local councils “normally allow immigrant families to jump the queue in allocating council homes” (87 per cent of BNP voters think this, but so does 56 per cent of the public as a whole).

 Yet, depending on how the term “racist” is precisely defined, our survey suggests that the label applies to only around a half of BNP voters. On their own, these votes would not have been enough to give the BNP either of the seats they won last night.

 There are two telling pieces of evidence that suggest wider causes of disenchantment. Seven out of 10 BNP voters (and almost as many Green and Ukip voters) think that “there is no real difference these between Britain’s three main parties”.

 But perhaps the most startling finding came when we tested anecdotal reports that many BNP voters were old Labour sympathisers who felt that the party no longer speaks up for them. It turns out to be true. As many as 59 per cent of BNP voters think that Labour “used to care about the concerns of people like me but doesn’t nowadays”.

 What is more worrying for Labour is that this sentiment is shared by millions of voters, way beyond the ranks of BNP voters. Overall, 63 per cent of the British public think Labour used to care about their concerns – and only 19 per cent think it does today.

 In contrast, just 29 per cent think the Conservatives used to care about their concerns; this figure has climbed to 37 per cent who think they care in the Cameron era.

 Yes, Labour has a problem with voters deserting the party for the BNP. But its far bigger problem as it heads towards the next general election is to extinguish the overwhelming public view, reinforced by the scandal over MPs’ allowances, that today’s Labour Party is no longer on the side of ordinary voters. And that, more than anything else, is why its vote collapsed to just 16 per cent in the Euro election.

Why the BNP is the Wrong Choice

Many who are considering voting for the BNP try to justify themselves in various ways. This is why they should think again.

1. It believes in punishing the troughing Pigs (the MPs).

The BNP are not explicit on this. If it is prosecuting those who are guilty of fraud, then a small minority will be prosecuted. Most MPs acted within the rules and on advice from the Fees Office. If the BNP obtained power do they impy they would restrospectively change the law to prosecute these opposition politicians, or just use this as an excuse to imprison the opponents.

2. A vote against the Muslims

The public face of the BNP is

“The British National Party is opposed to the Islamification of Britain in the same way that Muslim countries would be opposed to the Christianisation of their lands, and bears no animosity to any individual Muslim.”

So the leadership is at odds with their supporters?

3. A vote against Immigration

The BNP says

We call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.

Problem is that many of the most disliked immigrants – such as Asian muslims – are British born and British citizens. You will not turn Bradford or Burnley white by this policy. Also “voluntary resettlement” will not only include lots of taxpayer’s money, but also plenty of sticks.

4. Clamping down on Crime

Getting tough on crime does little to reduce it. With all the political prisoners, the BNP would have to build special prison camps.

5. Going after the Greedy Bankers

Like for the MPs, would this mean restrospectively changing the law, or just rounding them up?

6. Curing the Economic Crisis

Any prospect of BNP in government would cause a massive capital flight, and no foreign investment. That is unless the BNP so changes that it alienates it’s core voters. Beyond Nick Griffin, the leadership are generally clueless.

7. Backing a Christian Country.

Jesus’s core message was a very positive one. It is about loving the Lord your God first and your neighbour second – with all the rest following from that. (Matt 22: 37-40). It is about recognising our own faults, forgiving past wrongs done to us and helping others. In British culture it comes through in the ideas of playing fair, assuming people innocent until proven guilty, integrity in public life, giving sanctuary to oppressed minorities and voluntary work.

Further, if the BNP is so keen on emphasising that this is a Christian culture, why no greater promotion of Christianity in our schools?

Christianity is ingrained into British culture. By forgetting the positive role of the national religion, they are showing themselves to be an anti-British party.












Dan Hannan attacks the BNP

Daniel Hannan has an excellent post of the BNP in today’s Telegraph. Titled “Here’s a clip for the BNP dunderheads who troll this blog”.

“You may have noticed that, in recent weeks, my comment thread has attracted a disproportionate number of posts from BNP trolls. They rarely identify themselves as BNP supporters, at least not at first. But they give themselves away as much by their foul language, rudeness and bellicosity as by their obsession with Muslims and their hatred of David Cameron. It started when I pointed out that the BNP was a party of the far Left, committed to tax rises, nationalisation, external tariffs, the creation of state-run manufacturing industries, workers’ councils to run those industries and (though they tend to keep quiet about this) the abolition of the monarchy. As Hayek demonstrated, fascism is a strain of socialism: the conflict between Nazis and Communists was, he proved beyond reasonable doubt, a dispute between brothers.”

For those who want to get to know what Hayek has to say about the “Road to Serfdom”, there is a 5 minute youtube video here and the book from Amazon , Ebay or abebooks.

Another way the BNP are anti-British

Hannan believes that “any party that denies the equality of British subjects under the law is no British party.

There is a further way that BNP is fundamentally anti-British. Britain is an exporter of  political ideologies. Britain can lay claim to be the home of Liberalism (Locke, Mill etc.), Utilitarianism (Bentham), Conservatism (Burke) and Fabian Socialism (Toynbee, Webbs etc.), as well as being the home of Liberal Democracy. So why does an British Nationalist pick up the cast-offs of Southern Europe and former Central American Banana Republics?

BNP’s Economic Policy from a 16 year old



The errors are as follows


  1. The solution is less exports and imports.






  1. Recessions are caused by an excess of Aggregate Demand






2. The way out of recession is through investment.






3. There is only a finite level of output.







The end of Nadine Dorries’s Career?


