Election tactics.
It's certainly a relief that the British Nazi Party didn't make their feared electoral breakthrough - not in Scotland, where their share was trivial, nor in England and Wales. But there's no reason for complacency. In Glasgow, their posters were - still are - prominently displayed on street furniture, heavily plastered in working class areas and scattered on major routes as far out as the leafy suburbs. Every one an affront to human decency. This is the first time I can recall anything other than the occasional, rare sighting.This fits in with the BNP's tactics. Their rebranding as just-another-respectable-party is a front. They have always been and remain a mess of violent thugs whose favourite hobby is intimidating and beating up 'ethnics'. As they showed in the summer of '01, and in cases like this* they consider it a victory if they can stir up a climate of fear and hatred.
That's what the election posters are for. They will remain, signalling hostility and distrust, for weeks to come.
*Some readers will know of my personal connection to this.
This R4 documentary tells you everything you need to know about what a shady bunch of heid the ba's the BNP are - if you didn't already know. (Available streamed for 1 week from 8/5/07)
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4 comments:
"That's what the election posters are for. They will remain, signalling hostility and distrust, for weeks to come."
Interestingly, they're allowed 14 days (This planning advice note refers, but the relevant legislation appears to be the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements Regulations 1992) or the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (Scotland) Regulations 1984, as appropriate.)
In the event of a breach, I don't know what the penalty is, but I remember reading that TPTB come down quite hard on offenders, what with election candidates having an especial duty to set an example.
There's also a racist grafiti unit. I'll maybe call them next week.
Looks like I can actually listen to the Radio 4 bit this morning, if we can postpone leaving for the suburbs by an hour. I might just do that- this is a side of international news I rarely get to see.
It's scary that "parties" like that can even muster up much of a following out on the lunatic fringe, not to mention among your average neighborhoods. Thank goodness people like you are fighting the good fight.
Success!
A very nice election agent from Stirling advised me that local authorities tend to set their own time limits for posters, and after that they get the council to take them down and charge the party an 'appropriate' fee.
I noticed that in my area, everyone's were down - apart from the Nazis. So I e-mailed the Returning Officer (cc MP, MSP, local councillors). The Labour councillor replied, saying she was on the verge of getting out a ladder herself. But the Returning Officer also replied, confirming their policy and saying he'd get right on it. Great! It would have been a pity if the Nazis had removed them themselves, before their party funds had been raided.
I've an inkling that any Returning Officer would be more than willing to act. After all, their job is to support democracy.
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