Here’s what he really thinks:

“The people who have the brains and ability got out (of London) years ago, one way or another. The people who are left are either the 15 per cent of the population who are happy to put up with it, they’re so decadent they actually like it, or they are too stupid to do anything about it. They will vote BNP, but you can’t build a movement on those people.” - Nick Griffin 1997

Presumably, then, his “solutions” for London will involve the following:

1. The forcible resettlement on the, “decadent,” the “stupid,” and, of course, the blacks.
2. The forcible resettlement of those with “brains and ability” (and bigotry) in Mile End.

If UAF wanted to slash the BNP’s vote, they’d do worse to start by printing that on billboards across the capital…

(Hat tip: Tory Troll)

(The resemblence in uncanny.  Hat tip for idea: Aaron Heath)

The Tories look likely to win the by-election in Crewe and Nantwich.  The latest poll puts it as Con 43, Lab 39, Lib Dem 16.  That’s a Labour seat of 25 years a 7028 majority potentially sliding its way down the electoral lavatory.  Shit in Mr. Brown’s tea?  I fear so.

It’s hardly surprising, though. By all accounts, Labour have run a campaign so poor in C&N they deserve to be roundly thrashed by the Beauties for Britain candidate.  First, they parachute in Tamsin Dunwoody, spawn of Gwyneth, arrogantly counting on the family name to win them the votes.  Treating voters in local elections as if they’ll simply be taken in by a name rather than what someone can actually do for a community is patronising in the extreme, and will be seen as such.  Especially when the daughter is imposed before her mother is even buried, which seems a little insensitive…

That shouldn’t kill it, though.  It’s arrogant and insensitive, but not fatal (hah…?).  A weak, weak campaign would do, though.  And that is what Labour have run.  Brown hasn’t shown up to support Dunwoody, while Clegg and Cameron have.  Dunwoody hasn’t based her attacks in reason, or trying to show the complete shallowness of Cameron’s D’Israeli Resurrection Project, but equally shallow personal slurs.  The Tory candidate, Edward Timpson, is a millionaire, she says, and lives in a big country house.  He is thus a bastard aristo that must be stopped.

This leaflet is typical.  Two points attack Timpson’s background; two make vague neanderthal policy points that sound more like Michael Howard than Michael Howard; and the final is generic.  There’s little substantial there, and no reason to actually vote for Labour, rather than another alternative to the Tories.

It won’t work.

Does it never occur to the Labour strategists that Tony Benn - sorry, Viscount Stangate, Retired - was a bastard aristo too?  The electorate doesn’t care.  They care about the words that spill forth from a candidate’s mouth, not their bank balance.  Painting Cameron as an unreconstructed Bullingdon shit hasn’t worked; painting BoJo as an unreconstructed Bullingdon shit didn’t work; and it won’t work with Timpson.

If nothing else, because he went to Durham…

The way to deal with a weak candidate - and the Tories are still weak when it comes to policy, ultimately - is to attack their weak policies, and provide a strong alternative.  Attacking their character instead simply masks what strong policies you do have, and ever worse, makes it look like you’re covering for a lack of them.

That’s what has turned this by-election upside down.  All Timpson has had to do is keep his mouth shut, write the odd angry letter about the 10p tax rate, and leave the rest up to Dunwoody and the Lib Dems, who’ve run a similar campaign.

Never mind national politics, Labour look like they’d have lost there anyway…

I pity Gordon Brown.  Not for his catalogue of mistakes - they are his fault, and he should be held totally responsible.  But the latest crisis has put him in rather a sticky position: no response to Wendy Alexander’s call for an early referendum could have been successful.  She U-Turned without telling Gordon Brown - clearly the result of her belief that Labour will lose the next general election.  She should know - Labour in Scotland lost their shared power to the SNP last year.  She rather stuck Gordon in it.

Brown is stuck in a rut.  He wants to save the union, as does Wendy Alexander.  It is clear that Alexander now sees a referendum as the inevitable consequence of SNP rule, and expects them to wait until a broadly English-elected Conservative party takes the helm in Westminster.  To save the union, therefore, she hopes to see a referendum take place at a time suited to her, not to the SNP.  The timing of referenda, of course, being the most important factor in their outcome.  But Gordon Brown cannot call a referendum on Scottish independence.

To do so would apportion blame on his shoulders; the Prime Minister who allows the public voice to be heard is surely the one who sets the ball rolling - the slippery slope to independence would begin at his hands.  He also knows that Scotland requires Westminster to annex it, and Brown will trust on parliamentary support from all sides in order to prevent that happenning even if Scotland votes for independence.  (For what it is worth, I suspect this eventuality is the reason Alex Salmond has retained his parliamentary seat.)  If he is prepared to overrule a referendum, why on earth call one?

A more pressing concern is that Scotland is not the only nation which should have a say in the future of the Union.  Just like the inbalance of devolution, an imbalance of independence should not be tolerated.  What Union is is that allows one componant to vote for independence but not another?  Why should Scotland have a referendum but England not?  Why not Wales?  Northern Ireland?  I do not wish to see any referenda on the issue.  But if there are, there should be four.

Clearly this raises issues for Northern Ireland, so tentatively staring peace in the face, ready to face a brave new world of powersharing and co-operation.  A referendum on independence would doubtless throw new light on buried issues - albeit issues buried very close to the surface.  But a referendum on independence in Scotland could not pass without requests for the same in Northern Ireland - a nation for which a referendum would clearly be a more legitimate request.

There is the glorious possibility of a Tory government being met with a referendum north of the border showing popular support for independence; if the Conservatives refused to grant it, and SNP-run Scottish Parliament may well unilaterally declare Scotland’s independence.  I suspect the poll would show minority support and would hit the SNP hard at the next Scottish Parliament elections, but the prospect of a unilateral declaration would be something of a spectacle.

Brown has been thrown into an issue he does not want to be in, thanks to his inept Scottish party leader.  But the issue will haunt him.  In a strange irony, the SNP are hoping for an English-elected Conservative government; Gordon Brown’s lingering in office is a gift to Alex Salmond.  The larger the Tory majority, the further into Scotland they creep - it is worth considering that a Tory majority about as large as Labour has now would contain considerably fewer Scottish MPs than a majority twice as big.  It’s a balancing act.

This is democracy’s greatest triumph; voters in Scotland in 2010 can knock Labour down, beef up SNP support, and wait for a referendum or they can vote Tory and break Salmond’s greatest weapon; an English Tory government in Westminster.  With a Scottish Prime Minister and a heavy presence in the cabinet, Salmond’s main weapon has yet to come into his own.  English voters opting for a party totally committed to the retention of the Union run the risk of giving the SNP  golden arrow, which will see the end of a United Kingdom.

It is not all bad news, but it could soon become so.  In the meantime, few people benefit from continuing arguments on the subject.