Tag Archives: nick griffin

Dominic Carman

Dominic Carman writes: Barnsley Central – a call to action

By Dominic Carman | Mon 14th February 2011 - 11:27 am

Six weeks ago, my son Charlie and I travelled up from London with Simon Hughes – to leaflet on behalf of Elwyn Watkins in the Oldham by-election. The campaign was fantastic: dozens of Lib Dems in a well-equipped campaign office and many more leafleting and campaigning on the streets. It produced an excellent result in difficult circumstances: Elwyn even increased his share of the vote to 31.9%.

On Saturday, I was selected as the PPC for the forthcoming Barnsley Central by-election, to be held on March 3rd. At the 2010 general election, the Lib Dems came second to Labour in …

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliamentary by-elections | Also tagged , , , and | 3 Comments
Stephen Tall

LDV TwtPoll – right or wrong to deny Nick Griffin entry to the Buckingham Palace garden party?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th July 2010 - 4:45 pm

A couple of days ago, Lib Dem Voice tweeted an instant poll asking the question, “Was it right or wrong for BNP leader Nick Griffin to be denied entry to the Buckingham Palace garden party?”

The poll’s still open, and you can vote here – here’s how voting currently stands:


All in all, pretty close, with 39% saying it was right, 33% saying it was wrong to deny him entry, and 26% saying he shoudn’t have been invited in the first place.

Posted in Voice polls | 2 Comments
Sara Bedford

So almost no-one agreed with Nick – and he doesn’t understand why?

By Sara Bedford | Tue 11th May 2010 - 1:49 pm

It has certainly been a bad week for Nick Griffin. The party polled badly in the General Election, with Griffin’s much-hyped bid to win Barking constituency ending in a poor third place. The BNP’s already tiny local council base took a pounding, with total wipe-out in Barking & Dagenham, a council they hoped to control. Most damning for the future of the party itself, there has been huge damage from defections and scandal, resulting in the BNP main web site being taken down just a week before the election.

Nick Griffin has sent an email out to party members, attempting to justify the truly terrible results of last week’s elections to BNP members.

So the election dust has now settled, and from our point of view there are four key outcomes: First, the resulting hung Parliament and political instability will rapidly add to Gordon Brown’s economic disaster. The Bank of England prediction that whoever won this election will end up being “out of power for a generation” is now going to apply to two of the three old parties. That’s bad news for Britain, but good news for us.

So the British National Party doesn’t really care about Britain – just itself?

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 12 Comments
Dominic Carman

Opinion: Nick Griffin destroyed his parents and failed his family

By Dominic Carman | Fri 23rd April 2010 - 2:20 pm

On Wednesday’s Today programme, BNP leader Nick Griffin told the Radio Four audience that “Liberal economics… have utterly bankrupted this country.” It’s laughable. The truth is that Nick Griffin was himself declared bankrupt in 1991. Over several years thereafter, he destroyed his parents financially as well. In this link, Griffin’s parents tell the story of how their son ruined their lives.

It is the story of a man whose gross personal financial incompetence brought significant misery to his entire family. Griffin racked up debts of several hundred thousand pounds through a series of disastrous property investments, which he describes …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 6 Comments
Dominic Carman

Barking campaign update

By Dominic Carman | Tue 20th April 2010 - 1:20 pm

The Barking campaign is remarkable. Most notable have not been the antics, or should that be the absence, of Nick Griffin. Instead, it has been the response of the other main candidates – Margaret Hodge (Labour) and Simon Marcus (Conservative) – to the issue of immigration.

Hodge and Marcus have both rightfully slammed Griffin and the BNP, but then courted BNP voters and potential BNP voters with anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Asked about immigration by Eddie Nestor, host of a BBC Radio London one hour debate on Barking (April 16th), Hodge had not one positive word to say about immigrants. Instead, her analysis was …

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Posted in General Election | Also tagged , , and | 2 Comments
Dominic Carman

“You’ll be found dead on the streets” – the message from a BNP supporter

By Dominic Carman | Sun 4th April 2010 - 1:25 pm

‘You’ll be found dead on the streets.’ That was the message I received a few weeks ago from an identifiable BNP supporter. Why? Because I was taking a stand against Nick Griffin. When someone writes this to you because you’re fighting as a Lib Dem in a parliamentary campaign against Griffin and the BNP, it makes you think very hard about your political opponent and the campaign they intend to fight. It also makes you think about how you should respond.

I reported the threat immediately to the police. They came to my house and have since referred the matter to …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , and | 22 Comments
Mark Pack

BNP hit by allegations of coups, infighting and sabotage

By Mark Pack | Sat 3rd April 2010 - 12:25 pm

Extract from a leaked BNP email bulletin:

For several months the party’s internal security team has been running an extensive and long-running investigation. This was initially tasked to investigate:

  • Alleged financial irregularities and ‘scamming’ concerning the procurement of print, especially large election print run, leaflets and regular publications including Identity magazine.
  • The leaking onto the internet of sensitive party information.
  • The ongoing, co-ordinated and sustained hate campaign, feeding lies to certain anti-BNP blog sites.

More recently, its focus has moved on to the catalogue of recurring and seemingly inexplicable ‘gaffes’ being made at various stages in our preparations for the general election by certain

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 19 Comments
Mark Pack

What’s up with Nick Griffin’s expense claims?

By Mark Pack | Wed 31st March 2010 - 10:50 am

Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies has spotted some rather odd entries in Nick Griffin’s expense claims from the European Parliament. Nick Griffin had previously stalled on publishing his expenses but now he’s given in to the pressure there are some distinct oddities:

a) Nick Griffin claims to have donated £5,575.91 to a fund that has only declared income of £4560.65.

b) Nick Griffin has previously said he employs three members of staff, one of whom is shared with another MEP. However the expense claims list eight people, give no names and only one of their job titles matches previous public statements about …

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Mark Pack

Total Politics: Dominic Carman responds to the Nick Griffin interview

By Mark Pack | Sun 28th March 2010 - 12:50 pm

Following Total Politics’s controversial decision to interview Nick Griffin, the magazine’s website is also running responses to it, including one from Dominic Carman (Lib Dem candidate for the same Barking constituency as Nick Griffin):

Take three of Griffin’s answers from the Total Politics interview and contrast them with what he told me privately:

On Afghanistan: “The only way you could win there is if you nuked it, which can’t be done.” He told me: “We should send (British) troops in to Afghanistan…and we should obliterate as many cities as it takes.”

On VAT: “We’ve never said we’re increasing VAT.” He told me: “Income

…

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Dominic Carman

‘Why I’m standing against Nick Griffin’ – Dominic Carman

By Dominic Carman | Fri 12th March 2010 - 11:50 am

There are many different reasons why I’m standing as a Liberal Democrat against Nick Griffin in Barking.

Here is just one of them.

My bus stop on the way home is outside Brixton station, next to Iceland supermarket. Waiting there, I recall what the BNP’s message of hatred can bring. For it was exactly at this spot on Saturday April 17th 1999 that the London nail bomber David Copeland planted his first bomb. The following Saturday, he planted another bomb in Brick Lane. A week later, his final bomb exploded inside a Soho pub, killing three people. Altogether 129 people were injured. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 13 Comments
Sara Bedford

Why has Nick Griffin suddenly become so shy?

By Sara Bedford | Sun 7th March 2010 - 11:36 am

It’s not like Nick Griffin to shy away from publicity. His reaction to any possibility of a flicker of spotlight is to run towards it, maximising the impact of his message of hate. But it seems that the BNP leader is now revealing a reticent side to his personality.

Today’s London edition of the BBC’s Politics Show will be covering the constituency of Barking, the one which Griffin hopes to win and become the BNP’s first MP. The programme will feature a discussion between the main parties’ candidates for the seat – and in the case of Barking, the BNP are sadly one of the contenders. But Griffin won’t be appearing, despite an invitation from the BBC. Why?

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 6 Comments
Helen Duffett

Lib Dems select Nick Griffin’s biographer to fight BNP in Barking

By Helen Duffett | Tue 2nd March 2010 - 7:50 am

Dominic Carman, son of the late George Carman QC, and biographer of BNP leader Nick Griffin, is to stand as the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Barking, East London.

From The Times:

He intends to use information from his research into the biography to attack his opponent. It was never released because publishers were unwilling to associate their brand with the BNP leader.

“I will put it to good use in exposing Griffin beyond what’s already been in the public domain,” he said. “It’s very important to fight a strong campaign and it will be critical to challenge Nick Griffin every

…

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Posted in Selection news | Also tagged , and | 6 Comments
Helen Duffett

The Christmas present Barking doesn’t need

By Helen Duffett | Wed 23rd December 2009 - 5:56 pm

BNP Christmas poster

I spotted this poster on my way through Barking yesterday – it features Nick Griffin, the BNP’s Parliamentary candidate for that constituency, raising a glass and purporting to wish the locals a Merry Christmas.

It’s in a high-traffic spot, and I’m told there are other such posters around the town. Griffin said when he was selected for the seat back in November that his party would concentrate more money and resources on Barking than they had done for any other election campaign.

Ironic that Griffin chooses this moment to highlight some of the benefits brought to this country from overseas.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP

Lord Pearson as a Tory party whip and Griffin v. Maloney

By Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP | Wed 9th December 2009 - 4:13 pm

UKIP have got themselves into a right pickle recently, poor things! It emerged last week that their new leader Lord Pearson a number of months ago made a somewhat controversial offer to the Conservative party. Pearson allegedly (The Times, 30 November, UKIP’s planned deal with Tories causes outrage in anti-Europe party) approached Lord Strathclyde, the leader of the Tories in the House of Lords, with an offer to disband the party and withdraw all UKIP candidates if the Tories agreed to hold a referendum on EU membership. Lord Strathclyde himself has confirmed that the meeting with Pearson, who is in fact a former Tory, took place.

Although Nigel Farage has since changed the story slightly saying that the offer only included withdrawing all candidates, this is still a pretty hefty political gamble.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , , , and | 15 Comments
Iain Roberts

Nick Griffin’s Barking Plan

By Iain Roberts | Sun 15th November 2009 - 7:56 pm

The BNP are holding their party conference – in a gym on the edge of an industrial estate near Wigan, with no journalists allowed – and the big news there is Nick Griffin’s plan to stand for Parliament in Barking next year.

Keen students of geography may notice that Barking is some way from the constituency that Mr Griffin currently represents in the European Parliament – the North West of England.  Clearly, whatever other objectives Nick Griffin might have, actually doing the job he was elected to do in June isn’t one of them.

Could the BNP win Barking?

It’s an odd …

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Posted in General Election | Also tagged | 12 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 30 October 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 30th October 2009 - 10:54 am

2 Big Stories

Ministry of Justice plans to cut polling day costs

Thousands of polling stations would be closed and voting hours reduced under a plan to cut the cost of elections.

Other proposals include cutting staff, replacing polling cards with e-mail requests, increasing candidates’ deposits, fixed-term parliaments and reducing security at election counts.

The options, outlined in a working paper drawn up by the Ministry of Justice for the Treasury, are designed to save up to £65 million. They were condemned last night as a “threat to democracy that would save peanuts”. (Times)

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , and | 1 Comment
Stephen Tall

LDVideo – Nick, Nick and Nickers

By Stephen Tall | Sat 24th October 2009 - 11:15 am

Okay, I’ve bowed to popular opinion – the Hazel Blears-inspired title for our occasional video round-ups, YouTube ‘cos we want to, is no more. Instead you’re getting the drably named LDVideo. BUT just because you’ve made me drop my punning motif doesn’t mean the videos that follow are anything less than scintillating.

First up, we have Cassettboy’s Nick Griffin / BBC Question Time mash-up which was being re-tweeted like nobody’s business yesterday. Childish but fun:

Earlier this week, Nick Clegg pitched up on Absolute Radio to be interviewed by Christian O’Connell – here’s a little bit of what happened:

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Posted in YouTube | Also tagged and | 2 Comments
The Voice

LibLink … Chris Huhne: Griffin is trying to peddle hatred against Muslims

By The Voice | Fri 23rd October 2009 - 3:55 pm

Over in the Independent, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne writes about his experiences on last night’s BBC Question Time as a fellow panellist alongside BNP leader Nick Griffin. Here’s an excerpt:

The key method of Griffin was on display: pretend to be moderate and reasonable in order to garner support which would be revolted if it knew his real agenda. He was confronted with quotes from YouTube, in which he told David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan that the BNP had to move softly because the British people were not yet ready for talk of racial purity, so

…

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Stephen Tall

What did you make of Chris Huhne’s Question Time performance? #bbcqt

By Stephen Tall | Fri 23rd October 2009 - 10:39 am

So that was the Question Time that was. There is copious assessment of Nick Griffin’s performance, linked to here on LDV.

My views are straightforward. First, Nick Griffin came over badly, but that is immaterial: those who are BNP-inclined will likely have seen him as the victim of a liberal, metropolitan, media stitch-up; and those who despise the BNP will have had their view confirmed.

Secondly, my over-riding sense was of relief that the BNP don’t have a more slick, plausible leader. The moment is ripe for a truly charismatic, attractive, anti-politician to play the demagogue: Nick Griffin is decidedly not that person, thankfully.

Such are my thoughts on Mr Griffin – but what about Chris Huhne’s performance?

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 31 Comments
The Voice

BBC1 Question Time: your Lib Dem blogs reader

By The Voice | Fri 23rd October 2009 - 10:34 am

Here’s the click-through of posts published on the Lib Dem blogs in response to last night’s BBC1 Question Time, with Nick Griffin. If we’ve missed your post, or you write something later on, please post your link in the comments thread:

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 23 October 2009

By Helen Duffett | Fri 23rd October 2009 - 9:02 am

2 Big Stories

Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time

British National Party leader Nick Griffin has used his Question Time appearance to criticise Islam and defend a past head of the Ku Klux Klan.

He also told a largely hostile audience that Winston Churchill would be a BNP supporter if he were alive, and said he would find two men kissing “creepy”.

Anti-fascist protestors scuffled with police outside BBC TV Centre in west London before the show was filmed.

Minister Peter Hain said the BBC had legitimised the BNP’s “racist poison”.

But the corporation defended the invitation to the leader of the anti-immigration party to appear, saying it had a duty to be impartial.

One of the panellists, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, said it had been a “catastrophic week for the BNP because for the first time the views of the BNP have been properly scrutinised”.

And following the programme, other panellists said Mr Griffin had been exposed. BBC (with video)

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , and | 1 Comment
Alex Foster

BBC Question Time – LDV open thread, 22 October 2009 #bbcqt

By Alex Foster | Thu 22nd October 2009 - 10:05 pm

It’s Thursday, it’s 10.35 pm … it’s BBC1’s Question Time.

It is, of course, the most highly anticipated Question Time ever with a colossal media storm surrounding the invitation of BNP leader Nick Griffin. The evening news says that there are massive protests outside BBC TV Centre, with twitter reports that staff are almost under siege. Across the country, protests are happening at regional BBC offices.

For the Liberal Democrats, it’s leadership contender and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Huhne taking up cudgels for the yellow corner. Baroness Sayeeda Warsi will be in the blue corner, and Lord Chancellor Jack Straw …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV | Also tagged , , , and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

Nick Griffin’s verdict on Chris Huhne

By Stephen Tall | Thu 22nd October 2009 - 6:20 pm

Ahead of tonight’s BBC1 Question Time – featuring the BNP leader Nick Griffin – The Guardian reports his verdicts on his fellow panellists. Here’s what he said about Chris Huhne, the Lib Dems’ shadow home secretary:

Big hitter. Menzies Campbell would have been more daunting.

And here’s what he said about the other panellists:

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Iain Roberts

Daily View 2×2: 21 October 2009

By Iain Roberts | Wed 21st October 2009 - 8:01 am

2 Big Stories

Griffin invokes the Nazis

BNP leader Nick Griffin compares British Generals to Nazi war criminals – he really doesn’t like people criticising his party. As the BBC reports:

Comparing them to Nazi military chiefs who faced trial at Nuremberg Mr Griffin said they had pursued “illegal wars”.

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged | Leave a comment
Helen Duffett

Two charged with publishing BNP membership list

By Helen Duffett | Sat 22nd August 2009 - 7:50 am

Two people have been charged under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act* with leaking the BNP’s membership list, including contact details and family information.

From the Guardian:

The list, which identified thousands of people linked to the far-right party, was posted on the web in November 2008. Information included addresses and other contact information such as mobile phone numbers and the names and ages of children in a family membership.

Dyfed-Powys police said a 27-year-old man and 30-year-old woman were charged under the Data Protection Act after a joint investigation with the Information Commissioner’s Office. The pair lived in the Nottingham area at the time of the leak.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 1 Comment
Helen Duffett

Daily View 2×2: 15 July 2009

By Helen Duffett | Wed 15th July 2009 - 11:25 am

2 Big Stories

BNP shunned at European Parliament opening
The Times reports on the British National Party MEPs taking their seats yesterday at the opening of the European Parliament:

The new members, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, avoided the European anthem and were allocated places 780 and 781, towards the back of the Strasbourg chamber with kindred MEPs from the neo-fascist parties of Belgium, Bulgaria, France and Hungary.

They were immediately shunned by their fellow non-aligned MEP, Diane Dodds, the Democratic Unionist, who refused to take up seat 782 next to Mr Brons. It remained empty throughout the opening session of the

…

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , , , and | 1 Comment
Nick T

GriffinWatch: exposing the BNP

By Nick T | Sat 13th June 2009 - 11:00 am

Like most of you I am not a fan of the BNP. Their views are irrational, parochial and dangerous. But they have now, for the first time, managed to get two MEPs elected, one of whom is their leader, Nick Griffiin, in the North West.

It’s quite likely that both of these MEPs will be in office until the next election, so we now have to consider what will be the best strategy to defeat them after their five year term in the European Parliament. In my view, a key part of this strategy will be to highlight what they’ve …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 14 Comments
Richard Huzzey

Where I disagree with ConHome over the BNP’s Buckingham Palace Invitation

By Richard Huzzey | Thu 21st May 2009 - 1:28 am

There will be – and should be – widespread disgust at the suggestion that BNP leader Nick Griffin is going to attend a Buckingham Palace garden party, hosted by HM the Queen. For the overwhelming majority of Britons who support racial and cultural diversity, it is offensive to see the British National Party attending a function hosted by the Head of State in honour of public service. It would be embarrassing for the Queen herself, who has been rightly keen to emphasise she is constitutional monarch for Britons of all faiths and races.

However, it would be mistaken to focus …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , and | 18 Comments

Why I’m glad Nick Griffin was acquitted

By Charles Anglin | Sat 11th November 2006 - 11:40 am

Nick Griffin, the Leader of the BNP, was acquitted yesterday of charges of inciting racial hatred. In 2004 Griffin made a speech to BNP activists in which he described Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” and said that Muslims were turning Britain into a “multi-racial hell hole”.

Griffin is a racist, he espouses an ugly creed based on fear and ignorance, almost every word he says is offensive. But being offensive shouldn’t be enough to land you in jail.

Yesterday, Mizanur Rahman, a young radical Islamist was jailed for his part in the protest earlier this year over the Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. Rahman waved banners and chanted into a megaphone shouting “Annihilate those who insult Islam” and “Behead those who insult Islam.”

Although he apologises now, Rahman’s remarks were full of hate, they were grotesque, offensive and shocking. But being shocking shouldn’t be enough to get you convicted.

I’m a black gay man and much of the anti-hatred legislation that Griffin and Rahman were prosecuted under was designed to protect people like me. But freedom is a delicate thing, and I believe that our current raft of hate crime laws in danger of undermining the very freedom they aim to protect.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 5 Comments
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