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. That festive drink can’t be a glass of British red as our climate’s not warm enough (yet) to grow grapes for red wine.
And the Christmas tree’s a (gasp) European import, a tradition which originated in Germany.
And the Christmas story itself – don’t get me started…
Posters like this won’t fool anyone: Griffin’s party with their hateful policies are the last thing Barking needs for Christmas, the New Year or the new Parliament.
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10 Comments
You can grow red grapes in England. The well known varieties like Merlot and Cab Sauv won’t grow that well – you’d get some, but a low yield and probably not fully ripe – but some of the German varieties like Dornfelder will do quite well.
Denbies in Surrey have been making red wine for decades, it always used to be pretty rough but I’m told it’s better now. There are quite a few other vineyards making it, including Wickham in Hampshire and Camel Valley in Cornwall.
(Perhaps that’s why Nick Griffin doesn’t want to do anything about global warming, perhaps he wants to support the English wine industry? 🙂 A couple of degrees warmer would make the south of England ideal for red wine, and much of southern Europe too hot.)
These were the grapes that grew in my last rented house before we moved 🙂
I think it is important that we fight for what the BNP stand for, not some pretence of what they stand for. Has the BNP ever opposed imports of wine? Or Christmas trees? What they genuinely stand for is grim, so let’s not accuse them of things that they don’t stand for, and can get off the hook by showing our criticisms to be wrong.
Rather than hand wringing about a BNP poster is the last thing Barking needs, perhaps we should ask ourselves why we – or other parties in Barking – are not doing the same, or similar, or better?
Would love to tip that wine over his suit…if it wasn’t for the thought he might glass me with it afterwards…
I wonder how long the posters will last before being defaced
Jo – you pour the wine, I’ll chuck the baubles at him!
Tim – by pointing out that a lot of our “traditions” are actually imported from other countries, it helps make a nonsense of the BNP’s position.
Mark – you’re techincally right, Denbies do make red, but the soil in that area and the overall temperature is more akin to the Champagne area of France and the conditions are therefore better for making white wine. There is also a vineyard in Yorkshire which makes white – it was on “Oz & James Dink to Britain”.
Tim – the core of the BNP’s ideology is the idea of a British Isles (actually Nordic if you go deep enough) pure racial identity and culture. That is a fundamental piece of nonsense (google “king of stonehenge
But if we go around saying that BNP want to ban Christmas trees when they don’t, we look silly. It might be that it would be logical for them to want to do that, but if they don’t we look silly and they come across as reasonable.
Well I would say that the BNP are a an protectionist party too, so I’m fairly sure their economic incompetence would mean they look down on imports (wine or otherwise). So even if they don’t have a policy of banning foreign wine (if the wine is foreign, see above comments), I’m sure they’d like to put a big tariff on it.
There’s some red wine produced in Sussex, too. I’ve not come across any particularly good ones, but there are some really good sparkling whites produced here.