I. R.

Have a look at Daniel Davies' piece in 'Comment is Free.' I usually like what he has to say, but this article strikes me as a little misjudged. Davies' heart is in the right place, of course, but it surely is rather worrying that the BNP appear to be picking up support at local democracy level in some places in the country (and as someone suggests in a comment posted below the article, 'anyone visibly non-WASP ' can be forgiven for feeling particularly anxious about it). Davies' point about the correlation between the apparent rise in support for the BNP on the one hand, and the ongoing effective purge of the hard right from the Conservative Party under Cameron seems quite a good one (and I have to say, as an aside, that his comment that 'for most of the last 30 years the average British unconscious fascist has assumed that his or her natural home was in the Conservative party' hit the right buttons and made me giggle). Nevertheless, it is worrying that many of those on the far-right who might previously have voted Tory now feel able (or compelled) to vote for an explicitly far-right group. It is something qualitatively different. I'm not sure, either, that it's accurate to say that the BNP is picking up all or even most of its support from disgruntled ex-Tory voters.

We've had 3 or 4 BNP electoral leaflets through the door in the past few weeks (never seen that before) - the last leaflet doubled-up as a window poster for supporters to demonstrate their voting intentions. Thankfully, I've not seen any of these on display, but the provision of window posters suggests a certain amount of confidence on the part of the fascists.

I have to admit that I forgot to register to vote this time. I feel quite bad about it because the BNP appear to be making an electoral push in the York area.