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Posts Tagged ‘Simon Darby’

Don’t jail Griffin

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Locking Griffin up would be a mistake

Reports in the The Sunday Times have suggested that Nick Griffin and BNP Deputy Leader Simon Darby could face jail time.

Last October the BNP was ordered by court to change its constitution to become colour blind by January 28th, and it looks increasingly unlikely that they will be unable to meet this deadline. The Times reports that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is ready “to ask the court to impose crippling sanctions, including a heavy fine or possible jail term”.

The BNP itself has claimed that Griffin is “unconcerned” and that they will raise the matter with the court itself. The BNP’s legal director Lee Barnes went so far as to write that Grifin would “love sitting in jail working on his autobiography” and that “in a stroke [he] becomes our nations Nelson Mandela”.

While Nothing British does not think Griffin is any danger of being mistaken for Mandela, neither do we think that he should be arrested. Obviously, the BNP should abide with the law, and if it cannot do so in time, a fine seems a fair response. However, throwing Griffin into jail would not only be excessive but risk turning him into a martyr  figure. The BNP are only too ready to portray themselves as victims of the establishment.

BNP faces prosecution for submitting ‘misleading’ accounts

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Simon Darby is angry about being asked about his party's dodgy accounts

Fiona Hamilton writes a very interesting and revealing piece in today’s Times that has caused a quite stir with the Party’s hierarchy

According to Hamilton, the BNP faces possible prosecution after providing accounts to the Electoral Commission that “failed to give a “true and fair view” of its financial circumstances.”

Figures released by the Commission “reveal how the party exaggerated its spending during the European elections”.

Throughout the European election campaign Nick Griffin claimed that the BNP spent more than £500,000 attracting voters. But, as Hamilton writes, “In fact, the party spent much less, £282,843 — only £54,000 more than it did during 2004.”

On the Times’s online article Simon Darby, the BNP Deputy-Chairman and senior Press Officer, blames bureaucracy for the errors and said the party needed to exaggerate its spending because “if we had said we wanted to spend 10p, it wouldn’t do us any good. … there’s a bit of hyperbole with politics”. He refused to comment further on the discrepancy, saying that it was not a “worthy question”.

Over on his blog an hysterical Darby still fails to address the central issue and shows just how well he gets on with the Press by making Alistair Campbell sound like a whimpering pussycat.

Having dealt with the BNP’s petulant Deputy-Chairman on a number of occaisions, Nothing British knows how fond he is a slamming down phones and how impossible he can be to get even the most basic of information from.

The BNP often complain that they are not treated fairly, but if they want this to change then senior figures like Darby are going to have to stop getting sensitive every time he is challenged and start grasping the fact that he lives in a democracy with a free press and that it is perfectly reasonable to be probed by journalists in the national media over his Party’s dodgy accounts.  

Nick Griffin attending European Parliament “Less Meat = Less Heat” Hearing

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Nick Griffin and fellow BNP MEP Andrew Brons will inexplicably be attending the European Parliament-hosted “Global Warming and and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat” hearing today. Also present will be environmental activist Sir Paul McCartney and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri.

The European Parliament website listing for the event describes the focus as being on urging “legislators and experts to focus on what an individual can do to fight climate change, for example by eating less meat.”

http://blogs.freshminds.co.uk/research/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/pork_pie.jpgSimon Darby assures his blog readers that “Andrew will be bringing a pork pie and Nick will be asking if he can have the windows open!”

For someone so apparently opposed to the waste of taxpayers’ money, Nick Griffin appears remarkably keen to waste it himself. Why would a man recently so vocal in his denial of global warming be so intent on wasting even his own time at such a hearing?

Could it have anything to do with publicity and pandering to UK anti-politics sentiment?