I'm sorry. I got it wrong. There are 18 wards in Lewisham not 54. 3 wards represents 1 in 6, not 1 in 20. The total number of votes cast in the three wards is closer to 9,000. The petition is the equivalent to 60% of voters in the three wards - slightly more than the top three parties combined. Still a very significant number.

Apologies for my confusion.

If the polices of the National Socialists are so awful why not donate time to one of the other political parties and counter the National Socialists directly.

Its seems to me that a lot of people are quick to counter the National Socialists in words, but not in action. All mainstream parties would love to have volunteers, that's how you beat these awful people.

Who are the National Socialists, Dan?

"Who are the National Socialists, Dan?"

National Socialism is one of the two main variants of socialism, the other being international socialism.

Both believe in higher levels of state control for the ?collective good? they favour nationalisation wage/price controls etc. Where they differ is international socialism believes in workers of the world uniting, they perceive the struggle as being one primarily of class, irrespective of national boundaries.

National Socialism see the struggle as being one of Nation as in the case of the classical fascist Mussolini branch, or Race as in the case of Hitler?s Nazi party. This is the type employed by the BNP who combine more familiar left wing economic policy with ?racism? to be blunt. All versions attempt to appeal to the ?average working man?.

International Socialism is the older, and was initially popular in the early part of the last century, although it lost ground to National Socialism in the 1920?s and 1930?s. However the same people who initially supported international socialism started switching in large numbers. This lead Stalin to brand it as ?far right? in an attempt to cast fascists as polar opposites to bolshevists (Russian International Socialism). This is despite the two philosophies being extremely similar in their answers to the mechanics of state.

In many ways we now see the same convergence taking place as traditional Labour supporters convert to the BNP. This was highlighted recently as in the North of England the Labour share of the vote fell and moved to the BNP resulting in the election of two BNP MEP?s.

Socialism in all its forms have wreaked misery in the last century, it must be opposed, even today the modern Labour party attempts to distance itself from this woeful philosophy. National Socialism is no different and must be strongly opposed. It is sad when the BNP can essentially lift the 1983 Labour manifesto add in racism and win popular support.

Especially sad they dare to put Churchill on their flyers, a great man who spent his life fighting the evil of socialism at home and abroad.

I'm not sure the evidence points to Labour supporters switching their votes to the BNP . Its my perception that the issue was that Labour supporters, and indeed many who would normally have voted for other mainstream parties, just didn't turn out to vote at all. I also don't think there was a massive increase in votes for the BNP overall.

Clearly history has been considerably re written since I left school!

Hmmm, the Nazis were nether left or right but the 3rd way.
No doubt companies were well regulated and clamped down on hard when they let greed get in the way of national interests (and capitalism needs loads of regulating, as we have been recently reminded). Then again, companies that collaborated got away with murder.

I think it fair to say any socialism was over shadowed by other characteristics and it is quite bizarre that should be singled out as the defining feature.

Give it another 2000 years and the Nazis will probably be admired for all the straight roads they built in europe or some such. If we learn anything from history, it is we dont really learn anything at all.

Interesting post Dan on the Hill. You've had us talking about it at home for over an hour!

The only point I would like to bring up is that I don't think many people are voting BNP because of its socialist policies. I don't think many people who voted BNP actually know what its policies are.

I wonder how may of those proud British northerners would have voted BNP if they knew the BNP wanted to remove the queen from her throne and abolish the monarchy?

Personally I find this bazaar. It was government intervention that caused these problems. I assuming we are talking about Banks, and correct me if I?m wrong. I need to point out that all banks complied perfectly with all the masses of regulation the FSA threw at them, so perhaps regulation is not the answer. If 5 volumes of regulation didn?t have the slightest impact why would 7 volumes, or 10?

Rather I put it to you that the banks responded correctly to the massive injection of new money the government created by reducing the reserve requirement to just 4% (under Labour banks only need to keep 4p of every ? in the safe, the rest could be loaned out). Also Labour increased the money supply by increasing public spending though debt. All this extra money washing around the system lead to false signals to the market, leading to spirally assets prices in terms of house prices, and bided up the factors of production, public sector pay.

The banks were responding rationally to an inflated money supply, to an environment of no more boom and bust. Actually it was the governments fault for mishandling the money supply and encouraging mass debt.

Firstly I abhor the BNP and their policies.

Could not believe article in the Daily Teelgraph this morning. I think HMG are doing their best to recruit for the BNP.

Policies like the Government statement that Gypsies should be given priority in surgeries and hospitals. They should be allowed twice as long as normal people plus and can walk in and insist they are seen without an appointment at any time.
Where did this policy come from and what coulod be more likely to swell the ranks of the BNP and other right wing extreme parties.
No one should get priority over others in NHS especially a so called community who do not ( as far as I know ) contribute to taxes that pay for our NHS.
Why do HMG make such stupid statements. Surely they must know how it will be read.
Again before I get abused ( which I will probably get anyway ) I am only repeating article from mainstream broadsheet and I do not support the BNP.
Thought this was worth mentioning as some people wonder why people vote for the extreme parties. This type of thing could be one of the reasons. I am glad The Conservatives have condemmed the policy.

Brian, gypsies are at the end of the day as normal or abnormal as you or I or anyone else in the population.

Having read the article I think the reasoning is sound, ie that travellers have relatively poor access to primary care and known generally as a hard to reach community, hence suffer disproportionately as a result. However I do think that pronouncements and announcements need to be handled carefully but parties such as the BNP and right wing tories will pick up on this sort of thing regardless.

Having said that I am not sure on what basis as many gypsies in the UK probably have longer residency status than a lot of people and hence are likely to be undeniably British. More so than I am. And perhaps you too, Brian. As I see it they are a group who need better access to primary health care which can only be preventative in the long term and hence save money all round in the long term.

Who are you to decide if they are a 'community'? Roma people are a recognised ethnic group in Britain, one that experiences plenty of discrimination, health inequalities, and lower life expectancy than any other so called community in this country.

Many have the same types of jobs as people in the wider community and pay income tax just like the rest of us, they pay council tax and VAT just like you or I (unless you are an MP).

Fortunately we do not live in a country where access to health services is based on how much you earn or how much tax you pay. It is based on your health needs. But when you have a group of people with such poor health outcomes, it makes sense for guidance to be given to GPs to spend a bit longer with them, just as they should with anybody else who might have undiagnosed health difficulties, and where I agree with you is that the statement should have included a note to this effect as well.

Currently 91% of people have voted on the Daily Mail site to allow Gypsies to jump the queue - http://bit.ly/w4b6Q

From Twitter:
RT @jmuttram @robmoss @JanieStamford @kdaly100 @Glinner: Worst Daily Mail poll ever. VOTE YES to skew the results and pass it on! http://bit.ly/w4b6Q

Michael and Roz
Purely repeating the article. However I do not think they should get preferential treatment. Surely I am entitled to my point of view.

Roz
Do not think I mentioned whether they were British or not. You mention more British than me that may indeed be the case but not the issue. FYI my sister has traced our family tree back to Kingnorth near Ashford to about 1670 though not sure what relevance that has.

I was merely trying to point out why , in my humble opinion , some people would be driven to the likes of the BNP by such HMG Pronouncements.

I do agree whether you pay tax or not should not mean you get better or worse treatment at NHS , just trying to point out that if everyone took the attitute of paying no taxes there would be no NHS.

I thought , wrongly it would appear , that the question why some people may be tempted to vote BNP would be relevant to the discussion , but obviously not. I was merely quoting a mainstream establishment newspaper.

Best wishes

I recommend reading the Primary Care Service Framework itself (well, if you can stand to read NHS Service Frameworks ), which explains that it is not about providing preferential or different treatment, but ensuring that the community can access the same high quality health services as the rest of the country. Rather than "queue jumping" it's about offering flexibility with appointments (so for example the GP would knock 20 mins off his lunch break to see a family of gypsies).

If you don't want to read the framework, I would certainly recommend reading the report by Sheffield University (from 2004 - easily Googleable) which led to this being introduced - it will explain why this community is in such desperate need of high quality health care, and why ensuring it is available is so important. In fact, one could easily argue that by offering flexibility in a primary care setting, long-term conditions could be more easily and effectively treated, thus saving the NHS a lot of money in the long run by avoiding complications that would require hospital treatment.

As is so often the case, this has been reported by the press in a misleading and inflammatory way, but I still think that it would only push someone to vote for the BNP if they wanted to be pushed in that direction in the first place.

We are never going to agree on this Dan except to say Gordon Brown certainly is largely responsible for the economic mess we are in today.

As for the press, Brian is right. The rags are continually whipping up hatred for minorities/europe with these 'you could not make it up' type stories. Half of them are made up and of the rest, many are just suggestions by some thinktank that never get implemented.

So no wonder some of the more gullible white working classes think the BNP might bring back some 'common sense' and throw a bone their way too.

PS I think the BNP are in favour of a royal family - just not the current one!

Sophie
I accept your comments and agree it was very badly put my the minister and reported by the press.
As long as they are not jumping the queue no problem with me.

Re voting BNP . I for one could never see myself voting that way. I have always voted in every election since 1970 for all mainstream parties and two others ( not BNP ).
I think the drip drip of badly worded HMG statements do not help when it comes to persuading others not to vote BNP. I do know an elderly lady from Sydenham who did vote BNP ( or said she did ) she kept refering to speakers on LBC. Not sure what she meant as only listen to Radio 4

On the definition of National Socialism I would argue that to try to align National Socialism (Nazism) with Socialism is like trying to align Social Darwinism with Darwinism.

In both cases the ideologies are significantly different from those of similar names. In the case of both National Socialism and Social Darwinism the key to their beliefs is racism, not Socialism or Darwinism, and in both cases they attempt to twist and distort popular ideologies/beliefs into their twisted view of the world.

Another example of this misuse of political terms is any country with "People's Democratic Republic of..." in their title. They are normally exactly the opposite.

Michael I disagree. The Nazi Party was born out of the German Workers Party. Hitler and senior party members spoke often of their Socialist beliefs, they are incontrovertibly Socialist if you read the history of the period you can come to no other conclusion. But rather than take my word for it why not read their own manifesto, as you read this ask yourself, are these the policies of a capitalist party or a socialist party?:

The 1920, Nazi Manifesto.

Hmm yes, sound like anything other than socialists to you?

Which brings me back to my original point. That's the manifesto of the Nazis, you know, them lot who were in power in 1930s Germany. Not of the BNP. They may be similar, but they are not the same. The only people who have an interest in saying they are are those who are not quite as far right as the BNP or the likes of Searchlight, who jump to the Nazi term rather too quickly.

And anyway, if you read the history of the Weimar republic, you'll know that a lot of water had passed under the ideological bridge between 1920 and 1933.

Equating the BNP with socialism on the grounds that they're a bit like the Nazis, and the Nazis had the word 'Socialist' in their name and began with a few Socialist policies remains absurd. In recent times it has been attempted in the British press by such moderate figures as Richard Littlejohn, Melanie Phillips, Tom Utley and Peter Hitchens.

The Nazis did very little to implement any of this other than by dispossessing and murdering people of Jewish decent.

I find it difficult to believe that you would take a document produced in 1920, even before the beer hall putch, as a serious analysis of Nazi intentions or actions. It is Nazi propaganda designed at that stage to attract people from the popular Socialist and Communist movements that existed at that time. This was just a few years after the Russian revolution and a year after the failed German Communist revolution. They were attempting to form a mass movement Nationalist party and used some of the language of Marxism to attract people (just as Marx used the language of Hagel who was not regarded as left-wing).

Nazi ideology did change between 1920 and 1936 when they took power. But although they continued to use anti-Capitalist rhetoric it was usually aimed solely at Jewish businesses and not at 'German' capitalist.

Furthermore, just because the manifesto states that "We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state", it does not mean that the holocaust was not designed and implemented by the Nazis.