The BNP accuse Councillor Brian Coleman

I pondered long and hard about posting this particular blog. It made me ask myself "What is the fundamental point of writing a blog such as the Barnet Eye". The answer has to be "To inform people of things which they may not have been aware".

As I detailed yesterday, I was at Barnet Spires shopping centre, collecting signatures for the library petition. I had a conversation with a man who voted BNP at the last election. It started quite jovially. He signed the petition and said that he thought Barnets Tory councillors were a complete disgrace. No argument from me there. He then said he used to be a  Tory and despised socialists and communists.  He then said "I'm not a racist, but I vote BNP". I asked him why, if he isn't a racist. He responded that "It was because of Brian Coleman, he's worse than Adolf Hitler". Now I don't like Brian Coleman. Any search on this blog will tell you just how much I dislike him, but to compare him to Adolf Hitler? A man responsible for the most terrible war in the history of the planet. The man responsible for the genocide of the Jews?

He replied "yeah but on a personal level Brian Coleman is much worse" and walked off. I was truly taken aback. Then I thought about it. If you support a party, such as the BNP, which is sympathetic to the policies of the German Nazi party and who's leader is on record as an admirer of Hitler, then of course you'd think Brian Coleman is worse than him, because you must think Hitler is OK on some level.

Vicki's blog has had some pretty bizarre comments from BNP supporters recently. Deriding the local campaign to save libraries and calling Barnet pensioners who sign it "frail lemmings" amongst other things. As I watched my sons football match this morning, I pondered these things. I guess that the comment from the bloke who voted BNP sums up what I was thinking. They are just completely out of touch with both reason and reality. Barnet politics would be far better off without the likes of Coleman, but he's not a genocidal maniac, a war criminal or anything other than a rather sad and talentless individual who has carved himself out a lucrative niche at the taxpayers expense. The trouble with the BNP is that they are out of touch with ordinary British people. Things such as libraries are part of the fabric of British Society. They are worth preserving. Things like racism and Xenophobia are not. The reason that Great Britain is successful as a nation is because we are outward looking. We are reasonable. We can see the big picture, which is why people would recognise the comparison of Hitler with Brian Coleman as ridiculous. Sadly there is a small subsection called the BNP which rejects all of these values.