Prejudice, Brian Coleman and the BNP

I've lived in Mill Hill virtually all my life. I know all sorts of people from all walks of life and I do my best to try and get on with just about everyone. I have very strong views about quite a few things. One thing I have a big problem with is prejudice of any sort. If you look at the word, it is derived from an abbreviation of Prejudging. Prejudging means that you think you can anticipate the actions of someone. If I was to set up a tent in Mill Hill Broadway and tell you that I was able to anticipate your actions, you'd probably think I was a nutcase. You would probably be right to think so. If I had that ability, I'd be living in Burmuda with my winnings on the horses. Prejudice means that you believe that someone is likely to behave in a certain manner, without any actual evidence they will. In it's mildest form it goes along the lines of "red haired people are hot headed". In a more extreme form, you get racial prejudice. This in effect means that someone is deemed to be a lesser person because of skin colouration.

If you do a DNA test of just about anyone in the UK, you'll find strains of all sorts of races. There is one you are rather unlikely to find - that of the Pict's - the earliest dwellers of these Islands. We've had the Celts, the Romans, The Vikings, the Normans, etc, etc. All of these have left their mark on the country. None of them are indigenous. One thing you can be sure of, is that there are no political parties demanding that Great Britain be returned to the Picts (or the Celts, Normans or Romans). The BNP would like us to favour "The British" in law. Presumably at some arbitary point, a stake is nailed in the ground and that is the point where you become British.

Their assertion is that other races have nothing to offer us. A quick walk around London reveals some fine buildings. I have an interest in Victiorian Architecture. Buildings built when Great Britain ruled the world are amongst the finest in the world. Engineering feats such as St Pancras Station and Tower Bridge are fine examples of our creativeness, intelligence and technical prowess as a race. My point is that these fine buildings and the wealth of the Victorian era were based on "The British Empire". It wasn't just us. It was Africa, India, America and Asia. All contributed to our financial power. In the second world war there were armies from all over the Commonwealth fighting. Millions of men under the Union flag. These armies played a major part in the final victory.

Now what parties of prejudice say is that we are not grateful for these sacrifices. They say we've taken the wealth from the Empire to build up our country, we've taken the blood sacrifice of Commonwealth soldiers and now we want to slam the door in their face. The nurses, the bus drivers, the road sweepers, the doctors, the home helps, the hospital cleaners - they are deemed to be somehow inferior, their contribution devalued, their hard work, often for low pay, unappreciated.

When you put it like that, the message of racial prejudice is not really very appealing is it? As the British are a fair minded people, we don't really want to have anything to do with such a message. The BNP have recognised this fact and tried to find other ways to package their message. They are looking for some attractive wrapping paper for their views. Some sugar to hide the nasty taste. It seems that one message they have decided might work rather well is to draw attention to how tawdry, grasping and corrupt the mainstream parties are.

In a recent post, I drew attention to our very own Barnet Councillor, Brian Coleman and his rather excessive list of free lunches (often at fund raising events). His massive, taxpayer funded Taxi bill, has also been the subject of many lines of press. Well it seems that Brian Coleman isn't the only person who has benefitted from the hospitality and the free rides, he's received. I got an email asking me if I'd checked how many free dinners the GLA's only BNP member had. Any guesses? Well he's not declared a single thing. Now my first reaction was "Billy no mates" (or should that be "Dicky no mates"). I suspect few organisations or charities wish to be associated with Barnbrook or the BNP (of course the BNP draw a totally different conclusion). What the email told me is that Brian Coleman's largess is actually being used by the BNP. He is being used as an example of how "corrupt" the system is. The following is a quote from a BNP website about Coleman. This is just one of many :-

Speaking to a reporter for the London Evening Standard, BNP assembly member Richard Barnbrook, who also sits on the audit panel, said that Mr Coleman’s expense account “paints the assembly in a bad light” “We can’t have members being brought into disrepute, with papers making statements about the abuse of council tax money.”.

So there you go. Now the question has to be "Would the BNP comment on Colemans expenses unless they thought it would help them?" Of course they wouldn't. There are no stories about Andrew Dismore helping working class families on the Grahame Park Estate, they only post "useful" stories.

The mere fact that Coleman's taxi expenses are more than the rest of the GLA put together, shows that he is the exception, but he is causing major damage to the reputation of his colleagues. The problem is that there is no justification for his behaviour. His colleagues really must recognise this fact and address it, by refusing to do so they are condoning it and ultimately helping the BNP get their message across. Do his colleagues really want to hand parties of hate open goals? The sad truth is that Brian Coleman and his outrageous behaviour has become a propoganda tool for the BNP.

I run a recording studio. We have an old adage that "you can't polish a turd" - It doesn't stop certain people from trying very hard to prove the adage wrong - it seems that Coleman's expenses are applying the polish.

Coleman must go for the good of all London.