Sheaf Saint

I wouldn't bother. dune loves to pigeon-hole people. He seems to think that anybody who is even the slightest bit concerned about the environment must automatically be a yoghurt-knitting, labour voting hippy.

Nope. I've had a thorough read back through the thread and I can't see one single example of somebody accusing you or anybody else directly of being racist because of your concerns over current immigration policy. All I can see is an instance of you completely twisting Sadoldgit's words and trying to make out that this is what he was saying, when in fact this was far from the truth. It seems that this whole attitude "those who dare to question immigration are deemed racist" is a total myth that is used by people, including you, to paint themselves as some kind of victim.

Please understand my meaning. I have never accused somebody who disagrees with the current government's immigration policy automatically of being racist. I have never assumed that just because somebody considers turning to the BNP as a protest against the 3 major parties means they are by association racist. I understand fully that things are never as (pardon the pun) black and white as that. I can't stand to see people being accused of being racist when they are clearly not and are being accused of it by people who don't truly know what it means. I am more than aware of the difference between racial ignorance and racial hatred. But when it comes to the founder members and candidates of the BNP who between them have more than a handful of convictions for race-hate related crimes, I think it is more than fair to use the term 'racist' as they personify the term fully IMO. I feel I have been more than clear on this already.

By who? Serious question - who has actually accused you outright of being racist because of your opposition to Labour's previous immigration policy?

dune, for starters you really have to question just how much they have skewed the figures to show that graph. Lies, damned lies and statistics and all that. But then you have to look at some of the language used in that article and you soon realise that this could not in any way be described as balanced reporting. It was clearly written by someone with an extreme right-wing agenda, so I would seriously question the validity of the figures he has used to back up his argument.

Do some research on the criminal convictions of the leading members of the BNP, then come back and tell me that I'm wrong if you can. If I am alienating them, as you put it, it is only because I strongly believe that people need to be aware of the hidden agenda of those they are voting for.

This is another myth that the BNP like to perpetuate to boost their agenda. If you bother to do some research you will find that the current Labour government HAVE changed their immigration policy quite drastically over the last couple of years.

For the record Delldays, I too am not entirely happy about the previous open-door policy of the current Labour government (which has now been reversed if people actually bother to check) but I just don't consider it one of the most important issues when deciding who to vote for. My stance is precisely that of Sadoldgit's above; I am in favour of immigration as I believe people should be allowed to live and work wherever they please, but it should be controlled immigration. By that I mean we should be making it less attractive for such large numbers of immigrant workers to come here to work by doing away with benefits such as child-support payments for children still living in their home land. The BNP's proposal is to stop all immigration completely and to deport many immigrants, including some second and third generation, who are already living here. My brother has a thai wife and their son was born in thailand but lives here in London, so under the BNP's scheme he would not be allowed to live here any more and would be forcibly removed back to thailand. So on that basis, and ignoring the racist, violent past of the party members, I could never vote for a party that proposed such a radical change to immigration in this country.

Hang on a second Delldays, you need to read my posts again and read what I actually said and not just what you think or want me to have said. I am definitely NOT one of those people that automatically shouts racist at people. Absolutely not; it really irks me when I hear people throwing that term around without actually understanding either the true meaning of the word or the actual attitude of the person who they throw the accusation at. However, I will state without fear of contradiction that the BNP are a bunch of racists - as proved by the criminal convictions of some of their members. That does not mean that anybody who votes for them is, ergo, racist themselves and I have never made such an assertion. My only wish is that more people who consider the BNP to be a credible alternative to the major parties, based on nothing more than their stance on immigration, should do a little research and understand the history and true agenda of what is essentially a legitimised white supremacist group. Please don't twist my words and accuse me of things which are absolutely not true.

I've read his post back a couple of times and I'm 100% certain that is not what he is saying at all. Seems to me that he is just pointing out that despite their protestations, the BNP are a bunch of convicted racists, and that a vote for them because you disagree with the amount of immigration over the last decade or so is highly irrational.

A very colourful character who wasn't afraid to go against the norm and speak his mind. Not everyone's cup of tea - he often came across as a bit up his own ar3e, but no more so than Lydon IMO. A very talented musician who brought joy to many and whose unique perspective on the music industry is sadly lacking in this day and age. Congratulations on all you achieved Malcolm, and may you rest in peace.

I agree wholeheartedly. The problem being that these people you speak of seem to be taken in by the BNP's veneer of respectability. If everybody who was thinking of turning to them for the reasons you mention above could scratch the surface and discover the true history of the party members and their colourful pasts, they might think twice before putting their cross next to a group of convicted thugs.

Religious institutions don't like this stuff as they completely contradict their view of creation. Most of the ancient Mayan books on astronomy and even religion were destroyed by the Catholic church after the Conqistadors conquered the entire continent, so that they could spread their message of Christianity more easily.

http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blogspot.com/2008/06/randomness-and-missing-96-per-cent.html

I am absolutely certain that ancient cultures on this planet were far more advanced than we are now, or at least more advanced than western science could ever give them credit for. Did they have some contact with alien visitors? There certainly appears to be plenty of evidence pointing to this. I read Zecharia Sitchin's Genesis Revisited which offers a theory that the book of Genesis has been mis-translated and actually refers to a race of aliens creating the human race by genetically engineering us using a primitive species of primate and their own DNA. This would certainly explain the missing link in human evolution, but unfortunately it doesn't explain why we are 99% genetically similar to chimpanzees. But reading up on the ancient Sumerians, they certainly had a knowledge of our solar system that modern astronomy has only recently caught up with - by that I mean in the last couple of centuries; bear in mind that this is a civilisation (the earliest human civilisation in fact) that existed around 3000BC - about four and a half thousand years before the invention of the telescope. The ancient Maya also had a knowledge of astronomy that was centuries in advance what western society could expect. They too also had no such things as telescopes, yet they built many huge structures that were designed to point towards planetary alignments that only happen once every 27,000 years. How could they possibly have known about this kind of stuff? The ancient Egyptians were clearly a very advanced culture. But perhaps the most surprising thing is that there are so many similarities between the Egyptians and the central/south american cultures that sprung up around the same time. They clearly could not have known about each other's existence 5000 years ago, but the similarities are clear for all to see.

There was never a character called Master Bates in Captain Pugwash. Neither was there a Seaman Staines or a Roger The Cabin-boy. HTH.

It is thanks to Brown's enormous borrowing and wasted public spending, and over-reliance on the banking industry (if you can call it that), that this country now finds itself in such a desperate level of debt that will take decades to get out of. So I'm curious - what is it about their management of the economy over the last few years do you consider to be successful? Serious question.

Exactly. Back in 2004 Vince Cable raised the concern in parliament that the UK housing bubble combined with irresponsible lending and unregulated banks would ultimately lead to financial disaster. Brown (then Chancellor) dismissed his concerns as alarmist nonsense. When the recession bit, Brown claimed that we were 'uniquely well placed to ride out the economic storm' which everybody else except him could see was not true. His positive boast about the whole situation is that he came up with the idea to bail out the banks on the condition that they start lending again, which was then adopted by all of the major governments that had been affected by the financial crisis, but it didn't exactly take a genius to come up with that and it is certain that other governments would have come up with the same idea if he had not done so first. Labour are supposed to be a socialist party (I know they're not exactly but you know what I mean), yet his big idea when everybody started losing their jobs and having their homes repossessed was to give £billions of public money to the banks that caused the crisis in the first place, who then reneged on the agreement to start lending again and continued paying massive bonuses to the greedy ******s that put entire banking system in jeopardy due to their reckless speculation and irresponsible lending. for that reason, I cannot bring myself to vote for them. Gordon Brown loves to take the credit when things go well and is quick to pass the blame when things aren't so good. His blatant evasion of Nick Robinson's questioning about the NI increase on BBC today was cringe-worthy - almost as bad as the now famous Paxman interview with Michael Howard. He is a lame duck PM with about as much charisma as an anal wart and the UK is emerging from recession despite him, not because of him.

Please tell me you are being sarcastic. Please.

He was outstanding last night but why does he need to cheat so much? Every time an Arsenal player so much as came near him he would roll about holding his ankle. Such a shame that officials seem to turn a blind eye to this stuff in Spain, and even fall for it and book opposition players, instead of clamping down on it. Watching Sergio fall over holding his face after an Arsenal player touched him on the shoulder was cringeworthy and though I'm no lover of Arsenal it actually made me quite angry.

No doubt Hammy would try and claim that, but it's blatantly obvious that his weaving was designed to prevent Petrov making any kind of move on him. Hamilton strikes me as too ambitious and a little bit unsporting. I have no doubt whatsoever that if he was ever in the situation where taking somebody out would hand him the title, such as was the case with Schumacher and Hill in 1994, he would not think twice about it.

Just been updated on the Echo site with their names. As sad as I am for their families, I am hugely relieved to discover that a friend of mine who works out of St Marys station was not one of them.

Is it too late to add an 'undecided' option to the poll?

Well it's certainly going to be interesting watching all the main players bigging themselves up and slagging off their rivals over the coming weeks. I haven't been able to watch any of the campaigning so far but I get theh general idea from snippets I have heard on the radio etc... I don't think I could ever bring myself to vote for David "Call me Dave" Cameron, no matter how well he presents himself over the election campaign. when he first took the Tory leadership I thought for a shorty while that he might actually be different, but it didn't take him long to descend into petty point-scoring and sniping at the government. Gordon Brown lost all credibility for me when he claimed that Britain was uniquely well-placed to ride out the economic storm over the last 18 months when it was quite obvious to anybody with even the slightest knowledge of financial markets that the opposite was in fact true. Which really only leaves the Lib-dems as a credible alternative and on the face of it I can't see how they could make a worse job of running the country than the current lot.. I'm tempted to vote for them on the basis that Vince Cable, who seems to be the only person involved in politics who understands the global financial crisis and actually has some ideas on how to resolve it, would become Chancellor if they won.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7555431/Unexplained-sheep-attacks-caused-by-aliens-in-UFOs-farmers-claim.html