Doing Labour's work - the BBC & the list of dodgy councillors

It is always nice to know the BBC is keeping an eye on our figures. In their 'Reality Check' on our list, Anthony Reuben, Head of Statistics at BBC News says in an article titled 'Have 319 councillors really stood down in 2015?"

"The number comes from a blog called Nope, Not Hope but it does not make quite the same claims about it that Mr Nuttall makes."

And then continues

"And if you look at some of the miscreants cited in the list you may doubt the figure further."

OK, we accidentally included the Moroccan born mayor of Rotterdam saying that "Muslims who didn't like the Netherlands should f**k off back to where they came from". Clearly he is not a British councillor. That said, if you count the number of stories in the master document, there are 292, not 291, meaning the Dutch mayor is not counted: the inclusion was a typographical error, with two lines selected rather than one when the document was compiled.

Reuben then complains that 'There are examples of the wives and children of councillors getting into trouble, although they themselves were not investigated."

The two examples he links are interesting. The first involves the wife of a Tory councillor who was convicted of theft. Her husband subsequently resigned as a councillor as a result of her conviction. The second relates to the son of a Rochdale Labour councillor who was arrested on the Syrian border attempting to travel to join ISIS, and who was subsequently released without charge on his return to the UK. We'd consider that both of those - had they involved UKIP - would have warranted coverage on the BBC and elsewhere. It's not as if the BBC doesn't focus on the nationality of Nigel Farage's wife, as in this story - "Nigel Farage says German wife is not taking Briton's job"

He then states that a Plaid Cymru councillor arrested and charged over an assault on his wife who was cleared at court when his wife refused to give evidence against him "should not be on the list anyway" as "he does not count as being affiliated to Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats". Had he read the introduction to the PDF he would have read:

"This PDF file lists all the councillors we can find from other parties who have been accused of..."
Reuben does concede that

"This does not mean that UKIP has a monopoly on candidates getting into trouble though. The Liberal Democrats, for example, replaced Jason Zadrozny as their candidate for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire after he was accused of child sex offences.
The Conservative candidate for Dudley North Afzal Amin resigned over claims of a plot between him and the English Defence League. Both cases were widely reported."

Although he fails to mention the so far nationally unreported (by the BBC nationally) convictions of two Labour candidates in separate trails last week for fraud, with one being sentenced to 2 1/2 years imprisonment.

So, out of a list of 291 councillors from Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservatives, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Greens, he finds 4 to complain about. Of those, only 1 shouldn't be on the list - the Dutchman - and he wasn't counted in the total anyway.

What we actually clearly claim for the list is as follows:

This PDF file lists all the councillors we can find from other parties who have been accused of racism, sexism or homophobia, those who have been arrested, sentenced or convicted of crimes, and those who are just plain useless, offensive or incompetent. We have tried to avoid duplication. Almost all of those featured have appeared only in the local press - very few have made the national media. Links to online sources are provided for all stories.

 

The original list can be downloaded as a pdf file here - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B39PL1hZ6W_ReC00Ni1iWFJ3OFU/view?usp=sharing

Green Leader Natalie Bennett to appear on anti-UKIP platform with convicted fraudster

We were not entirely surprised today to receive details of a meeting by yet another anti-UKIP campaign group which has popped out of the woodwork. The 'Movement Against Xenophobia' is an umbrella group comprising 99 separate organisations operating under a secretariat provided by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. Included in the 99 are many of the usual suspects: UAF, SWP, Unite, the Green Party and many others - the full list is here

This latest piece of scaremongering is based on distortions of UKIP's position by MAX offshoot 'Stop Scapegoating Immigrants' is a Rally Against Racism on the 19th May at the Indian YMCA in Fitzrovia, London: details are here and as shown on the screen grab.

What was more surprising was to see the speakers list. Natalie Bennett, the Green Party leader is the headline speaker: she fits right in, representing as she does the watermelon (green on the outside, red on the inside) wing of the Green Party. What was rather more shocking was to see her sharing a platform with Jasna Badzak and Lee Jasper.

Regular readers of this blog will recognise Badzak's name. She was briefly employed by UKIP MEP

Jasna Badzak - convicted fraudster and forger

Gerard Batten before defrauding him of £3,000 by using a forged bank statement to claim she hadn't been paid. She was convicted of fraud and forgery at Southwark Crown Court, received a 12 month suspended sentence and was tagged and curfewed for 6 months. The judge at the trial said if it wasn't for her child she'd have been imprisoned, and described her as thoroughly deceitful. Which was much the same verdict reached by the Industrial Tribunal she took Batten to for racial  harassment, and from which her multiple cases were thrown out, and her failure to pay fines, compensation and legal fees lead to her bankruptcy. She was never a 'UKIP' press officer either, and is also the architect of a long-running fraud perpetrated on Central European banks which has links to the Russian mafia. Full details can be found here

A measure of Badzak's consistency can be found on her Twitter feed. Aside from clearly being obsessed to the point of barking mad, she also claims to be a Tory supporter. This is surprising to say the least, as only 5 years ago Badzak left the Tories claiming 'racial and sexual harassment' - full details can be found here, but in brief she claimed that

"I have been told by the party agent that people like me can forget about progressing in the Conservative Party. This is not just locally, but nationally. It is just jobs for the boys. Unfortunately, I did not go to private school. I did not go to Oxbridge"

Alternatively, they may have found that her CV was a complete pack of lies. Which makes her tweet (below) all the more surprising.

Then we have Lee Jasper, former Director for Policing and Equalities under London Mayor Ken Livingstone who left under rather a cloud - Jasper had sent e-mails of an intimate nature to a woman involved with organisations who had received Greater London Authority grants and that Jasper has not declared the relationship. A subsequent report concluded that "Jasper failed to record declared interests to the "standards expected". He also found that Jasper's role in approving funding was "inappropriate given his interests" in a number of cases".

Green Party leader Natalie Bennett - in trouble if you
know a person by the company they keep.

For Natalie Bennett and the Green Party sharing a platform with a convicted, mentally unstable fraudster just because they have an unfounded vendetta against UKIP is surely scraping the barrel, not least because you know a person by the company they keep, as they say. We understand that they are desperate to save the seat of their London MEP Jean Lambert - aka 'the bag lady' - but this really is pitiful stuff. Bennett's leadership has already drawn criticism and created factionalism within an already divided Green movement, as can be seen in the Green stronghold of Brighton. The lack of judgement shown borders on the suicidal, displays the lack of foresight which has marked her leadership and will surely come back to haunt her in the future.

It hardly reflects well on JCWI either, although relying as they do on support from the SWP - where unreported rapes seem to be a matter of course - such unsavoury participants are perhaps more a matter of course, if not daily visitors.

Hope not Hate thief jailed for fraud, and other stupid headlines

Hope not Hate are this evening featuring an article by Carl Morphett (writing as Simon Cressy) titled 'UKIP thug jailed'. It outlines how a Dean Everitt, of the Boston Protest March movement, was given a suspended sentence after a domestic dispute with a neighbour. In it, as in the title, the impression is given that Everitt is a UKIP member. A quick Google of his name would seem to indicate that his only link with UKIP is publicly saying he supported the party, something UKIP has no control over.

Convicted fraudster and Hope not Hate supporter
Denis MacShane

This is similar to other news this week. Former MP, Europe Minister and public HnH supporter Denis MacShane plead guilty to fraud. Sentencing was deferred until 19th December. He is widely expected to receive a custodial sentence, unlike Everitt.

That MacShane is more than an occasional HnH supporter is clear. In 2010, he gave an 'e-mail interview' to the 'where cowards flinch' blog, in which he said:

"Q. More generally, what do you think the Labour Party, and the Left in general, should be doing to combat the BNP most effectively?
A. Support Hope Not Hate. Urge other anti-Nazi outfits like UAF to unite with Hope not Hate. Expose the BNP’s core anti-Jewish beliefs as well as its anti-Semitism."

Of course, financial shenanigans are not unknown in Hope not Hate under Nick Lowles watch as we reported a month ago when we found their invoice shuffling which saw HnH directors paid through a private company owned by them for work which should have been a part of their salaried position. Nothing marks out committed Socialists better than a bit of wholesome tax avoidance of the form practised by Sir Philip Green, does it? Even so, a convicted fraudster being such an ardent and public advocate of Hope not Hate Ltd does not really imply that Hope not Hate as an organisation really endorses fraud anymore than Everitt's public - but much less welcome - endorsement implies support of his actions by UKIP. MacShane's association with Hope not Hate was long running, and in all probability continues behind the scenes.

The logic of it of course misses the point. It is not supposed to be a logical argument, merely emotive propaganda designed to appeal to those who look to the Daily Mirror for fully formed opinions they don't really understand the detail of. It is here however that the Marxist-Leninist tendency amongst the fanatically anti-UKIP pays them dividends. It was after all Lenin who said,

"A lie told often enough is the truth"

In this, we see once again how closely the philosophy of the far left approaches that of the far right they supposedly abhor. In their ultimate aim, they seek to follow the dictates of Josef Goebbels:

 

“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”