Is it time to ban far-right extremists?
Posted: June 3, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: BNP, EDL, europe, far-right, Matthew Goodwin Leave a commentAs David Beckham voices concerns about racism at Euro 2012 and far-right parties gain political ground in Europe, some countries are considering banning extremists. But will it do more harm than good?
Across the political landscape in Europe new fears have arisen over the return of extremism, writes political scientist Matthew Goodwin. Amidst economic chaos in Greece an openly neo-Nazi party – Golden Dawn – has entered parliament for the first time. In France, the far-right candidate at recent presidential elections polled over six million votes, and will almost certainly attract significant support at forthcoming elections to the French parliament.
In the Netherlands the anti-Muslim Party for freedom, led by the charismatic Geert Wilders, looks set to poll strongly at new elections despite bringing down the previous government. Meanwhile in Austria opinion polls suggest that the far right Freedom Party may become the strongest political force at the next elections, and is already the most popular party among 18-25 year olds.
Fears about a resurgent far right have also spread into the world of sport, where following the emergence of shocking footage of far right hooligans in Poland and Ukraine, concerns have been raised about possible threats to players and fans from minority backgrounds at the fast-approaching Euro 2012.
Some such as Sol Campbell have even urged fans from minority backgrounds to boycott the tournament altogether, while David Beckham has said he would be supportive of players who left the pitch due to racist abuse.
These anxieties are legitimate: across central and eastern Europe racist and anti-Semitic sentiment is far more entrenched than in the West, and is also anchored in societies that lack strong traditions of liberal representative democracy. According to one recent survey of public opinion in Europe, for example, Poland recorded the highest levels of homophobia and was only second behind Hungary in its levels of racism, anti-Semitism and sexism.
Economy to blame?
Debates about how best to respond to the far right have tended to focus on one of two approaches. Particularly since the onset of the eurozone crisis and return of recession some argue that the rise of far right groups is a by-product of economic instability, and that as resources such as jobs become more scarce citizens will shift behind extremists in growing numbers.
Yet the reality is more complex: the far right has been on the march since the late 1970s, and achieved its most impressive election results during a period of economic stability and growth. Also when we explore the motives of its followers it is clear that while financial concerns are important they are only secondary to deeper anxieties about the perceived threat that immigration, minority groups and increasingly Muslims pose to national culture, values and ways of life.
To ban or not to ban
At the absolute extremes of the spectrum and given the recent footage of far-right hooligans in Poland and Ukraine – and the continuing activities of neo-Nazi parties in Germany and Greece – a second approach argues that we should ban the most extremist groups altogether. The argument is rooted in history, and amidst the rubble of the Second World War led some democracies to ban parties that steered too close to the ideology of Hitler – such as the Socialist Reich Party in Germany that was banned in 1952.
In fact, as I write this I am in Berlin to join a debate about whether German authorities should proceed with efforts to ban a modern far right group – the National Democratic Party (NPD) – because of its alleged links a neo-Nazi cell that was responsible for around a dozen murders (the National Socialist Underground, or the ‘NSU’). In England, some similarly suggest that authorities should ban more combative groups like the English Defence League (EDL), on the basis of its deliberately confrontational strategy that poses a threat to public order.
Exclusion leads to radicalisation
But again, the evidence does not stack up. Bans have seldom worked, and their presumed effectiveness is not supported by research. Consider this: one study that examined how ten European democracies responded to far right parties found that where they were not excluded from the political process they tended to abandon their extreme ideological positions in the search for public support.
In contrast, groups that were excluded and shut out of the process became more ideologically radical and reinforced their outsider status, leading their foot soldiers to become more – not less – committed. Also, where democracies have banned the far right, such as the decision to dissolve the Flemish Block in 2004, the anticipated effects seldom last the course. Only weeks afterward, the party organised its foot soldiers under a new name and only slightly tweaked its policies.
A perfect storm
For the European far right, a heightening crisis in the eurozone combined with ongoing public concerns over immigration have ensured the arrival a perfect storm for its anti-system and anti-immigrant policies. It is clear that this storm is unlikely to pass soon, and we may well see more direct expressions of far right ideology at the approaching Euro 2012.
But for the democracies that host these challenging groups, the most effective response remains much less clear.
Matthew Goodwin – Channel 4 News
Griffin Under The Spotlight
Posted: June 2, 2012 Filed under: British national party, Nick Griffin, Uncategorized | Tags: BNP, BNP financies, British national party, Jackie Griffin, Jim Dowson, Nick Griffin 2 Comments
An Irish newspaper will tomorrow publish allegations against BNP leader Nick Griffin that for legal reasons we cannot repeat in full.
The Sunday World, which has editions both in the North and the Republic of Ireland, has taken advantage of a British law which excludes Northern Ireland from UK law banning the reporting of allegations made by a witness in a court case.
Although the basis of the allegations levelled against Griffin have been well known to us at Hope Not Hate for a number of years and we have been forced to remain frustratingly silent, the graphic and full extent of the wide ranging allegations made in the article in Ireland may well shock even the most ardent of Griffin remaining admirers.
It is doubtful that even the most loyal and close of trusted party apparatchiks and sycophants will be aware of the extent to which Nick Griffin has spirited away money since becoming party leader in 1999. Nor is it likely that they will be aware of the allegedly secret deposits of large sums of cash made by senior and trusted party officials into foreign bank accounts.
At the time of Griffin’s admittance to the BNP in the early 1990’s, the bankrupt former NF leader was allegedly eking out a living stacking shelves at his local Supermarket while his wife worked full time as a midwife to supplement their rapidly declining lifestyle. Nick and Jackie’s farm house is not even in their names. The names on the deeds of the property are in fact allegedly those of the Griffins’ Hungarian neighbours and occasional baby and house sitters.
The allegations in the Sunday World focus on Griffin’s unreported alleged wealth and serious allegations are also made relating to the nature of the business practices of the BNP while they were ensconced in the Belfast offices of the Loyalist extremist, Jim Dowson.
Most of these allegations, and other explicit and graphic claims, are due to be heard by a court later this month when judges could hand severe prison sentences in a case involving BNP officials.
What will come as a surprise to the BNP and its remaining supporters are previously unheard of allegations of a series of properties and investments made with finances allegedly from the BNP’s shrunken funds.
The case was already promising to be explosive, with allegations that the BNP were entangled with amongst other things, Irish paramilitaries and electoral fraud.
We look forward to printing the full story as it untangles itself later this month.
Matthew Collins – Hope not Hate
I smell another Marmite moment
Posted: June 1, 2012 Filed under: British national party, Nick Griffin | Tags: BNP, British national party, Copyright infringment, Heather Small, M People, Marmite, Nick Griffin Leave a commentYou’d think that Nick Griffin and the BNP would learn their lesson regarding copyright infringement, wouldn’t you?
Following from the BNP’s ill fated decision in 2010 to use an image of a jar of Marmite in one of its party election broadcasts (which saw Marmite’s parent company Unilever launch High Court proceedings against the BNP for breach of copyright,) you’d think the last thing that the BNP would want is another controversy regarding their ignorance of copyright law?
In 2010 the BNP was taken to the brink of collapse, forced to shell out a rumoured £170,000 in compensation in an out of court settlement with Unilever, the company that manufactures Marmite.
Maybe the BNP like spending their members money on compensation? Hope not Hate can reveal that the BNP has knowingly breached the copyright of one of the UK’s most popular recording artists.
Heather Small is the lead singer with the Manchester based band M People. She has also seen success recording as a solo artist. In 2000, Small released her debut solo album “Proud” and a single by the same name, which is closely associated with the British Olympics team.
In 2008 she performed at the London 2012 Party to celebrate the handover to the host city of the Olympic Games from Beijing, to London. Small sang “Proud”, which was the unofficial anthem of Team GB at the Athens Games in 2004. It is now the official anthem of the London 2012 Games.
Small attended an anti racism ceremony for “Show Racism The Red Card” hosted by the Prime Minister and attended by leading sports men & women at 10 Downing Street.
So it might come as a surprise to Heather when she hears that the BNP are currently using her flagship song “Proud” to promote their far racial hatred.
The BNP has been using the song on a number of their own videos hosted on the BNP website.
Now we doubt very much that the BNP have had the decency to ask Heather’s permission for use of her music, which I would have thought she would have flatly refused.
So we have contacted Heather Small’s management company “Bandana Management” and have passed the details on of the likely breach of copyright by the BNP.
So we invite Heather Small to study the details we have sent her and hopefully she might be having her very own “Marmite” moment, courtesy of BNP TV.
Simon Cressy – Hope not Hate
Police told to hand over CCTV footage to violent BNP criminal showing firebomb attack.
Posted: June 1, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: arson, BNP, British national party, joey owens, Liverpool, racist, spies Leave a comment
Joe Owens
Police have been ordered to return private CCTV footage of a firebomb attack to a man with a violent past – despite fears it could help him find and kill the person responsible.
Merseyside Police had argued for retaining footage belonging to Joseph ‘Joey’ Owens, who had gangster connections, to avoid ‘indirectly assisting or encouraging’ him to carry out a revenge attack for the arson attack on his mother’s home.
But today two High Court judges disagreed with the plea from police, and ruled the force’s chief constable did not have power to retain the video from the CCTV system set up by Owens, who had shortly before the fire released a book exposing ‘wannabe gangsters’ and ‘police informants’ in Liverpool.
Two judges rejected the chief constable’s appeal against a magistrates’ court ruling that the footage should be returned under the provisions of the 1897 Police (Property) Act.
Sir John Thomas and Mr Justice King described in a joint written judgment how the mother’s house in Liverpool was deliberately set on fire in June 2008. She was alone at the time but escaped without injury.
The video footage was seized as part of subsequent police investigations. It showed a petrol can at the front door and the person believed to have caused the fire, though the images were unclear.
Despite all efforts, including enhancing the images, the police could not identity who had set the fire, and the investigation was closed.
Owens applied to Liverpool City magistrates court for the return of the tape in December 2008 but was opposed by the chief constable on the grounds that he might inflict violent injury on any person that he identified on it.
Owens, a well-known gangland figure in Liverpool, has several violence-related convictions to his name and has even been charged with murder.
In 1982 he served eight months behind bars for sending razor blades in the post to members of Liverpool’s Jewish community.
He was again jailed in 1994 for carrying CS gas and knuckle dusters while working as a clubland bouncer.
In 1998 Owens was charged with the murder of a nightclub security boss, but the charge was eventually dropped when a key prosecution witness withdrew his evidence.
Det Sgt Deborah Weir, who was in charge of the arson investigation, told the city court she believed that if Owens saw the tape he would ‘seek revenge against the actual offender or a mistaken innocent third party’, said the judges.
She believed ‘that person would be killed or seriously injured’.
Owens had earlier identified to the police a possible suspect who had threatened him and asked to see the video as he thought he might be able to recognise the offender from his stance or gait.
Merseyside Police had their claim to keep the CCTV footage rejected at London’s High Court today
But city court Deputy District Judge Andrew Meachin ruled that, although he understood Det Sgt Weir’s concerns, they did not create special circumstances allowing the police to retain the footage under the provisions of the 1897 Act, which dealt with ‘ownership and nothing else’.
Upholding the district judge’s decision, the High Court judges said that, as a matter of fundamental constitutional principle ‘the powers of the Executive to seize and retain goods’ were carefully controlled by the courts.
They had to balance the interests of society in finding out wrongdoers and repressing crime against the freedom of the individual.
To justify taking an article from a person who had not been arrested or charged, it was necessary for that article to be returned as soon as a case was over or a decision was made not to go on with it.
As a result, the chief constable was not entitled to retain the Owens tape under the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
The judges said they were prepared to assume that a court could refuse to order the police to return property if it was established that handing it back would indirectly assist or encourage crime.
But there were no findings made by the district judge in the Owens case that supported such a conclusion.
The judges ruled: ‘It cannot be sufficient that the police reasonably suspect that (Owens) might use the tape to commit a criminal act, for that would give the Executive power to retain property without legislative or other authority.
‘It can only be if the court itself is satisfied that the use of its process would in fact indirectly assist in or encourage a crime that the court could refuse to allow its processes to be used to that end.
‘We therefore conclude that the appeal cannot succeed on the facts stated in the case for the reasons we have given. The video must therefore be returned.’
A Statement
Posted: May 31, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: anti-fascists, BNP, Combat 18, EDL, trade unionists Leave a commentSince the rise of the BNP in the mid nineties and early noughties, many decent and able people have rallied around to defend communities and to keep the spirit of community defence and opposition to fascism alive.
This spirit goes way back to the 1930’s in Cable Street in East London, when the Jewish community organised in conjunction with the Communist Party, Independent Socialists and local workers to defend the East End from black-shirted thugs. Cable Street began a tradition of working class men and women fighting fascism. Many of those people from the 1930’s went on to Europe to either fight to emergence of fascism in Spain or were conscripted to fight Nazism in the guise of Adolf Hitler some years later.
During the 1970’s and 1980’s, the BNP and NF were physically confronted and defeated. By the 1990’s a re-emerging C18, the BNP and other state sponsored thugs were driven off the streets too. This was done by the use of intelligence, discipline and forward planning.
Rightfully, we revel in that history. It is one of not just defiance, but one of celebration of a culture that has become diverse, broad and inclusive at the same time.
At times, some have deviated while some have maintained even in the darkest of hours, the will to continue to fight the fascists either by use of justified force or by campaigning on doorsteps in the heart of the electoral beast that fascism temporarily became.
By any means necessary, Anti-fascists have always mounted a response that the conditions dictated. We have not always seen eye to eye with each other, we have often disagreed and not always agreed on the scale or the necessity of strategies. We have been diverse. However, whatever has happened, we have remained dignified and disciplined. Because of this, the fascists have never defeated us.
Even during the 1990’s when fascists took to stalking progressive people and putting their names on websites for attack, our sense of ultimate unity and dignity ensured that not only could we respond, we would not allow ourselves to be victims of fascists in our work places or homes. Our discipline was drawn from not fawning over martyrs, extremists or those who saw our broad movement as a means of promoting their own agenda, even in the moment of our most dark of hours. It was through discipline.
Now, more than at any other time in our recent history, we face a threat that is more dangerous and pernicious than many people would dare to admit or confront.
Socialists, progressives and Trade Unionists who make up the bulk of the Anti-Fascist movement are now regularly attacked and harassed by organised fascists. With the demise of the electoral threat of the far-right our broader numbers have shrunk whilst the broader movement concentrate on fighting the debilitating attacks on the working class by a government and its corporate sponsors who seek to profit by our division.
So it is with some concern that we have had to witness the rise in hot headed talk, words and egotism of one particular individual. Photographs of threatening teenagers, faces covered but not their embarrassment spared, now regularly appear without one iota of discipline or common sense on his own blog, continually driving an agenda that threatens all of us.
This individual is not a Walter Mitty, but perhaps a well meaning but historically challenged individual.
Of late his behaviour has led to decent Trade Unionists’ being attacked at work, on the picket line and at home. He knows he is in the wrong. And yet, he attacks other Anti-Fascists on his blog while crying into his internet forum that he needs police protection and worse still, the support of others whom he has attacked.
We are asking this individual to now desist with his near suicidal egotism and self promotion. Good people are being put at risk. He does not have the support of the wider movement.
In stupid desperation, he has now resorted to the abhorrent behaviour of the fascists themselves: Bravado in public, tears in private.
Militant Anti-Fascism was not born out of self made heroes. Nor is it born out of allowing other individuals to shield you from your own stupid actions.
He knows who he is. He knows he must desist. He should please do so, so that those of us who are capable, organised and disciplined to do so, can respond.
We will support any Anti-Fascist. We will not support inflatable heroes.
Democratic Anti-Fascists.
The true cost of racism
Posted: May 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Angelic Upstarts, Anglo Saxon, BNP, Gary Marsden, West Yorkshire Police Leave a comment
Marsden: A sad shaggy dog tale
A few weeks ago I found myself indoors on a Saturday night watching the final of “Britain’s Got Talent”.
I guess that having just turned forty, Saturday nights indoors watching endless hours of nonsense is something I shall just have to get used to. I found myself even turning to twitter to express my surprise that not only was I indoors on a Saturday night, but that it would seem apparent that the most “talented” person in Britain according to the viewing/voting public (of “Britain’s got Talent”), was in fact a dog called Pudsey trained by a 17 year old girl from Northampton.
How was the dog going to record an album of cover versions, I wondered. Would it end up doing a version of “Sheep” by the Housemartins, too?
Now here comes the shaggy dog story, as it were. Meet Gary Marsden. He’s never been on “Britain’s Got Talent”. It’s almost three years since he got the sack from his job with West Yorkshire Police over his links to the BNP. In fact, he was arrested before he was sacked after a two-year investigation by West Yorkshire Police. In a statement issued at the time, the police said that Marsden was dismissed for the “excessive amount of working time he used to compile music CDs and DVDs and for his association with and contribution to BNP funds which is incompatible with values of West Yorkshire Police.”
In 2010, Marsden, who was still unemployed, lost his claim for unfair dismissal. He claimed it was a “sad day for freedom of speech, artistic expression, liberty, democracy and human rights. It is a good day for political correctness.”
Many of us thought it was actually a good day for good taste and common sense, and further evidence that the BNP’s legal team is little more than a ruse to try and get members to cough up cash on get rich quick schemes to sue their employers.
Marsden you see, is better known as “Anglo Saxon”, a rather dire one- man and a guitar- and drum machine, Karaoke act who has been banging out cover versions of “cult” punk classics to both the BNP and now the EDL for a good five years.
He even sings the Angelic Upstarts classic “England”, without actually understanding the lyrical content of the cult lefty classic.
Those of us who attend the odd (yes, very odd ) EDL demonstrations often have to cover our ears when Marsden warms up the crowd with his “songs”.
Sadly for Marsden, the EDL is not paying him for his efforts. Marsden has now resorted to begging EDL members and supporters to buy his wares so that he can get “pissed”. He’s not even going to go up to the attic and write a classic. For Marsden, there is no crossing his bridge over troubled water. The mighty has fallen. The king, as it were, is dead skint.
So let that be a listen to Pudsey the pooch. If you lay down with dogs, you’ll get fleas. I doubt he will, though. Because it seems that unlike Marsden, Pudsey’s got talent.
Marsden: Money’s too tight to mention
Sad: Desperate for cash
Marsden: Johnny Cashless.
Matthew Collins – Hope not Hate
Griffinochio
Posted: May 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: BNP, British national party, liar, Nick Griffin, Twitter Leave a comment
Hands up who uses Twitter?
For those that don’t know Twitter is the hugely popular social network where you can communicate with the world using no more than 140 characters.
That doesn’t sound a great deal, and it can be a challenge trying to get across your message without running out of space.
Another huge fan of Twitter is the BNP chairman Nick Griffin.
Griffin has huge problems using Twitter.He also has huge problems telling the truth and the two combined regularly catch him out.
Just today,Griffin posted the following message “Romanian at Tesco suppliers Vion Broxbourne plant in hospital with TB. All workers having jabs today.”
Now I like to deal with facts so I thought I’d give Vion a ring and try to establish what was the truth.
I spoke to Robert Smith, Group Communications Controller for Vion UK and he confirmed that most of Griffins message was incorrect.
So lets look at the facts:
Griffin claims that the victim was a Romanian, he wasn’t, he is actually Polish and has already returned to his native Poland.
Griffin claims the location of the plant was Broxbourne, which is in Hertfordshire. Wrong again, the plant is located in Broxburn, close to Edinburgh,Scotland.
Griffin claims the Vion plant supplies Tesco. Whilst it is true that Vion supply meat products to most of the UK’s supermarkets, the Broxburn plant does not deal with Tesco.
Griffin claims the victim is in hospital with TB. Vion confirmed that the Pole was thought to be suffering from TB and it was believed he was in hospital in Poland, only discovering his illness on his return to the country.
Griffin claims that all Vion workers at the plant were to receive anti TB jabs today. Vion’s Robert Smith said this was complete nonsense. Vion was closely working with the authorities to establish who had been in contact with the Pole. Once this was ascertained screening would be offered to those potentially at risk, however this was non compulsory.
Vion is a large employer with up to 14,000 staff in the UK. Robert Smith and Vion were understandably annoyed with Griffin’s irresponsible posting and immediately wrote to Griffin, informing him of his numerous errors. Smith invited the North West MEP to contact Vion so that the correct version of events could be relayed to him.
It’s unlikely that Griffin will take up their offer.
Simon Cressy – Hope not Hate
Guess who came to dinner?
Posted: May 30, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Andrew Brons, BNP, British national party, Claire Khaw, Dave Jones, John Tyndall, Nick Griffin Leave a comment
Khaw: All Brons needs now is the kiss of death?
Such a good job does Claire Khaw do at ruining the political careers of even the most ardent of those left in the tiny British Nazi scene, some people have written to us questioning whether she is somehow in our secret employment.
Not that we would ever comment on such things either way, but it does make one wonder whether it is worth starting an irregular column about the dining and social habits of the far-right?
Claire’s appearance at a function in Newcastle last week so soon after the demise of her former best friend David “lonesome Nazi” Jones, has ruffled a few feathers.
Indeed, the Nick Griffin camp inside the BNP are absolutely delighted that Khaw chose to support Griffin’s bitter rival, the MEP Andrew Brons, the man who came within a whisker of beating Griffin in last year’s bitter leadership battle to become the leader of Britain’s fastest shrinking political party. The meeting was another desperate attempt to convince Brons to start a new party.
Khaw attended and was (coincidentally) photographed next to the rather uncomfortable looking Andrew Brons at another of his ill attended “Unity” meetings. These “Unity” meetings are in reality a get together for those who can still be bothered with hating Nick Griffin instead of getting a real life. They were all there too; Holocaust deniers, perverts, race haters and violent thugs. In fact, it was pretty much an exact mirror of a “mainstream” BNP meeting.
Brons had been relatively quiet of late, fearing he is facing the same fate of the BNP’s founder and former leader John Tyndall, who was feted in pretty much the same way by the same bunch of Jew hating cranks once he fell out of favour with Nick Griffin too. Even in death Tyndall cannot escape them.
So here he is, the man who could not save the BNP from Nasty Nick, sitting next to a woman who is basically the kiss of death to any Nazi she throws her weight behind. Nice job, Claire.
So, join us next week, when Claire dines with Tommy Robinson in Nando’s…
Matthew Collins – Hope not Hate
Jonathan Bowden: Renaissance Man – An Obituary
Posted: May 10, 2012 Filed under: Andrea Lioy, BNP, Jonathan Bowden, New Right, Troy Southgate | Tags: Andrea Lioy, BNP, Jonathan Bowden, New Right, Troy Southgate 4 Comments
Bowden’s film/breakdown “Punch and Judy”. The icon says “High Quality is On”. It most certainly wasn’t.
News has emerged that Jonathan Bowden, often spoken of as the “Leading Intellectual of the Far Right” died at the end of March. Although he was no longer a member of the BNP (having been accused, at one point, of paedophilia by the Griffin Camp) and largely concentrated his political efforts on his and Troy Southgate’s tiny “New Right” outfit, Jonathan Bowden was still occasionally mentioned on the Talkboards as potential BNP Leadership material.
One-Time BNP “Cultural Officer” (which is a bit like the Morning Star employing a Society Columnist), he was variously described (usually by himself) as a Philosopher, Author, Poet, Artist and Filmmaker.
All of which he did badly. How badly? Oh, let me count the ways…
The first problem comes when we try to assess the evidence. It’s difficult to get a handle on what Mr Bowden was trying to achieve much of the time, because of the language he employed. Not that it was bad, or anything – there was just so damned much of it:
“It is clear to me that the New Right is diverse and diachronic in form. Like the refracted sides of a cerulean gem it casts many different slants afoot. All of these shimmer and break against a dark glass.”
See what I mean? It’s as though there’s someone out there who thinks “Call My Bluff” is a roleplaying game.
But that’s just the refracted tip of a cerulean iceberg.
He went on. My God, how he went on…
“there is a complicated interaction between post-modernist diction and historical revisionism over the Shoah. Its extreme relativism, metaphysical subjectivism and heuristic bias lends itself to micrological analysis, rather like Kracuer’s estimation of the German film industry. Nonetheless, the hermeneutical peasouper which clings to Paul de Mann’s Blindness & Insight definitely has something to do with his own partiality for writing on behalf of Leon Degrelle-like journals during that conflict.”
Still with me? You’re doing better than my local Professor of Philosophy, then. The cleverest person I know. The woman you want on your pub quiz team. (So long as there are no questions about Sport. Or Telly. Or Food. Or Geography. Or indeed any aspect of the Real World.) I once sent her the link to Bowden’s (also now defunct) website and she dutifully spent a couple of hours soaking in the Great Man’s intellect.
Her conclusion?“He’s a bit bonkers, isn’t he? Knows a lot of words but doesn’t know what any of them mean.”
But Bowden didn’t confine himself to writing and being an “Orator of great power” (his words). The World can give thanks that he spread himself around all the genteel arts.
He painted, too. With evocative titles like “All In Wrestling Fire Brain”, “Bivouac Medusa” and the ever-popular “Duchamp’s Slag Head”, Bowden seemed to be striving for the same qualities that Picasso might have achieved if only he’d had access to massive quantities of Crack.
And if he’d never bothered to actually learn how to paint.
In anyone else, such an embarrassment of talents would be enough; but Jonathan Bowden wasn’t anyone else.
He was also a Filmmaker. Oh yes.
I’m on safe ground here. Work in the Trade, don’t you know. Not only that, but I’ve long been an aficionado of bad cinema. The really bad stuff. I seek it out. Hell-sometimes I’ve worked on it. Not for a connoisseur like me, the merely poor – you can see Danny Dyer movies anywhere – but the hardcore: The notorious 1940’s Jesus movie shot with an amateur cast of Midwesterners and the immortal line “Which one o’ y’all’s gonna bee-tray me?”. The Hindi “Superman”. The North Korean Godzilla movie. I seek out my trash with the obsession and dedication of a Trekkie with Asberger’s.
So I’m pretty hardened to duff cinema (I also spent years assessing the output of Film Students, which helps – anyone who’s ever seen “Bollock, Cock and Two Smoking Tits: A Feminist Homage to the Mockney Genre” will understand), but even I wasn’t quite prepared for the spectacle of Jonathan Bowden’s “Venus Fly Trap”. (Directed by Andrea Lioy – the visionary behind the immortal “My Lovely Burnt Brother and His Squashed Brain”)
I’ll leave the synopsis to the Maestro:“Doctor Mordred wants to replace humans with plants. A misanthrope, he lures Dr. Falicia Fairweather into Venus’ trap. Represented by six incarnations, she wrestles with Mordred. Are they different versions of one another? We follow their battle via images of light, air, dance, horror, water, fire, tarot cards, masks and swords. Supervised by a Master of Ceremonies, each gender makes ‘love’. Who will win? Can you wait till the end to find out?”
Got that? Pretty straightforward, by Bowdenspeak standards. Doesn’t sound exactly mainstream, and there’s no mention of a car chase or a musical number to jolly things up a touch, but so far pretty much what one might expect from such a cerulean mind.
Besides taking on the Producing, co-Writing and Original Story credits, the latter-day Orson Welles also ACTED in “Venus Fly Trap”. In multiple roles. Sometimes wearing a bow tie, sometimes in a cravat and sometimes wearing a yellow tie. There’s versatility for you! But always, as with his painting, his writing, his politics and philosophy, displaying the same profound lack of understanding of even the basics of his latest adopted craft.
He gurned! He shouted! He did a ranty bit! He gurned some more! He did another ranty bit! He wore a ridiculous mask so we couldn’t see WHAT he was doing! And so it went on. For nearly an hour. And I watched every second of it. I’ll swear that “Sex Lives of the Potato Men” fair whizzed by in comparison.
I’m assuming that his female co-stars here may have the makings of half-decent actors. If their permanent air of frightened confusion whenever he came anywhere near them was actually in the script, that is.
And now he’s gone. R.I.P, Mr Bowden. You were as mad as an international convention of Hatters held inside a box of frogs suspended from a balloon, but you gave us years of innocent laughter, joyous merriment and wide-eyed, jaw-dropping, simply-bloody-amazed-at-the-sheer-extent-of-your-lunacy incredulity.
Rochdale grooming: Jailed man to appeal over BNP tweet
Posted: May 9, 2012 Filed under: Adil Khan, BNP, Grooming, Liverpool, Nick Griffin, paedophile, rochdale, twitter | Tags: Adil Khan, BNP, Grooming, Liverpool, Nick Griffin, paedophile, rochdale, Twitter Leave a commentOne of nine men convicted for his part in the Rochdale child sex ring is to appeal against his conviction claiming a breach in jury confidentiality.
Adil Khan, 42, of Oswald Street, Rochdale, was jailed for eight years for conspiracy to have sex with a child and child trafficking for sex.
Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, tweeted on Thursday that seven men had been convicted.
Khan’s legal team claims this showed the jury’s deliberations were leaked.
His solicitor Alias Yousaf said outside court: “It is of great concern that the chairman of the British National Party appeared to have been aware of the verdicts before they were even communicated to the court.
“We are left with no option but to conclude that the confidentiality of the jury’s deliberations must have been breached and we submit the proper inference should be drawn that there must have been improper communication from within the jury room to Nick Griffin and perhaps others.”
Griffin claim
Mr Griffin posted a comment on his Twitter account, two and a half days into the jury’s deliberations, claiming that seven men had been convicted.
But he later backtracked when told that the jury had not officially returned any verdicts.
Investigations revealed Mr Griffin’s comment to be a “100% accurate” reflection of the jury’s deliberations at that time.
Eight defence lawyers called on Judge Gerald Clifton to discharge the jury, but the judge rejected this and when he sentenced the nine men he praised the jury for the “painstaking” and “fair” manner in which it had carried out its task.
“Anybody who may have doubted this jury should bear in mind the way that you have analysed the evidence and returned the verdicts, ” he said.
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