How to upset your Nazi friends..

Some of their heroes bombed our chip shops

Nick Griffin, the hapless leader of what is left of the BNP, has proved yet again what a tactless host he is.

Griffin is currently touring London and the South East with a group of Flemish ultra-nationalists from the far-right Vlaams Belang (VB), the successor to the Vlaams Blok, which was dissolved in November 2004 as a result of a court case concerning its racism.

Griffin is hoping that appearing on BNP TV flanked by foreign guests will somehow make him look more important than he is and help detract attention from the disintegration of his own party for which he and he alone is responsible.

In his latest video, recorded for the BNP website, Griffin outlines his recent jolly to Dover with Filip Dewinter, one of the VB MPs and a senior figure in the party. He and Griffin had just been enjoying a pint and some fish and chips. You would think that Griffin had more pressing concerns to attend to but there you go. Following their meal Griffin took Dewinter to the beach to show him some of the coastal defences that were erected to repel the Nazis in the event of an invasion which, in 1940, looked imminent. Dewinter tried to look interested while Griffin prattled on, puffed up with pretended pride. Griffin appears to have forgotten, however, that the VB has its roots in the politics of Nazi collaboration in Belgium. Doh!

Griffin’s newfound pride in the doughty defence of Britain undertaken in the dark days of 1940 stands in stark contrast to much of his early political career which had been spent praising the Waffen-SS and denying the Holocaust. So much for patriotism.