The true cost of racism

Matthew Collins - 30 05 12
Marsden: A sad shaggy dog tale

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, artictic 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: Johnny Cashless.

Marsden: Johnny Cashless.

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