The story grows in the telling

posted by: Nick | on: Monday, 21 January 2008, 16:06

The BNP was out in force last weekend in London in what was billed as the first of several national mobilisations in the run up to the London elections in May. However, every report seems to recall a slightly different story.

The first posting was made by Simon Darby on his blog when he reported on the Saturday night that almost 200 people had delivered 100,000 leaflets. Then there were reports on Stormfront on the Sunday that it was actually 250 people. Finally, today, the official BNP website reported 250 over the two days delivered 100,000 leaflets. However, the accompanying photograph of the massed ranks of the party faithful shows just 63 people, and that’s probably being generous.

So the question is who is telling the truth? If one believes Darby then the extra 50 people did not hand out a single leaflet. If the explanation is that the extra 50 people came out on the Sunday then they obviously didn’t hand out a single leaflet.

Searchlight believes that they are all lying. We admit that several wards were covered but the total number of people was considerably fewer than the 250 boasted and only about 35,000 leaflets were distributed.

Of course we shouldn’t expect anything more from the BNP. The event, after all, was just as much for his internal audience to prove that he still has a following. It was also organised by Richard Barnbrook, who recently claimed 25,000 leaflets were delivered in Lewisham shortly before Christmas though the real figure was less than a quarter.