Bishop calls for HOPE not hate

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 21:01

I’m currently many many miles away from Manchester but it seems that the campaign is continuing apace in my absence. Earlier today the Bishop of Manchester addressed a full council meeting at Manchester Town Hall to urge them to support the HOPE not hate campaign. (http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/news/article:1134-Bishop-slams-BNP)

In what has been described to me as one of the most eloquent condemnations of the BNP he drew a standing ovation from every councillor. At about the same time, less than a mile away, students at Manchester University were launching their HOPE not hate campaign. We already have hundreds of students signed up to the campaign and our target is to get 250 out on ‘Student Sunday’ in mid-May. Then, finally, from my bolt hole, where I am supposed to be working on a longer term project, I sent out an email to our Greater Manchester supporters asking them to join me in sending an open letter to five local newspapers denouncing the BNP’s attempts to hold a fundraiser in the city tomorrow night.

Within two hours of the email going out this evening, several hundred people had already signed up. This follows our really successful letter campaign in the East Midlands.

As I say, I’m meant to be working but instead seemed to spend much of today in the company of Todd Wolfson, of the Media Mobilizing Project. He and his colleagues are spearheading new forms of organising using new technologies, and from what he told me, to great success.

Now I’m off to meet an old friend for dinner. More on that later.