Lincolnshire Voice

Young, Angry and White - Media Misrepresentation

This Friday, 12th. February, Channel 4 are broadcasting a documentary called "Young, Angry and White". It purports to be investigating why young people join the BNP.
The blurb in a TV magazine states:

" By the age of 15, Kieran had already developed strong political views; though clearly bright, he thinks Britain should be populated only by white heterosexuals. Now 19, Kieren believes the BNP is the 'family party' and is mulling over joining their ranks. This film asks -why?"

Here is the journalist, Peter Beard, being interviewed about his film (dated 3rd. February). Note that BNP members would not speak to him, and that in desperation he found Kieren through a girlfriend's cousin; this does not accord with Kieren's account, he says that Beard followed him from a rally. Note that the BNP is mentioned 8 times, while the National Front is mentioned once only. Which might seem natural if Kieran was seriously thinking of joinig the BNP, but...

Kieran is actually the Organiser of the Young National Front; he has attended the NF Remembrance Parade, taken part in a nationalist march 2 years ago - something the BNP haven't done for many years. He felt that the BNP have 'sold out'.
Kieran gave a 'heads-up to the coming documentary on 21st January. A senior National Front member, Tom Linden, congratulated him on appearing in the film, giving away Kieran's standing in the party; when questioned about this the message was deleted.

Between filming and Beard's interview on the 3rd. of this month, Beard would have had serious doubts that this young man was contemplating joining the mainstream BNP and it should have been obvious to any self-respecting journalist that his documentary was fatally skewed.

This is not about Kieran per se; anybody should be able to join the Party of their choice and have their views heard. No, this is about the underhandedness of journalists, aided and abetted by the NUJ, who edit and spin their version to suit their agenda, preying on people's naivety when giving interviews of this kind.
We shall see on Friday how this was spun; I hope that Beard has been fair, but we have seen how the media have twisted facts too often against the BNP to expect much difference here. That, Mr. Beard, is why you couldn't find any BNP people willing to talk to you.
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Quote from Mr Beard:
"But I thought Kieren's story was probably the most compelling, and for me, highlighted a story that I'd heard from lots of other people - possibly in a slightly less articulate way - about how vulnerable people can be drawn towards extreme ideologies like nationalism."

(As i'm a BNP member, my intelligence quotient is reputed to be about 20, so I had to look up nationalism in my Oxford minidictionary. It took me a while to find nationalism but I got there in the end, Ed):

nationalism n. patriotic feeling; policy of national independence.

Maybe people are turning to the BNP because we are just patriotic and feel we have a right to govern ourselves in our own country and not be dictated to by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats from Brussels - just a thought.

I must get back to my too times tables, Ed!