Erm
what have I ever said to make you think I am falling into any trap, DP? I've been invovled with poltics over 20 years now, I am quite able to make my own decisions and have come across enough 'traps' to spot them a mile off, ta.
I have already told you I am going to the meeting with an open mind; that means not reading any propaganda put about by BNP about the group as well as not taking everything they say at face value.
And it isn't just about whites and homosexuality you are right.... but I am perhaps most scared otherwise by what it isn't about: where are the comprehensive policies on SEN, carers, ? Their entire qwelfare policy (just read it this very minute, I do my research) is focussed on fighting peoples fears about scroungers: welfare to work. What about all those people already in low paid jobs, carers, too ill? Who cares about them if a soundbite about scroungers will attract the BNP potential voters eh?
The housing policy- make length of residency on an area the key criteria. WTF? We moved here 5 years ago, but we don't have residency anwhere else where should we go if our landlord decides to sell? We're not mobile: we're dependant on a network of SNU's. The policy seems to be worded again to make people ythhink oh Ai those bloody immigrants./.... well it would hit a lot of people like me hard, a lot of people who moved to follow jobs and family and then lost a job or whatever. Carer moves to care for aging parent, loses job as a result, doesn't have entitlement to tenancy on the parents HA house (some areas have none, some minimum ten year residency)nah can't get housing you've only lived here 6 months.
Grammar schools? Oh yes great equalisers! For kids like my Dad (15th of 16) who aced the test but couldn't afford the uniform. They worked last time didn't they? Kids like me, so much bad stuff at home hat they underperformed hugely but managed to really make a go of it when they stood a fighting chance. Grammar Schools are, as far as I can see from the council houses where I grew up, a form of enforcement of class segragation based on parental aspirations far too early for the childs own to have developed.
Reversal of plans to close Sn schools has been widely pledged buut where is the inclusion policy? Most kids don't fall into SNU territory. Racism failing young white boys?? When?
Increase in Christian Assemblies? We've had this recently: there is now so little time in the curriculum that the stuff that really could help- extra reading, social skills for struggling kids- has all been pulled, it has been a disaster.
NHS was wonderful for decades but a recent laughing stock- incredibly not my experience as a worker tehre in the nineties: we were advised at nurse school to get out as there were no jobs then (in 1992)- most of us did. How is that different to now? Yet the service I receive now for my children is far superior to what I witnessed being offered then.
Pictures on the front page of equality commission (witness the black man, no white people interested in equality oh no) V NG alongside a boxing ring.... WTF? Welcome in oh ye people who aren't white but here look at this imagery, bet it makes you feel really welcome doesn't it?
DP you seem to want to convert me. I am not going to attemot to liberalise you, however I am an educated, informed, liberal woman with a very real interest in human rights and disability awareness: the BNP ain't gonna cut it for me. Nobody right now is cutting it for me with perfe3ction, but the BNP least of all.
And there are a few good ideas on there; putting funds back into council house provision, for example. But where will the new houses be built? And nothing is fleshed out. No decent policy on welfare and the NHS can be written in that short space. That's people lives they are playing with, I just get the general feeling that the people who run the BNP and many of those who vote for them see the people who will be affected as different from them, different = scary and scary = hide it away in a corner. Which I suggest would pretty much sum up what would happen to kids with SEN / SN and anyone who doesn't fit the narrow societal ideal held by the BNP.
And as for all the immigration scams crap- FGS. yes they exist, no not everyone who is immigrant is here on one. Asylum is an incredibly important thing to offer, we already have a dodgy definition of what constitutes a real need and send people back to danger, why would I ever wish to make it worse?I want to see asylum policy guided by those I respect most- Amnesty, Libertty- and have a very real knowledge of teh field, not a bunch of suited mouthpieces from any party, and triply not a bunch of suited mouthpieces who think it is OPK to shove the word scam randomly after the use of the word immigration: beleive it or not they are separate words.
MArried man's allowance? What about all those months I was the rbeadwinner when DH was ill years ago? Was my work not so valid then?
Eliminationg multicultural spending? Well I suppose that would increase racial tension as the work to integrate communities falls away: I wonder how much of what I see as essential human work (eg asylum support centres) would fall under that broad multiculturalism definition?
So there, that's my take on it all. I don't are what you support, it is your absolute right, but if you honestly expect me to guive any credence or time to their complaints that seem forever to be on the lines of oooh Miss X is picking on me / white men / white women, nah. I will instead read polcies, stas and attend meetings to find out for myself.