A slightly controversial subject to undertake, but what better way to start off the week!

The publication of the BNP membership list last week resulted in a witch hunt against those on the list, somewhat reminiscent of the McCarthy witch hunt of the 1950's. As those elder statesmen amongst us - and those educated in the pre-Blair/Brown years who received a decent education which included History - will remember, way back in the 1950's, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy had his own little version of the Spanish Inquisition, an hysterical attempt to root out the communism that he thought he saw climbing the walls all around him. No one was safe from his probing, beady little eyes. Government workers, college professors, playwrights and Hollywood screenwriters, actors, artists, musicians, homosexuals, Jews and anyone with a goatee was suspect. . . . many people's careers were destroyed by just knowing the wrong person.

Which is somewhat akin to what is happening with those on the BNP list at the moment. There's been a national outcry, with the national media (and even the local media, with our very own good old News Shopper becoming shamefully caught up in the hysteria) examining the list, pinpointing people who they believe shouldn't be members of the BNP by virtue of their trade/profession and then bringing his to the wider public's attention. Add to this the hysterical outrage from Trade Unions and certain Employers, and there you have it.........a 2008 witch hunt.

And there's the rub - this is exactly what the BNP want. The BNP are a bunch of louts, a small time operation of hate-filled nobodies, deserving of no further attention. But due to the self-righteous hypocracy of those who should know better (the Unions of course don't, as they are led by left-wing half-wits as stupid and ill-bred as the BNP members), the BNP are now constantly in the public eye, getting massive amounts of free publicity and are being given the chance of playing the victim card to boot.

So the profile of the BNP has been raised from that of a national laughing stock and embarrassment to one that is deemed more newsworthy than the recession, our soldiers being killed in a war in a far away land or our youths killing each other on the streets - a round of applause to all of the pious liberals for a job well done. Now let's please move on and leave the vile BNP to fade back into obscurity.