BNP uncovered
Monday, November 24th, 2008
The politics story that’s had everyone talking this week has been the online leaking of the BNP’s membership list or ‘activists list’ from 2007, some of whom may no longer be party members or actually never were.
Whatever this document is (some simple Googling should yield the link to it), it makes for fascinating reading. Not only are 12,801 names pulished, but addresses, emails, telephone numbers, ages and even hobbies are also included.
‘Ctrl + F’ has never been such a compelling tool: ‘Do my postcode next!’ my housemates enthused as we crowded round to examine the list. A handy colour-coded regional map also available for scrutiny is useful too. Rather uncomfortably, for me at least, it takes the form of a creamy-yellow expanse, glaringly puctuated by a red splodge: Leeds, with 263 names - far more than any other city.
The hobbies listed range from the bizarre (growing mistletoe, medieval longbow, metaphysics, ’learning to fly’) to the unsurprising (no shortage of body-builders), to the eerily normal (gardening, classical music and boating all crop up regularly).
Other pieces of information give all kinds of insights: someone describes themselves as a ’lapsed MENSA member’ - always worth mentioning! Another name, an artist, is ’willing to paint pictures for raffles, etc’. More chilling, one is ’Willing to give teaching re. BNP home-schooling’.
Should the list have been published? Well, probably not. The inclusion of addresses and contact details has led to many cases of members receiving abuse, which, considering the list’s shakiness, is unacceptable. But published it was, and who knows? It might lead to more cases like that of BG from Cumbria, who ‘Will not be renewing 07 (took offence to newspaper reports about the Party)’ - hmm…