Nick Griffin (b 1960)
Living in a fascist state would be bad enough, but to live in one run by a minor public school man would surely be a Hell on Earth. But in the unlikely event of the British National Party goose-stepping into Number 10 at the next election, that is precisely what Britons would have to endure.
Griffin was first educated at Woodbridge School, Suffolk, but then won a sixth form scholarship to St Felix in Southwold. Griffin claims that there were a couple of black pupils there, but doesn’t mention is that he was one of only two boys in the school at the time. We can only assume that his aggressively nasty public career was prompted by the fact that, despite this almost unbelievable slice of luck (how many teenage boys would want to be in that position?), he still couldn’t get a girlfriend. Or maybe he was made to wear a dress and was traumatised for life. In any case, the school didn’t teach him manners.
He left school for Cambridge University, a place better known for its public school contingent of Communist homosexuals (any dress wearing experience would have come in handy here). After graduating (with a 2:2) he has devoted his life to stirring up racial hatred (he picked up a conviction for said offence a while back) and making himself the acceptable face of neo-Nazism.
The latter seems to be based on the belief that if he talks in “educated” Home Counties tones no one will notice that most of his followers regard England football supporters as hopelessly wet and that by sharing in the Daily Mail’s hysteria against asylum seekers (and GM food) people might think he’s a rational human being rather than a fanatical bigot. The result: a few desperate, under-educated people from the most deprived areas of the country have voted for him. The BNP is still less successful than nutjobs like the Greens or even the UKIP, but the party does manage to provide a few cosseted liberals with a little frisson of fear.
We think they can sleep soundly. In the course of his political career this master political tactician has distinguished himself by sucking up to Colonel Gadaffi, going bankrupt and protecting his children from a non-English-speaking school environment by moving to Wales.
Griffin is more Roderick Spode than Russian-front stormtrooper; so to paraphrase PG Wodehouse: “Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?”
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