Late start and the World get's better.
After last nights inability to sleep I managed to raise myself around 8 this morning. Had a leisurely breakfast of toast, coffee and Radio 4 whilst ignoring the extraordinarily vociferous and psychotic blackbirds that have started nesting in our back garden again. For those of you haven’t met these avian beasts - I’m guessing they are returning from last year - they have no fear of dive bombing human, cat, probably rhino and have a bloody awful habit of getting up just before dawn and being extremely loud. This year I think I will be liberating a 0.22 and turning them into pate. First though I’ll have to train them to land at the table as I have no intention of firing randomly into trees. So time for the bread and sympathy act, I’m figuring on a few days for them to become used to food being available and safe to take from the table and then…
So on top of that I picked this piece up on PA news this morning. I think when I have some leisure I’d like to look at the break down of respondents though. It makes less than appetising reading…
1 POLITICS BNP
`MOST BRITONS SUPPORT BNP POLICIES'
By Daniel Bentley, PA Political Correspondent
A majority of people back the British National Party's policies, according to a poll released today.
But the YouGov survey found that many people disown the policies once they are associated with the BNP.
The poll, commissioned by Sky News, comes ahead of local elections next week when there are fears the BNP could make an electoral breakthrough.
It found that 59% of people supported a halt to all further immigration to the UK - one of the BNP's main pledges - when they were not told of the far-right group's association with the policy.
Among those who were told that it was a BNP commitment, support for the policy was only 48%.
And 52% of those who took part in the survey agreed that all immigrants should be denied the right to bring further members of their family into this country. But when told it was a BNP policy, support fell by 9%.
Overall there was 55% support for BNP policies until people were informed of the party's stance, when backing dropped to 49 per cent.
More than a third of people, 37%, said they would seriously consider voting for the BNP's policies in an election. But identifying the BNP with the policies caused support to fall by 17%
Large majorities dismissed two of the BNP's most hardline ideas. Some 68 per cent refused to support the stance that non-white British citizens are inherently less British than white people.
And 52% were opposed to encouraging immigrants and their families to leave Britain.
Peter Kellner, chairman of YouGov, commented: "The results demonstrate that the BNP is tapping into some widely-held views, but that the party suffers from a negative image.
"If the BNP were able to erase this view, it could make significant gains in the upcoming local elections. This may explain what is happening in certain localities where the BNP now polls strongly."
The poll was carried out between April 21 and 24. Around 900 people were asked if they supported policies without any mention of the BNP, while 941 were told that they were BNP commitments.
end
Catch some of you at the College, and others around the weekend.