stop the BNP from gaining any power!

Well I actually have done some work, albeit much less than I should be doing. I now have a page and a half of writing for my first results chapter, though I suspect that will look woefully diminutive once I've converted it to typing on a computer screen. But it's a start, and the advantage of having worried about the papers for my work first is that I now have a structure to work from and the go-ahead from my supervisor to lift sections from the paper.

As for other things, I've been finding it a bit disconcerting to hear advertising vans driving around my area blaring out promotional material for the BNP. For those who don't know of them, the BNP (or British National Party) is an utterly racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Islamic and thoroughly fascist political group which shamefully has enough of a support to stand in government elections. Only white ethnic groups are allowed into their membership (assuming anyone else would ever want to join!), and they are actively against immigration, particularly of non-white ethnic minorities, but also against many Europeans. They also wish to overthrow all legistration that is anti-discriminatory. Basically, and this is strong language from me, they are hypocritical scum.

The sad thing is that the support for the BNP, especially in the poorer Northern regions of England, has been growing. As the economy collapse has continued and the unemployment rate soared, people have started to look for other people to blame and the BNP have taken advantage of the growing discontentment of the Caucasian working-class. Most of the other political parties focus on getting votes from the middle-class but have neglected the massive numbers of working-class umemployed in the North. And whereas I'm sure some of my friends from Cambridge would frown upon my suggesting there is still a class hierarchy, believe me, it is much more apparent when you live in the North, as I have done and now do, that there are still distinct differences between middle- and working- class, and indeed, between North and South.

In one way I cannot completely blame some people for turning to the BNP - the papers have been splashing their front pages with stories on how Eastern European immigrants have come in and 'stolen' jobs, and how the government is not doing their job and looking after the 'British people'. How much easier it is to lay the blame at someone else's feet than to look for a good solution! That there is a racist problem has always been much harder to ignore up here in Manchester than in well-behaved, well-educated Cambridge (where it is not the done thing to admit to racism even if you have such sympathies). There have been gang fights between Caucasian and Pakistani gangs in Oldham, instead of the Bangladeshi vs Pakistani in Moss Side conflicts I heard of when I was growing up.

The UK Independence Party also seems to be getting a lot of coverage, at least after the BBC news I seem to see a lot of their promotional broadcasts. Whereas the UKIP professes to be non-racist (their main aim is to withdraw from EU politics so that the UK is politically and legally independent of the European government) I can envisage that if support for them grows a whole can of worms might be opened. Politically and morally easier to swallow than the BNP, it's a slippery slope towards racist leanings once you establish your country as being too good to mix with the rest of Europe.

But what worries me is that there has always been traces of racism remaining in the UK, even when some people choose to deny it, but now with the current economic crisis people's views are polarising. I really hope that multicultural Britain, as it undeniably is, will pull through.

With regards to whether the BNP may actually have any real power in government dealings, the other political parties have finally woken up. As they say, most people don't support the BNP in any way, but because they don't believe that the BNP can ever get any power, they don't bother to vote in elections because they think their area is safe Labour/Tory/Lib Dem. Unfortunately that means that if the BNP have a large enough proportion of the votes, they can have a seat in council. The Green Party have offered an alternative - if people don't want to vote for Labour/Tory/Lib Dem, they can vote for the Green Party, who will never win, but might be able to grab the seats that might otherwise be BNP's. That seems like a good strategy, so come the European Parliamentary elections, I may be voting Green.

update

Having moved back home to Manchester for a few weeks to write up my thesis, I've been on the phone much more than I have been in the last six months. However, I have not seen anyone except through my house windows for several days now, and not stepped foot out of the front door since Saturday.

The house is in a row of terraced houses, although in fact there is a private alleyway running down one side of my house, so we only have one adjoining building. The sounds from around my house do carry though, as is the norm for old terraced buildings, so that sometimes I have to refrain from running downstairs to check that there isn't an intruder when I hear doors banging, seemingly from the ground floor of my otherwise empty house.

Despite this relative isolation, work is going very slowly. I seem to spend all my time planning the thesis and not actually writing it. Today though, I'm adamant that I'm going to start work in earnest on my first results chapter.

So this is just an update, to let everyone I'm still alive, and to put down in typing that I really am going to get this chapter done.

Toes crossed and fingers ready to fly across the page.

the next step

So it looks as if I'm finally going to stop being a student sometime in the near future. I'm ready to write my thesis, get my PhD and leave university. Next step is to look for a 'proper job' (albeit one in research, so not in the real world at all) and look forward to filling some of the holes in my bank accounts.

So why is it now that I'm catching up with most of my friends who are already out there working and earning money, I find that they've already moved on?!

Whilst I'm looking for jobs, they're looking at properties to buy, venues for weddings, names for their children. My oldest friend is having her first child this month, another friend is buying a house and getting married next year, and even my best friend from university has just been house-hunting at the weekend.

I've been getting more and more wedding invitations over the last few years, so it's not exactly out of the blue. But generally they've been from friends a few years my senior, not from friends who are a couple of months older than me.

It looks like I need to pull up my socks and get on with things.

But I wish I liked wedding cake. I'll be eating a lot more of it.