Sunday, March 29, 2009

BNP bungle again; use Manics to soundtrack video

The BNP are increasingly looking less like a political party, and more like they're being run as a challenge on The Apprentice. First there was the accidental use of a Polish spitfire to promote their attempt to get votes in the European elections; followed by a desperate attempt to justify their ignorance as having actually been a political point.

Now, they've managed to make a nasty little video over which they've put the Manic's If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next.

But - guess what? This turns out not to have been a BNP bungle at all:

Simon Darby, a spokesman for the BNP, said it did not use copyrighted material, and claimed the song had mistakenly been automatically streamed on to its site and had nothing to do with the official party.

BNP supporters often posted material online that had not been approved by BNP leaders, he said. Asked about the irony of the situation, Darby said: "You can interpret the lyrics any way you want."

You can interpret the lyrics "any way you want", can you?
The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists

I'm pretty sure that the only way you could interpret that as supporting an outdated, extreme right wing grouping would be if you ignored the words and merely banged out the tune on your head using a rusty frying pan.

You also have to wonder at a grouping that believes it is capable of holding political office and yet seems incapable of controlling the videos being streamed through its own website.

Sony have intervened now, and had the offending videos removed from YouTube - although it's not clear if it's doing so because of the political uses to which the track has been put, or simply because they were afraid they might miss out on the 0.00004 pence.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It reminded me of this http://xrrf.blogspot.com/2006/03/bragg-takes-on-bnp.html

It's not just that they choose completely inappropriate songs, it's the fact that they choose a band who politically are about as far from the BNP as possible. You begin to wonder whether or not they're deliberately choosing particular artists as a way of drawing attention to themselves.

In fairness, who would actually expect them to be able to spot the irony in the song selection situation if the scum can't spot the irony in declaring that they are against "violence, hatred, fragmentation and despair".

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