NICK Griffin has received a sizeable mailbag concerning the Government’s plan to sell-off a Ministry of Defence building in Glasgow and then pay almost 40% more than the asking price to lease it back over 20 years.

Gordon Brown & Co wanted to sell Kentigern House (left) in the Anderston area of the city for £50million to the Canada Life insurance group to try to raise some quick cash to fund its ill-conceived adventure in Afghanistan.

The sale, however would have cost the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds more in the long run as the Government wanted to rent the building back for the next 20 years.

Canada Life would have received £70.2m in rent from the MoD over 20 years with interest adding another £1m-£2m over the period.

The sale-and-leaseback madness had led to employment concerns amongst the 1700 workers based in Argyle Street building where staff store military data and NATO records.

Thankfully, the sale has now been scrapped so Tina Wingfield, the MEP’s constituency office manager, was able to respond positively to worried constituents.

She wrote:

“While common sense has prevailed on this occasion and the sale plans have been abandoned, the fact remains that the MoD is being starved of the resources it needs to operate effectively. The proposal to sell Kentigern House was a desperate, short-sighted act by the MoD to secure essential funding to be spent on other commitments.
 
“This Labour Government has systematically scaled down the financial support given to the MoD, at the same time as continually extending the military’s commitments to unwinnable and wholly unjustifiable overseas conflicts.
 
“As Treasurer in 2004, Gordon Brown refused, for example, to release the funding required to buy new helicopters, which could now be used in service in Afghanistan. Instead, the lack of air support experienced by military personnel is now exposing them to Taliban attack, as they are forced to take dangerous journeys by road.
 
“MoD figures released this morning illustrate well the terrible consequences of the Treasury’s short-sighted penny-pinching. More than 1,000 servicemen and women have suffered combat injuries in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and 20% of army infantry personnel are now classified as unfit for frontline combat duties.

“Mr Griffin fully supports our brave armed services and has consistently campaigned for better equipment to be issued to them when they are deployed in combat zones.

“He is however, opposed to the Government’s callous use of British troops in foreign conflicts that do not involve the national interest and is calling for the return of our troops from Afghanistan.”

It’s a lovely sunny but chilly morning on Monday 9th November 2009 and BNP Scotland is delighted to welcome to the streets of Glasgow North East, Nick Griffin MEP and Richard Barnbrook GLA (Member of the Greater London Assembly) for a day’s campaigning in the constituency.

We started in Springburn Shopping Centre just after 11am where we spent a full hour in the presence of the national media.

Richard Barnbrook took up the megaphone and regaled shoppers with our message while BNP activists leafleted everyone coming and going. Meanwhile Nick spoke to an eager media as the Truth Truck drove all around the area with its positive message blaring from the speakers.

Interestingly, there was no sign of the other parties at all, as Nick went walkabout, meeting and greeting the locals.

It was then onto Saracen Street with the media keen to keep up.

Richard walked ahead of our entourage, right down one side of Saracen Street with his message sounding out from his megaphone. It was clear to us all in BNP Scotland that Richard is a real professional and judging from his confidence and skill, he has done this many times before! In fact, Richard told us that Glasgow North East reminded him of Barking and Dagenham 3 years ago.

Nick followed and greeted passers-by, shaking their hands, stopping to talk to them and giving them our leaflet. On the other side of the street, our party activists were handing out leaflets as the Truth Truck drove up and down the street.

On one side of the leaflets was the message “SNP – The Mass Immigration Party” and on the other “Fair Play for Glasgow – Stop Asylum Dumping Now!” The leaflet was well-received by everyone.

The leaflet continued: “The SNP are showing their real unpatriotic colours. They want to see even more immigration to Scotland and don’t care that it’s unfair on our own jobless, homeless and taxpayers. An SNP vote is a vote to import even more unemployment, crime and poverty into Glasgow.”

The Truth Truck is very tall and visible. As a passerby commented, “You can see it for miles!”

After spending time in Saracen Street everyone set off for Duke Street. Here we did the same thing. Our entourage walked down one side of the road, led by Richard with Nick and the media and our leafleters in tow, and then we walked down the other side, while the Truth Truck drove up and down and round about the entire area.

Nick was on top form and was as happy to be with us as we were to see him. He is a very friendly politician and loved to shake hands with the people who recognised him – which was everyone.

Everyone was friendly. The only sour note was from an SNP activist who stumbled into our entourage. He called one of our leafleters a “fascist”, only to be brought up short by our activist who rebuked him, “You Sir, have not been brought up properly!”

The frantic SNPer also received a particularly unwanted reminder of his own party’s history from our activist: “Calling us ‘fascist’ is rich coming from a member of a party whose former leader, Arthur Donaldson, was a Nazi sympathiser during WW2 and wanted to set up a Vichy-style regime in Scotland!” he was told. The SNPer stormed off in a huff – we guess the truth hurts!

The facts about Donaldson were explained in a 2005 Sunday Times article which stated:
“Arthur Donaldson, the former SNP leader, planned to set up a Vichy-style regime in Scotland in the event of a Nazi invasion, according to a newly released MI5 file. Donaldson intended to infiltrate the party with Nazi sympathisers, who would undermine the British war effort by carrying out acts of sabotage and spreading misinformation. Following a widely anticipated invasion by Hitler’s forces, the Nationalist leader hoped to establish himself as a ‘Scottish quisling’ in charge of a puppet government. Donaldson, who led the party from 1960 to 1969, was arrested in 1941 and was held for five weeks at Barlinnie.”
(Peter Day, “SNP boss planned Nazi Scotland”, The Sunday Times, 6 November 2005).

You can read the story yourself here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article587207.ece

Let our candidate Charlie Baillie have the final word after today’s wonderful activity. As he told us:

“This was a great day’s activism. Thanks to Nick Griffin MEP and Richard Barnbrook MLA for coming up to help. We really appreciate that. Nick got a great response from the voters and Richard is an extremely impressive politician who really helped to turn the visit into an event! It was especially appropriate that Nick and Richard were here on the same day that Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, was also in the constituency. This is a man who says in today’s papers that he wants ‘a debate’ on immigration. Well, talking is nice, but action is what is needed now! The fact is, Alan Johnson can debate immigration until the cows come home, but he has no intention of ever actually doing anything about it! The voters can see through him. That’s one of the reasons why voters in Glasgow North East are supporting the British National Party – the only party that is not just talking about it, but will actually do something to stop mass immigration.”

Voting is this Thursday 12th November between 7am-10pm. See the “Point of Light” manifesto on which Charlie Baillie and the BNP are standing here:
http://bnp.org.uk/2009/11/a-point-of-light-the-bnp-manifesto-for-glasgow-north-east