I like my village. With an ancient cricket green, its selection of amenities, its thirty-odd antique shops, and a host of elderly folk waiting to die, it is the very thesis of Little England.

This evening at the sound of my letterbox’s rattle I ran to the bedroom window to observe a tall, cleancut, leather-jacket-clad man trying to negotiate / exit my garden gate, as a male-and-female pair similarly returned from my neighbours’ door. I got a fairly good look at him – he sheepishly slightly shrugged when he finally noticed me watching him.

Then I got downstairs and found – rather than the expected pizza flyer – that for the second time in three weeks I’d had a brochure from the BNP shoved through my letterbox. Feeling that once was unfortunate, but twice was more than a coincidence I did some googling and found the following, dated April 6th:

[www.thisishampshire.net]

POLICE are investigating after leaflets featuring a controversial cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed were pushed through letterboxes in Hartley Wintney.

The leaflets have been distributed by the British National Party for next month’s local elections.

They feature the cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban that sparked outrage among Muslims across the world after it was published in a Danish newspaper last year.

The leaflets also feature a photograph of a subsequent demonstration by Muslims where protesters carried inflammatory placards that led to police investigations.

Now, Hartley Wintney Parish Council has unanimously voted to condemn the literature and has passed one of the leaflets to Hampshire Constabulary to investigate possible race relations charges.

Speaking at the parish council’s meeting on Monday, April 3, Councillor Gerta Bennett said: “The leaflet asks which image you find offensive, but I find it extremely offensive to have that sort of material pushed through my door.”

Pc Michael Ames, Hartley Wintney’s beat officer, was in attendance at the meeting. He said: “We have received a number of complaints about this material and we will be looking into it.”

A BNP spokesman, who did not wish to be named, expressed his surprise at the parish council’s decision.

He said: “We have not heard any negative comments at all, but we have had quite a few positive comments including applications for membership via our head office.”

The activist, one of seven who have been distributing leaflets in Hartley Wintney, claims the impression of the BNP as a racist organisation is misplaced.

He claimed the leaflet was not intended to spread prejudice, but was meant as a call for action against demonstrators who, he claimed, carried signs inciting violence.

He said: “The actual leaflet was trying to demonstrate the inoffensive and innocuous nature of the cartoon to western eyes, compared with the distress and alarm caused by the nature of the posters on display at the demonstration.”

Hartley Wintney resident Roger Robertson is the BNP candidate standing for election to Hart council in the Hartley Wintney ward.

Mr Robertson unsuccessfully fought for the Basingstoke parliamentary seat at the 2005 General Election and the Hook ward at the 2004 Hart District Council local elections.

…which is evidently in reference to the previous flyer that I received. A little more digging, and according to the BNP website:-

ROGER ROBERTSON is married with two sons, the eldest is serving in the Royal Navy and the youngest works in his fathers telecommunications company. Roger and his wife live in a small village in Hampshire where he has served as a P.C.C. and is a reader in the Parish Church. He was formerly a member of the U.K. Independence Party before joining the British National Party.

Really? God-fearing and a supporter of Queen and Country? Then I do rather wish they’d skip the soft pickings of my local village with its reactionary old-folk and instead go leafletting in nearby Fleet, which aside from its many other attractions is home to many former members of The Gurkha Regiment. I wonder how their politics would stand up in the face a bunch of polite, educated, well-disciplined Nepali men who likewise served Queen and Country and who are given to carrying around sodding enormous knives.

For informational purposes – so you can see the depth of the misinformation and rumour being touted as political argument – the latest leaflet is attached:

…it’s evidently old copy from the Michael Howard days of the Conservative party, it makes the usual references to “our people” without defining what they mean, it appears to have been redacted – the punchline to the cartoon is missing? – and it’s chock-full of anti-Muslim propaganda.

Call me boring, but come the European elections I shall look forwards to voting for another party entirely.