The battle for Barking

[davey]

watched this the other night and expected it to be the usual hatchet job on the BNP.Have to say full marks to the producer for what i thought was a very fair objective film.Margaret hodge, i thought she was filth ever since she covered up the paedophile scandal when she worked on Islington council but in this she demonstrates just how far politicians are prepared to lower themselves just to get peoples votes.Socialist wearing jimmy choo's?nah dont think so

[max_tranmere]

I watched the programme, I thought Margaret Hodge was appalling. It infuriated me when she went to address that meeting of muslims and wore a head scarf whilst doing so, and then addressed a huge group of asylum seekers in that hall telling them if they are not yet registered to vote then they should register, and then when they had they should vote for her. I imagine there were translaters there as a lot of the people she was begging for the vote from couldn't speak English and wouldn't have been able to find Barking on a map.

I have discussed the BNP on here before and have stated several times that I don't like the fact they have advanced in recent years but I do believe in democracy. On one hand you could say that democracy was served by the fact the local area voted and the BNP were sent packing, on the other hand you could say it is wrong to import vast numbers of people from abroad then go round meeting large groups of them and say 'vote for me because the other lot will throw you out of the country' and win the seat that way. These are people who, by and large, are not assimilated here, have no loyalty to here, yet they have just as much input into the democratic process as some old boy down at the local British legion who turns out to honour the troops on their homecoming marches and whose family has been here for countless generations.

If I was to emigrate to Japan on Monday,or any country you could name, I would surely not be as Japanese as my next door neighbour whose family has been there for 10 generations on Tuesday. Therefore for me to have as much input into the local democratic process as my neighbour, when I could barely even name the district I lived in or know who the leader of the country was, seems wrong.

Margaret Hodge to address large groups of former asylum seekers, who've recently been given residency, on the programme and say 'have you registed to vote, you must do. Then vote for us because we welcome you, the other lot will deport you' is a very cynical and unfair way to win your seat. She won but only because she cynically asked people who had just turned up to vote for her.

Perhaps a million people from the Home Counties of England should uproot and settle in Pakistan, they would all be just as Pakistani as the head of the Pakistan Cricket team within an hour or arrving there (wouldn't they?) and then politicans could court their vote in order to disrupt the whole political system in their facour. Margaret Hodge is a genuinely horrible person.

[number 6]

Get a life you pair of mugs,feeling sorry for facists,jesus christ.

[number 6]

Margaret Hodge is ANTI RACIST,ANTI FACIST,you should be applauding her for standing up to scum instead of dragging her down,you pair of bastards.

[max_tranmere]

I take it you didn't read what I wrote then.

[max_tranmere]

Did you watch the programme? She cares a lot more about people who have just arrived, who have no loyalty to here and could barely even find Barking on a map, than she does for locals who are settled (black, white, Asian, whatever). I thought the way she conducted herself was disgraceful.

[Lizard]

I watched it, and thought it was a very good documentry, it did expose Margret Hodge for the vile establishment creature that she is. There was nothing in the programme that suggested for one minute that she was standing up for local peole at all, she just played the race hatred card to as many Imigrant's that she could get on camera. To stand on someone's doorstep and tell a husband his wife could be deported, even though the guy's wife was clearly Chinese, and had lived here for years, was nothing short of disgusting. Fear and lies won her campaign. Max is correct, she was disgraceful..

[Dick Moby]

Here we go again. You find it acceptable to call people "bastards" and "scum" but don't dare let anyone think about being a racist.
You're a hypocrite pure and simple.

[Sam Slater]

There's a difference in calling someone derogatory names due to their actions, or views, over calling them over their skin colour or nationality.

[Sam Slater]

I didn't see the programme so cannot comment on specifics. What I will say is that everyone deserves representation. She may care more for these immigrants than the local people because not many are there to represent them in the first place.