From The Telegraph.

White working-class families feel so neglected by the Government and angered by immigration that they are deserting Labour and flocking to the British National Party, a minister admitted yesterday.

In a sensational claim, Margaret Hodge, one of Tony Blair's closest allies, said that eight out of 10 white people in her east London constituency of Barking are threatening to vote for the far-Right party in next month's local elections. Once traditional Labour supporters are angry at a lack of affordable housing - and blame immigration, and Labour, for the changes.

"When I knock on doors I say to people, 'are you tempted to vote BNP?' and many, many, many - eight out of 10 of the white families - say 'yes'. That's something we have never seen before, in all my years. Even when people voted BNP, they used to be ashamed to vote BNP. Now they are not." Mrs Hodge said the pace of ethnic change in her area had frightened people. "What has happened in Barking and Dagenham is the most rapid transformation of a community we have ever witnessed.

I lived in Dagenham for 9 years, from1981 to 1990. I still have strong ties there.  Margaret Hodge is right about rapid change, changes far more rapid than those in the other London boroughs where I was born and brought up.

As the Telegraph opinion says

The growth of support for the British National Party is extremely disturbing…..It is a trend that has been noticed in several other working-class areas of Britain - and for which New Labour must take responsibility.

Too right it is disturbing, although I believe that the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats deserve equal share of the blame.  As anyone who has ever noticed the debates that Mary and I have contributed to on JW/DW the British National Party are racist, with a nasty history that modern packaging and gloss cannot disguise.  Yet unfortunately they are the only party that says anything truthful about the particular ideology that does indeed threaten us, and to name that threat as dhimmitude. 

The Telegraph interviewed local people. These people were, are, my neighbours. I buy flowers, I eat pie and mash. These are not evil people to be casually dismissed as ignorant racists.

Perry Horton, 45, director of Roy's Pie & Mash Shop
"I can understand where the people voting BNP are coming from. People are prepared to mix, but when they think they are getting overrun……

The Telegraph realises this.

Britain is a multi-racial society, and by far the majority of Britons are happy with that: racism is not the sole explanation for the growing number prepared to vote for the BNP. But distrust of, and disaffection with, "multiculturalism" is a different matter. Many Britons do not want to see their communities fragmented into different and isolated factions; nor do they want their traditional values of tolerance and liberty replaced by conformity to religious diktat.

The problem is that these people have not been consulted about the vast social experiment in which they have been forced to participate. Nor can they discuss their anger without being labelled "racist". Until the Government - and the opposition parties - confront the issues raised by immigration, directly and honestly, the poison of the BNP will continue to spread.

Please, please, give us all, black and white, young and old, viable leadership.  The BNP are a tiger we cannot ride.

Soon! Now!

Bank holiday Monday update.  Even the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and Operation Black Vote believe that there are issues to address. Played down by the Home Office. Of course.

As reported by the BBC.