Dozens of people from across the community and of various political persuasions descended on a Blackburn sports centre car park at the weekend to pick up batches of Hope Not Hate material to distribute in their neighbourhoods. The newspaper-style publication aims to get out the anti-BNP vote and was produced in conjunction with the Daily Mirror.

Here is an excerpt from Nick Lowles' blog on the Hope Not Hate website:

The HOPE not hate campaign really kicked into gear this weekend with over 150,000 leaflets and newspapers being distributed around the country. Setting the pace was Blackburn with Darwen, where over 80 people distributed 20,000 newspapers, with a lot more being taken away to deliver over the next week.

Some of our Labour activists were out delivering in, among other locales, Beardwood yesterday (pictured). Unfortunately, Conservative peer Norman Tebbit was spending the day confounding our efforts to prevent Nick Griffin becoming an MEP representing the North West in Europe:

The Noble Lord suggested that voters should punish the big parties by voting for one of the smaller ones. When pressed by Nick Robinson as to whether he meant UKIP, Tebbit responded:

They can vote for one of the other parties or they can sit on their hands ... They might vote for the Christian Alliance, they might vote Green and if they're our of their minds they might vote socialist and go for the BNP.

Needling the left with horseshoe theory aside, his qualification that voters would need to be "out of their minds" to vote BNP rings hollow. Tebbit knows full well that his outbursts may be used by some people to rationalise support for the BNP in June.

How can a leader tolerate prominent party figures suggesting that people should support their opposition in the full knowledge that this might take the form of a vote for neo-fascists?

What will it take for Cameron to take on lunatic right-wingers like Tebbit?

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