This is turning into a habit (as the first knitter of a monk’s garment said….). Oh well, I don’t have to get up for work… When you have a north facing garden, this is one of the few times of the day you can take advantage of the sun!

This is very funny.

The British National Party has urged its members to procreate after it lost every seat it contested in the English local elections on Thursday.

The BNP fielded 99 candidates but did not win a seat. It lost the one county council seat it held in Lancashire, leaving Nick Griffin’s party with just two councillors.

In a post on the party’s website, members are urged to have bigger families to counter large families had by non-Britons.

Northernscot claims that 51% of the US population is non-white and says that to prevent the same thing happening in Britain, “BNP members and nationalists” need to breed more.

“I know, by now you will be giggling over this suggestion. But think about it, nationalists need to buck the trend of 1.8 children per white household. We need to aim between 3 and 4 children each if not more,” he writes. “And the bonus is that making babies is fun! So fellow nationalists, less TV and more fun! Let’s do our bit for Britain and our race.”

Union Jack photo: Some rights reserved by Mark Seton

Election victor laughs with mouth wide open on front pages on Saturday after the first Thursday of May 1993 and May 2013.

The difference: David Rendel had his mouth open on four front pages. Farage only made two and his mouth wasn’t open as much.

It’s the twentieth anniversary of the Newbury by-election victory on Monday. I’m celebrating early. It gave us twelve years of a damned good Liberal Democrat MP.

Taken from our garden at 05:48 hrs this morning. Shot with a very low ISO. Also helped with a little bit of magic from Photomatix.

My photo is of Widemouth Bay, which is within Poundstock division. The photo is viewable on Google Earth (via Panoramio) where it has had 255 views in just a few months.

Well done Nicky Chopak!

Poundstock – LD win
Andrew Ades, Con 449
Nicky Chopak, LD 487
Rupert Powell, 171
Paul Sousek, MK 206
Turnout 36.3%

Rupert Powell was standing for UKIP, according to their website.

From This is Cornwall: @thisiscornwall on Twitter | thisiscornwall on Facebook

This Monday is the twentieth anniversary of the Newbury by-election, when Liberal Democrat David Rendel won the seat with a majority of 22,055.

Only the most committed anorak remembers the name of the Conservative candidate whom David Rendel defeated. It was Julian Davidson.

Today, almost twenty years after his defeat by David Rendel, Julian Davidson was defeated again by a Liberal Democrat. A glutton for punishment….

Here are the candidates and election results for the electoral division of Blackdown & Neroche

Candidate Party Votes
BOWER, Darrelle Anne Green Party 123
DAVIDSON, Julian Turner Conservative 988
HENLEY, Ross Longhurst Liberal Democrat 1035 Elected
RUST, Clive Mark UK Independence Party 566
SPEARS, Madeleine Labour 183

A wonderful outcome to the elections, as far as I am concerned.

All the heat is on the Tories because of UKIP emerging as the new governing party of the United Kingdom – warf, warf!

Meanwhile, the story has moved away from “Lib Dems disappear down the plug hole”. Excellent.

In the meantime, we did quite well. I just think Neil Fawcett, being elected in Abingdon South is good enough for trebles all round. Well done, Neil.

In fact, LABOUR have most to psephologically shit themselves concerning these election results. It is in fact them, according to the impeccable and unimpeachable source of Dr Mark Pack (for, it is indeed, he) who have taken the biggest hit from UKIP. C2s and that sort. Non-graduates. People who regard themselves as religious. The clinically insane. These are the UKIP heartlands. (OK, I made that last bit up).

Nigel Farage is 118 and a complete nonsense.

Well done to the Oxfordshire Lib Dem team! In particular, well done to Neil Fawcett and team, gaining Abingdon South!

I phone banked for Neil on Wednesday evening. It was an enormous pleasure to support Neil, who I have known for 20 years through campaigning events, and who is one of the wisest, hard-working and most earnest people I have ever met.

Photo:Some rights reserved by Mark Pack

There are not many things that rile me more than hearing Nigel Farage repeating endlessly that we are “opening our doors” to two hundred zillion Romanians and Bulgarians who are going to rape and pillage all over the British landscape, razing all human habitation to the ground leaving only an even vaster national debt in their wake.

I sit next to a Bulgarian at work. She is a very hard-working and talented lady who has settled here with her family.

The laugh is that there is a case to say that Bulgarians are already getting better benefits than British people. For example, if a mother has to absent herself to look after a sick child, she receives sick pay in Bulgaria. But not here.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Nigel Farage!

Photo: Balchik coast of Bulgaria – some rights reserved by Ali Burçin Titizel / Gti861

I’ve just been phoning voters on behalf of someone I have known and respected for twenty years who is a candidate in the elections tomorrow. I will not mention the candidate’s name or their area, because that will require me to jump through all sort of legal electoral hoops.

I enjoyed the experience of talking to voters. I appreciate that bombardment by paper and phone can be frustrating for the electorate.

I think most people would understand that making contact with voters through their letterbox and phone is a vital part of democracy. When it is done by a party funded by donations and staffed largely by volunteers, such as myself, it comes under the heading of working hard to win people’s votes. That hard work is continued after the election, all year round. That’s not just a slogan. It’s actually true.

I make no apology for that and, indeed, my phone work tonight has greatly strengthened my commitment to the Liberal Democrats.

Thank you to Tim Gordon for sending me a Thank You letter with this wonderful button!

The first one minute and 15 seconds of “Firth of Fifth” is sheer brilliance delivered on the grand piano by Tony Banks. (And the title reminds me of that famous football result, Forfar 4 East Fife 5).

But my favourite Genesis track (and this is certainly not a political endorsement – one of them was allegedly a Maggie fan, I seem to remember – but then my favourite author is Evelyn Waugh, who was certainly no liberal) is “In the wilderness” which is well worth listening to, as it is a rather obscure album track which hardly anyone has heard of. The strings make the track, in my mind. In fact, I think there is a suggestion of a double bass in there somewhere.

Both the mentioned tracks are below on YouTube:

It may sound a nerdish thing to say…and yes I was bored. But YouTube is bursting with airline safety videos from across the world.

Trust me. Air New Zealand do the best airline safety videos. There’s the one with the hobbits, the one with the All Blacks, the one with the disco and the one with the air crew naked but with their uniforms painted on their bodies (I am NOT making this up).

But the airline safety video to end all airline safety videos…the pièce de résistance…la crème de la crème….is this one with Bear Grylls. It is simply sensational.

“Why I stopped the “Snooper’s Charter” was the title of a mail from Nick Clegg winging its way to party members today.

“Because we stuck a rocket up your bottom, Nick?” – came the response from a dry wit, albeit with an alternative anatomical name mentioned.

If the answer to Nick’s question is simply anal missile insertion then he would have stopped Secret Courts as well.

We should credit Nick with using his own judgment in these matters. I am sure he does. It is just that his judgment only randomly and rather erratically seems to coincide with the judgment of rank and file party members.

Photo: Some rights reserved by jurvetson

This still sends a shiver down me everything time I see it…. I love the way they get in a reference to every Premier league club (I assume – I haven’t checked, but they get Reading in, so the rest must be in there).

Blocking someone on Twitter is not as effective as it sounds. People, who Nadine Dorries has blocked, can still read her tweets and have their replies, to those tweets, read by anyone searching for mentions of her.

Photo: Some rights reserved by stevegarfield

An organisation called Mars One is recruiting four people to send them to Mars to arrive in 2013 and never come back. They might send more people to join them two years later.

Applicants need to be aged 18-40 and able to breathe in and thrive on air which is 95% carbon dioxide. Being clinically insane would be an advantage.

Oh, and please send $38 with your application as a “processing fee”.

You dafty.

Photo: Mars planet 1 (Nasa enhanced) – Some rights reserved by J.Gabás Esteban