Devil in the detail
From Gerald Hitman Sir: I am intrigued that a man as able as Jeremy Clarke should have been unable to help Nick Griffin with a working definition of racism (`Britain's most reviled man', 27 March). Surely to goodness it is the act of ascribing a characteristic to an individual — as, for example, that he has natural rhythm or a propensity to welsh on his obligations — on the basis of his ethnic origins, without examining his behaviour.
As to whether the British National Party is racist, I can only offer this observation. A while ago. the BNP descended on my part of east Lancashire to oppose the grant of planning permission for a small mosque in Clitheroe. They made such a huge fuss about opposing it on `planning' rather than 'racial' grounds that I thought to look at their web site to find out how truthful they were being. Their book list seemed odd, to say the least, and I bought and read every book they were offering in the science category. The 'science' they were referring to was eugenics, and the books sought to prove that Jews, blacks, Asians, etc., are inherently less intelligent, honest, etc., than 'we' are and that interbreeding with such groups would be a bad thing.
If Jeremy is going to write again about the BNP, he might find its website more informative than its leaders.
Gerald Hitman
Broekhall, Lancashire
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