eddym_14
December 6th, 2004, 01:18 PM
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
It is no surprise to me that the leading spokesmen for the Nick Griffin leadership in the BNP (which you will probably now know has contrived my expulsion from the party to ensure that I am removed as a challenger to Mr. Griffin in a future leadership election) has a habit of dodging arguments over the many issues that are currently dividing the party, and instead concentrating their fire on personalities.
I do not by any means exclude the importance of personalities in political debate. People do what they do because of what they are, and to ascertain what lies behind bad policy decisions and contemptible actions one does need sometimes to examine the characters of those responsible for them. I have engaged in this practice, and I therefore expect others to do the same. It is an inevitable part of the cut and thrust of debate. The one thing that should be insisted upon is that people tell the truth and do not assort to lies -- such as the quite ridiculous claim by Nick Griffin that I am a big-time boozer (something that would be laughed out of court by any honest person who knows me, still a health and fitness fanatic at my three score years and ten).
Mr. Griffin's chief hatchet man Tony Lecomber has also been a carrier of this lie -- plus numerous others about me (see his little rag The Evening Chronicle, published and distributed around the party in late-2000).
But it is when folk run especially low on intelligent arguments that they 'up the anti' in the game of personal attacks, which serve conveniently as substitutes rather than guides to argument on the issues at hand.
I note that recently they have been gunning for a colleague of mine, Eddy Morrison, by circulating an article I wrote about Eddy many years ago shortly after the two of us had parted company over a serious disagreement over policies and tactics. Eddy had then made some serious mistakes -- just as I had myself made some equally serious ones many years before that. One of the things about this life is that we can learn by our mistakes, if we are sensible and sincere about what we are doing, and rectify them and get back on course as we get older. I have never doubted that Eddy Morrison is a sincere nationalist and wants to do the right thing for the cause in which he believes. This led him in earlier days into some misadventures which he now genuinely regrets. He also has had some personal problems in the past which may have contributed to those misadventures.
But what I am concerned is the here and now. Eddy is, I believe, a very different person from the younger Eddy of times gone by. He is still not perfect -- any more than I am -- but he is doing excellent work in helping me fight the sell-out merchants and betrayers of nationalism who are on the scene today. He has many very valuable gifts and talents, some of which I lack myself, and he has the potential, if properly encouraged, to be a tower of strength to the nationalist cause.
If we are going to play the game of focusing on the past political errors and misadventures of those with whom we are now in conflict, this could lead to some very interesting results indeed! I know of several people who currently belong to the Nick Griffin brigade -- from the very top downwards -- who got themselves into some unbelievably stupid situations when younger. Some such people later grow up, but some others never grow up. And to my mind there is a significant difference between acts of foolishness committed out of motives of genuine sincerity and similar acts committed out of motives that are essentially ignoble. People guilty of the former can change; those guilty of the latter almost never change.
So yes, I did write an article severely critical of Eddy Morrison many moons back. I wrote it for reasons that seemed to me right at the time and probably were right at the time. If we want to dig up old articles, I cannot recommend too highly that people get some copies of a magazine called Nationalism Today, published in the 1980s, in which probably the leading writer was none other than one Nick Griffin. If these copies can be obtained (and they are rarities in 2004) it will be seen that they contain articles by Master Griffin continually condemning and lampooning the BNP and me personally. Later, when the BNP started to show some success, such as in 1993 when it won a council seat, what do we find Nick doing? Why, praising the BNP and saying complimentary things about John Tyndall! That served Nick's agenda fine when he was hoping to get a paid job with me, as he did from 1996 to 1999. But then he changed again, and went back to targeting me with lies and vitriol. He has now -- for the second time in sixteen months -- had me expelled from the party which I founded, and on which he was only too pleased to jump aboard when it suited him. If it is going to be a contest in erratic behaviour, Eddy Morrison is left stranded at the starting post!
Yes, Eddy has some faults -- much smaller ones now than in the past -- but compared with those now sniping at him from the ramparts of Griffindom he comes out as a veritable saint!
JOHN TYNDALL
It is no surprise to me that the leading spokesmen for the Nick Griffin leadership in the BNP (which you will probably now know has contrived my expulsion from the party to ensure that I am removed as a challenger to Mr. Griffin in a future leadership election) has a habit of dodging arguments over the many issues that are currently dividing the party, and instead concentrating their fire on personalities.
I do not by any means exclude the importance of personalities in political debate. People do what they do because of what they are, and to ascertain what lies behind bad policy decisions and contemptible actions one does need sometimes to examine the characters of those responsible for them. I have engaged in this practice, and I therefore expect others to do the same. It is an inevitable part of the cut and thrust of debate. The one thing that should be insisted upon is that people tell the truth and do not assort to lies -- such as the quite ridiculous claim by Nick Griffin that I am a big-time boozer (something that would be laughed out of court by any honest person who knows me, still a health and fitness fanatic at my three score years and ten).
Mr. Griffin's chief hatchet man Tony Lecomber has also been a carrier of this lie -- plus numerous others about me (see his little rag The Evening Chronicle, published and distributed around the party in late-2000).
But it is when folk run especially low on intelligent arguments that they 'up the anti' in the game of personal attacks, which serve conveniently as substitutes rather than guides to argument on the issues at hand.
I note that recently they have been gunning for a colleague of mine, Eddy Morrison, by circulating an article I wrote about Eddy many years ago shortly after the two of us had parted company over a serious disagreement over policies and tactics. Eddy had then made some serious mistakes -- just as I had myself made some equally serious ones many years before that. One of the things about this life is that we can learn by our mistakes, if we are sensible and sincere about what we are doing, and rectify them and get back on course as we get older. I have never doubted that Eddy Morrison is a sincere nationalist and wants to do the right thing for the cause in which he believes. This led him in earlier days into some misadventures which he now genuinely regrets. He also has had some personal problems in the past which may have contributed to those misadventures.
But what I am concerned is the here and now. Eddy is, I believe, a very different person from the younger Eddy of times gone by. He is still not perfect -- any more than I am -- but he is doing excellent work in helping me fight the sell-out merchants and betrayers of nationalism who are on the scene today. He has many very valuable gifts and talents, some of which I lack myself, and he has the potential, if properly encouraged, to be a tower of strength to the nationalist cause.
If we are going to play the game of focusing on the past political errors and misadventures of those with whom we are now in conflict, this could lead to some very interesting results indeed! I know of several people who currently belong to the Nick Griffin brigade -- from the very top downwards -- who got themselves into some unbelievably stupid situations when younger. Some such people later grow up, but some others never grow up. And to my mind there is a significant difference between acts of foolishness committed out of motives of genuine sincerity and similar acts committed out of motives that are essentially ignoble. People guilty of the former can change; those guilty of the latter almost never change.
So yes, I did write an article severely critical of Eddy Morrison many moons back. I wrote it for reasons that seemed to me right at the time and probably were right at the time. If we want to dig up old articles, I cannot recommend too highly that people get some copies of a magazine called Nationalism Today, published in the 1980s, in which probably the leading writer was none other than one Nick Griffin. If these copies can be obtained (and they are rarities in 2004) it will be seen that they contain articles by Master Griffin continually condemning and lampooning the BNP and me personally. Later, when the BNP started to show some success, such as in 1993 when it won a council seat, what do we find Nick doing? Why, praising the BNP and saying complimentary things about John Tyndall! That served Nick's agenda fine when he was hoping to get a paid job with me, as he did from 1996 to 1999. But then he changed again, and went back to targeting me with lies and vitriol. He has now -- for the second time in sixteen months -- had me expelled from the party which I founded, and on which he was only too pleased to jump aboard when it suited him. If it is going to be a contest in erratic behaviour, Eddy Morrison is left stranded at the starting post!
Yes, Eddy has some faults -- much smaller ones now than in the past -- but compared with those now sniping at him from the ramparts of Griffindom he comes out as a veritable saint!
JOHN TYNDALL