The British National Party led their Latest News page on April 3rd with the shock-horror announcement that an attempt had been made on Nick Griffin's life on a visit to Sweden, along with those of his wife and a couple of other BNP bods. In an article entitled 'Attempt to kill BNP leader fails', they claimed that, 'The [BNP] delegation along with several Swedish hosts boarded a commuter train in the capital Stockholm on Saturday afternoon...it is believed that a tip off was made to a Stockholm radio station who alerted Police, who in turn stopped and evacuated the train.'

This gives the clear impression that Griffin and his gang were on the train and were evacuated - a frightening and harrowing experience for anyone.

Apparently though, this was not the case. An update on the BNP website today makes this clear; '...members of the BNP delegation were never on that train and made their way to the venue by alternative means and at no time was any member of the BNP delegation in any imminent danger.'

So why the original deliberately misleading article?

The British public is still reeling from the shock and after-effects of the bombings in London last July. The fact that several devices were used a few weeks later (though thankfully failed to go off) and that there is a well-reported trial taking place right now of a bunch of suspected terrorists has kept the fear of indiscriminate bombings high on everyone's personal agenda. It is this fear that the BNP are cynically working on by producing a deliberately distorted account of the incident in an attempt to gain sympathy and to generate more fear.

And who did the BNP blame for the attempted bombing? Well, while the Swedish police seemed to think it was the work of a radical left group, the BNP found itself almost agreeing but couldn't avoid a sideswipe at their current bete noire; '...Far Left extremists are the most likely suspects, [but] any link to Islamic fundamentalists has not been ruled out.' Nobody mentioned Islamic fundamentalists except the BNP.

There is no doubt that there was an incident. There is also no doubt that the BNP deliberately lied to give the impression that Griffin was the target. There is no doubt that the BNP will do ANYTHING to win votes, no matter how filthy it is or how many lies it takes. But the simple fact is that to attempt to mislead the public over anything even faintly related to a bombing is despicable.

The BNP have overstepped the mark this time and truly earned the epithet that's so often used when referring to them - scum.