Barrel Strength

Criticisms of the BNP and Nick Griffin play to the party’s strength. They put me in mind of Smollett’s honest apple-woman.

His panegyric, excluding principle and veracity,
 puts me in mind of a contest I once overheard,
in the way of altercation, betwixt two apple-women
in Spring-garden -- One of those viragos having
hinted something to the prejudice of the other's
moral character, her antagonist, setting her hands
 in her sides, replied -- 'Speak out, hussy --
I scorn your malice -- I own I'm both a whore
 and a thief; and what more have you to say?
 -- Damn you, what more have you to say? baiting
that, which all the world knows, I challenge
you to say black is the white of my eye' --

Having once called Griffin and his Checked Shirts bigots and racists, what then? Eh? Speak up, damn you! What then? Calling them whores and thieves does not black the white of their eyes nor would it seem to lessen their appeal to the voters of Great Britain.