PS although I don’t know why Jim Jam went off on a tangent at the end of his post about secularism – but I think the gist of it was pretty ill thought out eg “no-one has been killed by secularism in the name of God” probably true but a few millions have been killed by secularism in the name of Stalin, Hitler (who in his writings/speeches defined himself as an atheist with occasional “pretend” leanings to a pre-Christian paganism). Mao. Lenin etc etc.

What I would like to focus on though is the concept of Britain no longer suffering widespread racism.

I am interested in how one might calculate that. Certainly, I dont think non-white contestants winning talent competitions or reallity-tv shows means a great deal. Those people win because they have talent, and because they have a significant minority of people from similar backgrounds voting for them. It would be unusual for the white population of britain to unite and vote for the one remaining white contestant just because they were the one remaining white contestant I feel, whereas people from other social groups and ethnic minorities would arguably be more likely to do so. Nevertheless, I do not think this can give us much of an idea of whether or not Britain is racist.

Certainly, when I often talk to friends from back home in the Midlands, and others from further afield in the north of England, I do get the impression that there is an overwhelming sense of inherrant racism in these areas. And not just in more rural areas either. Indeed I would say that there are very few white people in certain areas of the midlands and the north who could not be easily engaged in racist-type conversations or anti-immigrant conversations.

The difference I think is that most of these people would still never vote for the BNP, solely because of the stigma attached to it. They would also steer well clear of such conversations in company which they do not know well enough to trust with their views. With people they know, they will say things like, “I’m not racist…but…”, when clearly the words that follow are inherrantly racist.

My parents, I am sad to say, are exactly like this, as are most of my family members. They are a good Christian family, who would never consider themselves to be racist, and would go to great lengths to ensure that they would not be badged as such, but these kind of conversations give the game away.

Another friend of mine is planning to emigrate to Spain, in his own words “to escape all the immigrants who steal our jobs”. Yet he would also state that he was not racist, and would not vote for the BNP.

My point then is that the issues of racism and support for the BNP, whilst of course linked, are not mutally exclusive, and that there is a widespread racism in large parts of the UK, both in rural areas and in cosmopilitan areas. No poll will show this, as a majority of these people, like my parents, will declare that they are not racist, and would not indicate racist views in a poll as a result. They certainly would not say it in a face-to-face poll. The same goes for homophobia, perhaps even more so, amongst many of these people.

The overwhelming majority of these people do not vote BNP, and would not do so, unless the BNP was to become “more acceptable”. Instead they will vote for one of the big two, if they vote at all, but it is this group of voters that would make a great deal of difference should the views of the BNP become more acceptable in the media, at which point we should expect them to swing.

For my own part, I am happy to say that I live and work in a cosmopilitan inner-city area, working with children often from black caribbean, black african or other ethnic backgrounds, and despite being brought up in a family where there is obvious yet publically hidden racism, am vehemently opposed to such views. I dislike the stance of the BNP immensely, and I worry that it’s numbers will continue to grow as more of these kind of people decide that it has become more acceptable to vote for this party and thus clamber out of the closet.

More scary, IMO, are the people who know the Holocaust happened but think it was a good thing. There are a worrying number of those types on the fringes of both the left and the right.

“early” is a relative rather than an absolute term.

In general, we have had elections at approx four year intervals for most of the post-war period, the main exceptions being those which were either shorter due to a lack of working majority (1951, 1966, Oct 1974), or longer as the incumbent hung on to the bitter end (1979, 1992 and 1997) – note 1979 was actually 4 yrs and 7 months, but timing was not determined by the PM who had lost a motion of no confidence.

Had Brown gone to the country in October 2007, just 2 1/2 years into the Parliament, that would have counted as an “early” election. An election in May / June this year would have been par for the course.

Of course, now that everyone expects Brown to go to the wire (technically 10 June 2010), anything before May would be seen as “early” – but only relative to expectations.