Media coverage of the trial of fascist supremo Nick Griffin is not exactly helpful. The Times reports yesterday’s court proceedings under the headline “BNP chief predicted an Islamist attack on British city, court told”, the Telegraph article is headlined “BNP leader predicted attack a year before London bombs”, BBC News has “BNP boss ‘predicted bomb attacks'” and Channel 4 “BNP leader ‘predicted’ July bombings”.

Of course, it is true that the defence did make these claims at Leeds Crown Court. But in the aftermath of the Blair government’s participation in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq there was hardly anyone who didn’t predict that the UK would be subjected to reciprocal terrorist attacks. The effect of these headlines is to give the impression that the fascist leader possessed some unique insight into the situation.

The Nazis themselves are well pleased with the media coverage: “When Nick told a packed private meeting at Morley Town Hall that ‘sooner or later there’s going to be Islamic terrorists letting off bombs in major cities’ the number of people in that hall numbered about 120. Now tens of millions of newspaper readers, web viewers and radio listeners in the UK and beyond have heard this prophetic statement….”