I'M GOING to hate this, but it has to be done. Today we are going to defend a paid-up member of the British National Party.

Now it might not always seem obvious, but I have previous for anti-racism. I demonstrated against the South African rugby tour, I've been on Anti-Nazi League marches, and I've heard Billy bloody Bragg whine on at more Rock Against Racism concerts than I care to remember.

I detest the BNP with a vengeance. I detest NuLabour almost more for driving ordinary, decent working class people into their arms, but that's another argument.

But I also detest the kind of illiberal liberalism that demands that their members aren't allowed to think the black thoughts that they do. Which brings us, quite unexpectedly, to leading ballerina Simone Clarke, star of the English National Ballet and the aforementioned card-carrying BNP member.

Now I don't know why she chose to join such an organisation - the BNP, that is, not the ballet company. She claims that her Chinese-Cuban boyfriend encouraged her to do so. I suspect that she isn't the sharpest knife in the box. But the last time I looked, it wasn't illegal to be a member of the BNP. Distasteful, perhaps, but not illegal.

Which makes a nonsense of the predictable clamour from Labour MP Jon Cruddas, demanding that she should be sacked. Even dafter is the call from some quarters for the English National Ballet's annual £6 million Arts Council funding to be withdrawn.

This is a dance troupe, not a top secret branch of the Hitler Youth. Until they start prancing about on stage in swastikas and coal-scuttle helmets, I think we can safely say that their interpretation of Swan Lake won't contain subliminal messages encouraging the audience to invade Poland.

And anyway, Mel Brooks has already beaten them to it. Springtime for Hitler, anyone?


BACK by public demand, it's Compo Corner.

Step forward Mr Colin Stagg, lined up to receive at least £250,000 and probably a lot more under the Home Office's discretionary compensation scheme.

Why? The idiot was stupid enough to make a false confession. He should just be grateful that he wasn't convicted and banged up for 20 years, instead of being cleared when the case was thrown out. Anyway, he looked like he might have done it, and that's good enough for Her Majesty's Press.

Enter stage left, an anonymous heavy smoker who has just pocketed £44,000 for "hurt feelings", after being criticised over her unhealthy habit by a doctor. If I tell you that the doctor was an anaesthetist, and the heavy smoker was a pregnant woman who was just about to be put under for a caesarian operation when she nipped out for a fag, you'll probably start banging your head against the wall.

And for our finale this week, let's have a big hand for postman David Portman, who's trousered ten grand for unfair dismissal for taking 137 days off sick over a five-year period, the most recent being a week away from work to recover from the death of his dog. And you wonder why your birthday cards (with postal orders mysteriously missing) don't turn up until teatime?


LET'S imagine for a minute that BNP ballerina Simone Clarke decides to stand for election to Covent Garden parish council in those idle moments when she's not performing a pas de deux. Let's also imagine that she gets enough votes to be elected and, on her first day in the council chamber, she proposes that the local swimming baths should hold a regular "whites only" evening.

There'd be Guardian readers choking on their lentils, race police kicking the stage door down and suicide bombers smuggling themselves into the Sugar Plum Fairy chorus line with ten pounds of Semtex stuffed up their tutus.

Yet Wolverhampton City Council has just introduced special Thursday evening sessions for black and Asian people only, and for the life of me I can't see the difference. Special lifeguards and instructors man the pool for the hour-long sessions and special blinds have been put up to shield swimmers' modesty.

Now I accept that some Asian people might not like being looked at while wearing their swimming cossie, but frankly that's just tough. Perhaps Mrs Average of Sensible Street is a bit shy of leering men as well, but she just has to get on with it.

This kind of officially sanctioned segregation does nothing but create more divides - another ghetto, albeit an aquatic one. What next? Asian-only buses? Black-only restaurants? I think you can see where I'm going with this one.