The Dopes Don't Rate crowd over at Stop The BNP site are crowing that they managed to get a David Irving public meeting in Coventry cancelled.
David Irving's public meeting in Coventry on 21 September has been cancelled after bloggers from all parts of the political spectrum picked up and spread our call. The Royal Warwicks Club was inundated with phone calls protesting at its hosting of the notorious Holocaust denier and liar.Managers at the club told The Guardian that they had had no idea of the true purpose of the meeting, booked as the Military History Book Club, and had now banned it and contacted the police.
Of course they got it wrong, as usual and I am grateful to one of their supporters, a young pup named Mike Rouse who has a very high opinion of himself. But without him we would not have known just how they came to muck up big time.
I sent an email around to some associates to ask for coverage on their blogs and some obliged. Others disagreed on a freedom of speech point, to which my response was that I was happy for the meeting to take place, but didn’t want it in CoventrySo why is free speech fine everywhere except Coventry? He then goes on to reveal the scale of the farce.
One of my friends did cover the story on his blog and got a call from the BBC about it. They wanted to interview him on air about it and started to do some digging around.What a laugh. But not so funny is the lost business to the Royal Warwicks club and not so funny is the involvement of the BBC. But hey, what you can you do? They are all in the same bed together.
They spoke to the club who said that they were unaware that the BNP were behind the booking and that false details had been used - on those grounds they were cancelling the engagement.
The BBC journalist also found that a book club was planned to discuss something about Stalin at the venue and that it was totally innocent.
I later found out that Irving’s classic trick is to turn up to book clubs and sign copies of his books. They are descreet affairs.
It was originally thought that the book club was a cover for the event and the false details that the club had spoken about.
Then, on this blog, a commenter added the following day that a meeting did indeed take place, but that the wool had been pulled over everybody’s eyes.
It turns out that with the media and campaign focus on the Royal Warwicks Club the BNP and Irving were free to have their little meeting in peace at some other Coventry venue. The commenter’s source was from within West Midlands Police who said the event went off without any problems and was attended by around 30 or so middle-aged men.
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I am not a Stop The BNP supporter, but I am anti-BNP, which is why I did the post. Also, I'm from Coventry and it was hurtful that my home city would be the venue given how desimated it was during the war. However, I suppose that was wrong because freedom of speech is important and I recognise the error of my statement now.
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