Leyton Aggression Boils Over: It’s 1965 And World Führer Colin Jordan Is At Large
IT is reported that Phil Woolas has given up his fight to hold onto his seat after lying about an election opponent, and there will now be a by-election in Oldham East and Saddleworth. Nick Griffin of the BNP has announced his intention to stand, and it seems inevitable that immigration will be one of the main issues of the election.
There has been much discussion about the ‘robust’ tactics in recent election campaigns, but the clip below, from a 1965 episode of Panorama, shows a time when politicians needed to be ‘handy on the pavement’.
The Leyton by-election that year involved a Labour candidate, foreign secretary Patrick Gordon Walker, who needed a safe seat after losing Smethwick at the general election after a racist campaign by the Conservatives. Cue Colin Jordan of the National Socialist Party. At an international conference in the Cotswolds in the summer of 1962, Jordan and George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party, had established the World Union of National Socialists and declared Jordan its ‘World Führer’. Now it was a case of ‘today Leyton, tomorrow the world’.
Things got off to a bad start when Jordan attempted to storm the platform during Gordon Walker’s public meeting, only to be ejected by force. Watch the clip closely and you will see Denis Healey (Secretary of State for Defence) checking his knuckles after delivering the decisive blow.
It was downhill all the way after that. In 1975 Jordan was fined for stealing three items of women’s underwear from Tesco in Leamington Spa. He claimed that they were for his 89-year-old mother; that he had stuffed them in his trouser pockets because it was ‘embarrassing’ carrying them round the shop; and that he was the victim of a Jewish plot.
Patrick Gordon Walker lost the by-election to the Tories by a couple of hundred votes but won it back at the general election the following year.
By The Angry Red Tomato
Posted: 7th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comments (4) | TrackBack | Permalink
