Monday, 1 September 2008

The strange case of UKIP, the BHA and the vanishing sponsors page


Slightly odd, this. At the end of last week, as I noted, Vindico spotted this amusing little snippet on the sponsors page of the UKIP website:

One of the sponsors of the UKIP Annual Conference in Bournemouth this year is the British Humanist Association.

The President of the British Humanist Association is none other than Polly Toynbee...

The story was subsequently lifted by the Mail (without attribution, naturally) for their Diary column on Saturday. All very droll; the prospect of Polly's beloved BHA bankrolling the UK Independence Party made me snigger.

UKIP web pages then started changing, as Matt Wardman noted in the comments below my original post. The sponsors page was apparently withdrawn and in its place an "exhibitors and friends" page popped up instead, from which the BHA's name is conspicuous by its absence - though there is still the above British Humanist Association jpeg sitting in the sponsors directory as a ghostly reminder that it was originally there.

And then this, on the UK section of the Democratic Underground webforum, which purports to be a statement from the Chief Exec of the British Humanist Association itself, Hanne Stinson:

Dear Sir,

As soon as we were told that UKIP was claiming that the BHA was sponsoring their conference (the claim appeared on the UKIP website - I was not aware that the Daily Mail had picked it up, so thanks for informing us of that) we contacted them and asked them to remove the claim. We shall now also contact the Daily Mail to ask for a correction.

I can assure you that we would not sponsor any party political event.

With best wishes

Hanne

And indeed when you follow the link to the original Daily Mail diary page, there is now no trace of the story, "last edited at 5:37pm on Monday", to be found; of Polly, the BHA and UKIP there is nothing.

Now, let's be clear: I have absolutely no interest who sponsors UKIP, it was just an excuse to laugh at Polly. But why was UKIP telling the world that its conference was being sponsored by the British Humanist Association, when it wasn't? No wonder they're unhappy.

All very strange.

Labels:


// posted by Mr Eugenides on 1.9.08
Comments:
ooh we. I've never had so much affect on third parties. Does this now mean I'm influential?!

# posted by Blogger Vindico : 02 September 2008 08:54
 
I know, I was that man!

As the guy responsible for the DU post, I can assure you that the BHA email is genuine. Look you, I have no idea what UKIP was playing at. However, they have the excuse of being of being a Mickey Mouse outfit who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. But what about the Mail. To misquote that great capitalist Ebenezer Scrooge, "Are there no sub-editors? Are there no fact-checkers?". And - perish the thought - that they might have got OTHER things wrong? The horror, the horror!

Non-Sociopath Skin

# posted by Blogger Nonsociopath Skin : 02 September 2008 12:07
 
I like to laugh at UKIP sometimes. I like to laugh at Polly Toynbee always. But this is just a Hurricane Gustav in a teacup.

# posted by Anonymous Rhadamant : 02 September 2008 15:43
 
The website was not done by the national party and the BHA paid for a stall at the conference.

As soon as the leadership found out about it, investigations were made and corrections followed.

And I think it's a bit rich of someone to claim that UKIP couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery: in 2006 we actually had a piss up in the Fullers brewery in Chiswick.

# posted by Blogger Trixy : 02 September 2008 17:48
 
The Humanists attended the conference and were made very welcome and there was a lot of interest shown. Spot them in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6JlYyVcRsE

# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 07 September 2008 23:09
 
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