Apropos of Alfreton-based radio presenter and North East Derbyshire Conservative Future branch chairman, Chris Birks, who featured in my last post on the hitherto concealed identity of the people behind the Labourist spoiler site, I’m afraid that young Chris is about to get a short, sharp and possibly very painful lesson in the importance of cleaning up after yourself.
It turns out that Chris, who caught the eye because his name appears on last year’s leaked BNP membership, was quizzed over his apparent former BNP membership by Searchlight and gave them, and a local newspaper, this explanation…
A MANSFIELD 103.2 radio presenter says he has been wrongly listed as a BNP member –– simply because he bought a pin badge from a website linked to the far right political party.Chris Birks (19), who presents the Saturday Show, was among a group of people from the area named as BNP members on a list published last month
But he told Chad yesterday he had been wrongly put down as a member after buying a £3.50 St George’s Cross pin badge as a birthday present for an England fan from a merchandising website, which he did not realise was linked to the BNP.
Mr Birks said he had no idea he had been signed up to the party and contacted officials to say he did not want to be a member because it would have jeopardised his place on the UK Youth Parliament — where young people cannot be linked to any political party.
He said: “It is not that I have got a problem with the BNP, but it would have compromised my position. I have got no problem with the BNP — they are a legally registered party.
“I was a member for six or seven days and was very surprised to find out my name was on the list. I think they may be that desperate to get members they put me on the list just for buying a pin badge.”
“I rang their membership department after finding out I was on the list and they were very apologetic about it. They said an awful lot of people shouldn’t have been on the list.”
So, Chris’s story is that he wound up on the BNP’s membership list by mistake and was only a member for a matter of six or seven days – The BNP list gives the date of his resignation from the party as the 6th September 2006 and cites a membership number, 21960.
Unfortunately for Chris, his story just doesn’t tally with the short-lived blog he set up on Blogger in June 2006, more than three months before the period in which he claims to have accidentally become a party member for all of “six or seven days“.
In setting up his blog, Chris billed himself as ‘Chris Birk – BNP Activist’ and introduced himself, in his one and only blog post, in the following manner…
Ohhhh shit!
But, you may ask, how can we be sure that we’ve got the right Chris Birks?
Well, beside the fact that the area given in the post is spot on; Alfreton is about 15-16 miles from Chesterfield, which counts as ‘just outside’ when you live in the sticks, there are two other telltale clues.
First, there’s the URL chosen for the blog – CDBbnp.blogspot.com – as in ‘Christopher David Birks’. Go on, check it out for yourself, it’ll take Chris a day or two to get rid of it by contacting Google as, after more than two years, its a fair bet he’s forgotten his password…
…and even if he does get it removed, the screenshots are here and on my laptop for posterity.
The other telltale clue lies in Chris’s Blogger Profile…
Chris’s official bio, on his spiffy new website, gives his date of birth as July 17th 1989, which makes the age given in the profile spot-on – remember this is still current, so it gives his age now, not when he signed up for Blogger. He’s also listed as a media student which, as he was 17 when he set up this Blogger account, also fits the bill and his Astrological sign, for those who care about such things, is Cancer the Crab, which covers the period from, approximately, the 21st June to the 21st July each year. Again, we’re hitting Chris’s official bio squarely on the head.
Now, I’m a fairly magnanimous chap and had Chris responded to Searchlight’s questions with a simple mea culpa, ‘Yeah, its me but I was young and naive and it was all a terrible mistake…’ then I might just have given him the benefit of the doubt.
But as it appears for all the world like he’s tried to bullshit his was out of trouble, then no quarter is going to be given and I suspect that it won’t be too long before young Chris finds himself with quite a bit of explaining to do, not least to a few people who sit higher rather higher in the food chain at both Conservative Future and CCHQ.
And, Chris, if you are involved in the production of Labourist, then I’d ‘fess up now, because you won’t be able to explain that away with a bit of bullshit about a pin badge.
RESA IPSA LOQUITUR
