I AM moved to write in following the extremely disappointing election of a BNP Councillor in Mill Hill.

The BNP thrive on lies and propaganda like the old style Nazis. A lot of lies had been spread , pre-election, about the Asians getting this and that above white communities as well as about the massive numbers of Asylum seekers swamping East Lancashire. Neither of which are true.

The BNP winning a seat in Mill Hill was a slap in the face not just for all the people who have worked hard to improve relations and to promote a more equitable and prosperous Blackburn but also the ordinary people who try to just get on with the daily struggles of life.

The ordinary decent person who is pleasant to their neighbour (because that is the way they are) - no matter what colour they are. The kind of person who sees a human in distress and goes to help without much thought to differences, the teacher that gets on with teaching without thinking about the pupil's nationality, the kind soul who smiles at a child on the street because the child has done little more than to do what ordinary children do, the kind of person who sees someone in another part of the world who is suffering the effects of national famine or war or some other phenomenon that we only see on the television and who is moved to feel sorrow or even to shed a tear, the person who dips into their own pocket to give to charity.

What I have described there is what the British people of all nationalities of East Lancashire are all about.

Regeneration practitioners have a duty to effectively 'market' the truth in a way that the whole community can understand and to ensure that all economic development and regeneration activity is contextualised so that people can see that funding is being apportioned in a systematic fair way.

Blackburn has made some great progress in the last few years but the kind of national publicity generated by electing the BNP will only serve to damage the good work done by the Council and others.

Remember, the BNP are like Nazis - the people that we fought in the Second World War where millions of white Britains and Indians (Pakistan was a part of India at that time) lost their lives, fighting on the same side, for freedom. My own Grandfather won a medal for bravery, when he risked his own life, and those of the Indian troops he was leading, fighting for Britain.

Today these new councillors may be the person next door types but they are being used as are the BNP voters of Mill Hill.

Wake up folks the BNP are a nasty insidious cancer on democracy .Today they are targeting Asians, tomorrow it may be firefighters because they have gone on strike, journalists because they have printed the wrong thing, Council officers because they did not get what they want from them, ordinary people because they had the temerity to disagree with them - in short it could be any one of us . It could be you next!

There is a sinister nasty side to Nazis. There always has been and there always will be. See them for what they are before it's you they come after you.

The BNP outsiders will come and go but we will have to live with the effects. We are all the true stakeholders in our home towns and it us who have worked hard to build our towns. Don't let these Nazi outsiders come and spoil things for us. East Lancashire has a great many strengths and there are good things ahead for us all if everyone pulls in the same direction.

Solat Chaudhry

Via e-mail