Griffin is only economical with the truth

"Q: Are the fees justified?

"A:There has been a lot of hype and downright lies about the fees paid to the Midas Consultancy (Richard Edmond's farcical statement being a recent example) and there is a need to put these fees in perspective. Firstly, in reality the Midas involvement with the BNP doesn't cost us a penny because Midas only takes a fee from funds that we would never have seen anyway without the fundraising techniques and methods of the Midas Consultancy. Secondly, in exchange for fees of £165,000 over two years, Midas has generated a fundraising income for the BNP of 2.3 million - and saved us over £156,000 through their procurement techniques and expertise. Not a bad deal by any yardstick! Let us also remember that Midas came on board with a one off goodwill appeal for us that netted the party £136,000 in December 2007 and January 2008. How many people have ever done that for us before? The Midas fees, originally 7.5% of funds raised, were later capped at a flat fee which equated to less than the percentage, and this fee is significantly less than the industry average for such a service."

The foregoing extract from the latest "Chairman's Update" e-mail newsletter contains not only errors of fact, eg, Richard Edmonds' surname is not Edmond, but also fallacious logic. Moreover, that gentleman is not in the habit of telling lies, nor is he given to hyperbole, unlike Mr Griffin. Wherein is Richard Edmonds' statement factually incorrect? Mr Griffin does not say. Odd, you may well think, that he fails to substantiate his disgraceful allegation of "...hype and downright lies..." against his colleague on the party's Advisory Council - the highly respected veteran nationalist, and BNP activist, Mr Richard Edmonds.
 
According to Mr Griffin (I am assuming that he wrote it, rather than Mr Dowson, since it is above his facsimile signature) the services of Midas Consultancy cost the party nothing, because the income it is responsible for generating exceeds the size of the fee it takes. This is a piece of flawed logic that most five- year-olds would have no trouble nailing in ten seconds flat. It ignores the most basic economic concept of "opportunity cost", ie, the notional cost of doing one thing rather than another when it is not possible to do both at the same time. Thus, the BNP could have been self-sufficient (I seem to recall that we recommend this for the national economy) and "upped its game", to use Griffinspeak, by using the talents of its own members to revamp its fundraising operations (perhaps with some short-term consultancy input,) and then "rolled out" the new operation over the last two years, cutting out the middleman, and saving both the party, as a corporate entity, and its members, an absolute fortune. Instead of which the party, while unable to meet its staff wages' bill for last month (yes - we're that hard up) has no doubt made Mr Dowson a very wealthy man.

Mr Griffin claims that Midas' fees are "...£165,000 over two years..." Shouldn't that be £162,000 each year - in other words: £324,000 over two years? The latter figure is exactly what Richard Edmonds states that Mr Dowson told him he received in fees.
 
As for the initial "freebie" offered by Midas in December 2007: surely Mr Griffin has heard of the saying "a sprat to catch a mackerel". Yes, Mr Griffin, you swallowed the line but it was the BNP that got hooked.