I love to be touched by other cultures but my preference is to travel abroad to be touched by

“I love to be touched by other cultures, but my preference is to travel abroad to be touched by them.”Stuart Caddy, the leader of the council, said it was “very unlikely” that the BNP would be invited to join the cabinet. He expressed bafflement at the BNP gain and conceded that it was not a protest vote. “Our plan now is to find out the route of this,” Mr Caddy said.Three BNP women featured among the winning candidates, including Patricia Thomson, a secretary, who claimed the seat in middle-class Briercliffe from the Liberal Democrats. She said she was keen to protect the rural atmosphere and retain it for future generations The Pakistani community expressed disbelief at the result. Worshippers leaving Ibrahim Mosque on Elm Street said they were fully expecting a sound defeat for the BNP, and were unprepared for the diametric opposite.Contrary to popular belief, it was not the poorer areas of Burnley who voted in the BNP They stayed staunchly Labour. Ironically it was the more affluent areas such as Briercliffe who voted with their feet.There was growing bafflement at this middle-class trend to vote BNP Only Nasir Ilyas, 26, a solicitor had a ready answer.

“The affluent community is believing the lie that us Asians are sapping resources and they are scared that what is happening in the poorer places may happen to them.”. In public, all the parties claimed a victory of sorts. In private, Tony Blair, Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy all heaved a sigh of relief because it could have been far worse for each of them

In public, all the parties claimed a victory of sorts. As the polls closed, Crispin Blunt tried to light the touchpaper for a leadership challenge by resigning from the Tory front bench.By quitting before the results were known, Mr Blunt tried to prevent the Tories “spinning” them as a great triumph.

He certainly made his party’s task harder, but his gambit failed No other MP joined his clarion call for a rebellion. There was no co-ordinated plot, as Mr Duncan Smith’s allies had feared.The Tories, who had set themselves a deliberately low target of gaining between 200 and 300 seats, managed more than 550. The “expectations game” meant that Tory MPs judged Mr Duncan Smith had done enough to win a reprieve – for now, at least.The smile on the Tory leader’s face was real when he arrived at Conservative Central Office to proclaim what he called a “fantastic and spectacular” victory. In electoral terms, it was nothing of the sort but, for Mr Duncan Smith, survival was a victory which tasted sweet enough More sensible Tories know they should have done much better.

They won 35 per cent of the votes in England, less than William Hague when the same seats were fought four years ago.The reality is that Mr Duncan Smith will need 42 per cent to become Prime Minister. So he should have been looking for 1,000 gains on Thursday.Although Tory MPs kept their heads down yesterday, many of them still share Mr Blunt’s withering assessment of the party’s prospects under Mr Duncan Smith, who is not out of the woods yet. It would take only a small mistake – a botched reshuffle in July, for example – to provoke another leadership crisis.So Mr Duncan Smith is still on probation. One reason why his MPs did not trigger an immediate vote of confidence is that Kenneth Clarke did not encourage his followers. The former chancellor does not think he would win a leadership election now But he suspects he might win next year. So Mr Duncan Smith will need to show real progress over the next 12 months.Mr Blair would have preferred to have ceded fewer than 800 seats but will not lose too much sleep. The Blunt episode was a gift to Labour, literally blunting the impact of the Tory gains and taking the spotlight away from the Government’s performance.