The BNP and racial issues brought up in the Echo letter (Have Your Say, September 25) raises sensitive national issues.

For Nick Clegg to denounce another political party – the BNP has 56 councillors and two Euro MPs – as “fascist thugs” is a very crude assault. The MP practises exactly what he denounces – attacking a "different" group of people.

I also note from the conference the distinctive middle class identity of the Lib Dems, but it is the poorest working class areas which have always had the highest levels of immigration. This then brings a struggle for work and housing leading to resentment and racial tensions – all the more so in a severe recession.

So for Mr Clegg to denounce the BNP so crudely only shows his poverty of understanding – his political and personal middle class remoteness from working class areas’ severe problems.

Mr Clegg would, I think, be well advised to listen to the BNP – not denounce them out of hand.

The issue is making mulicultural politics work and reining in extremism, not politicised name calling.

Dan Beardsley, address supplied, Kinson