There have been a number of letters in the Echo recently about the rise of the BNP, but what is really behind it?

I would suggest that the main causes have more to do with negative media spin, and politicians who prey on or over react to the negativity. We seem no longer capable of putting things into proportion.

For example, there are hundreds of hard working and sincere MPs of all persuasions, but they have been tarred as corrupt by the actions of a hundred or fewer who played the system.

The many things that have improved since 1997, which I acknowledge even though I am not a Labour supporter, have been buried under the better publicised failures.

More than ever before – we seem to need to be given someone to blame.

This is where the BNP and other extremists come into their own. Just as Hitler rose to power offering the Jews as the blame for all of Germany’s ills, the BNP chooses migrants and Europe.

Over the years when I have done modestly paid work, I have regularly been asked by often unemployed acquaintances: “Why did you take that on? I wouldn’t get out of bed for that wage”.

Should it come as any surprise then that someone from Eastern Europe, for example, comes over here for a couple of years to take a “badly paid” job that is unfilled in what was a booming economy?

The BNP seems to offer excuses for the workshy who didn’t get out of bed.

The fact on jobs is that there are still more UK residents working in Europe than visa versa.

We have to blame ourselves for cheap labour as we are all looking to pay less for more – ask our hard pressed farmers.

Tony Trent, Fraser Road, Poole