The rise and fall of Billy Brit

Some of you may have heard about Billy Brit, most of you have probably not. For the majority of the British public, their first encounter with this wonderfully twee yet disturbing character would have been on the popular late-evening BBC television show Have I Got News For You, where he made his debut national television appearance.

So, who is Billy Brit? A comedian? A reality TV "star"? Gordon Brown's campaign manager? Nope. Billy Brit is a rather odd-looking puppet, the former star of the quickly put together website of the youth wing of the British National Party, or YBNP. I say "former" star - more on that in a bit.

Billy Brit: needs a haircut, methinks.

Following the puppet's appearance on HIGNFY the BNP were quick to play to the gallery, stating how "proud" they were that their lad Billy had made an appearance on the show, a staple for politics-watchers on both the left and right.

Unfortunately for the BNP, this opportunistic attempt to generate publicity only served to open them up to yet further ridicule. The voice of Billy was clearly that of a grown man putting on a curious falsetto voice, the result of which sounded like a castrated sheep: wonderfully toe-curling, Billy's style and delivery reminded one of those cheaply-made children's programmes from the 1970s as he wittered on about the heroic Boudicca taking on the horrible Romans.

The original "Billy Brit" video - now removed from the official site. Scarily hilarious.

What was even funnier however was that the puppet marketed as "Billy Brit" was not even a British original, but a bog-standard puppet ordered from an online store. Rather than being born and raised in Burnley or Dagenham, it is more likely that Billy was probably made in some sweatshop somewhere south of Beijing, which would have meant that the poor fellow was promoting a party who if they really studied his origins would probably have been less than welcoming.

It goes to show what a laugh these guys really are, and that the best way to deal with them is not by throwing around witless slurs or eggs, but by allowing them to simply try and get on with things and watch with a grin as the wheels start falling off.

Of course when poor old Billy's (or is that Hu Flung Dung's?) origins were exposed, the BNP's enemies were quick to make capital out of it. They got their orders in for the "Billy" puppet, and created some marvellous spoofs of the original propaganda skits that were posted on YouTube and linked from the YBNP website.

Now it is very unlikely that I share many of the political convictions who those who took the time to create the spoofed "Billy Brit" videos, but they are funny all the same. The best is one featuring the infamous Euro election campaign leaflet - yep, the leaflet with the made up quotes and pictures of American actors and models rebadged as "British workers". lol.

Who needs nasty "Nazi" slurs and eggs when you've got this?

This potential PR disaster led the fellows with their hands up Billy's behind to conclude that it was all not such a good idea after all, resulting in their pulling all of their YouTube videos. Which is a shame, for as well as being historically inaccurate they are also rather funny, though in a macabre sense. Billy has no doubt been sacked, left to fend for himself with his fellow countrymen.

Let's just hope he hasn't been forced into taking up a job picking cockles.