Support for the party has increased in the last month, a survey for The Daily Telegraph indicated.

The findings will lead to accusations that the BBC’s decision to invite the far-Right MEP on to its flagship current affairs programme may have backfired by giving him a national platform.

The YouGov poll was taken hours after Mr Griffin’s appearance on Thursday, before which anti-fascist protesters rioted outside BBC Television Centre in London.

The survey found that 22 per cent of voters would “seriously consider” voting for the BNP in a future local, general or European election. This included four per cent who said they would “definitely” consider voting for the party, three per cent who would “probably” consider it, and 15 per cent who said they were “possible” BNP voters.

Two-thirds said they would not consider voting for the party “under any circumstances” with the rest unsure.

Mr Griffin’s performance, during which he was challenged about his views on the Holocaust, immigration, Islam and homosexuality, has divided the political establishment. Some senior figures criticised the BBC for inviting him on to the programme.

David Lammy, the Higher Education Minister and one of the first black men to serve in a British government, gave warning of a potential rise in racist and anti-Semitic attacks, saying he was “very worried about the days which will follow”.

More than half of those questioned said they agreed with the BNP, or thought that it “had a point” in wishing to “speak up for the interests of the indigenous, white British people … which successive governments have done far too little to protect.”

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Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang are charged with breaching Section 5 of the Public Order Act – causing harassment, alarm or distress. If convicted, they face fines of £2,500 each and a criminal record.

The Muslim woman was staying at the Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool, which is run by the Vogelenzangs, when a conversation arose between the hoteliers and their guest about her faith.

It is understood that among the topics debated was whether Jesus was a minor prophet, as Islam teaches, or whether he was the Son of God, as Christianity teaches.

Among the things Mr Vogelenzang, 53, is alleged to have said is that Mohammad was a warlord. His wife, 54, is said to have stated that Muslim dress is a form of bondage for women.

The conversation, on March 20, was reported by the woman to Merseyside Police. Officers told the couple that they wanted to interview them over the incident.

After being questioned on April 20, they were interrogated again three months later before being charged on July 29 with a religiously-aggravated public order offence. They appeared in court on August 14 and are now awaiting trial.

Mr and Mrs Vogelenzang do not accept that they were threatening or abusive in any way. David White, who is representing them, said that they believe they have the right to defend their religious beliefs.

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Telegraph: Home Office staff have been warned not to eat in front of their Muslim colleagues during the month of Ramadan.

A five-page advice booklet tells civil servants that eating lunch near a colleague who is fasting can make them feel hungry.

The Home Office Islamic Network produced the advice which said: “In practical terms, please be sensitive when eating lunch near a Muslim colleague who is fasting.

“This can make an individual feel hungrier and make it more challenging to observe the fast.”

It also urged Home Office managers to be flexible over working hours because Muslims may be following a different routine during Ramadan, which finished this weekend.

“The most likely need Muslim staff may present to managers during this period is for flexibility around working hours and break times as those fasting will have a slightly different routine from usual. Managers and Muslim staff should discuss what their needs are and be responsive and sensitive,” the document said.

Managers were also told: “Muslim staff who are fasting and whose environment allows it may wish to set out for work earlier than usual and finish their working day correspondingly early…in line with flexi-time arrangements.”

During the holy month devout Muslims do not drink or eat from dawn until sunset and, according to the document, must avoid ‘all obscene and irreligious sights and sounds’.

The Islamic Network is one of a number of staff faith and equality groups within the Home Office and paid for by the taxpayer.

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Telegraph: A Christian nurse will meet hospital bosses tomorrow to find out whether she will be forced out of her job for insisting on wearing a cross while on duty.

Shirley Chaplin has been taken off the wards at The Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust Hospital after refusing to remove her necklace.

As first disclosed in The Sunday Telegraph, the 54-year-old grandmother has been told she cannot wear the one inch silver symbol openly because it breaches uniform policy and could prove a risk to patients.

She has been warned she could be suspended if she does not co-operate or accept accept an administrative role at the hospital, prompting fears that she could be dismissed after nearly 30 years.

The trust insisted its policy was not about the symbol of the crucifix, but motivated by health and safety concerns about patients grabbing necklaces.

But Mrs Chaplin, who is eight months from retirement, is taking them to an employment tribunal claiming she has been targeted because of her faith.

“Everyone I have ever worked with has clearly known I am a Christian: it is what motivates me to care for others,” she said.

“For about 30 years I have worked in the NHS and nursed patients day and night and on no occasion has my cross caused me or anyone else, any injury – and to my knowledge, no patient has ever complained about me wearing it.

“I feel that I’m being bullied and victimised because of my faith.”

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The Times:

Groups of youths, in ski masks and motorcycle helmets, threw bottles and set off fireworks in front of riot police, who used kettling tactics to contain a crowd of up to 2,000 outside Harrow central mosque. Seven people were arrested for possession of offensive weapons including a hammer, chisel and a bottle of bleach. Another man was arrested “to prevent a breach of the peace”, police said.

Hundreds of Muslim youths and anti-fascist campaigners gathered to confront a fringe right-wing group calling itself Stop Islamification of Europe (SIOE). The group had threatened to hold a rally at the site, where a new five-storey mosque is under construction, but organisers said that they had called off the march at the request of police.

Despite pleas by imams for the crowds to go home, the streets remained packed for several hours. About 20 anti-Islamic protesters, some wearing football jerseys, attempted to enter the area but were blocked by some of the 500 police.

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Youngsters with a different mother tongue form a majority in primaries in 13 out of 33 London boroughs and in nearby Slough.

In inner London, 54 per cent of primary pupils and 48.5 per cent in secondary institutions do not speak English as their first language. This amounts to an astonishing 159,340 children.

Across the country, English is a foreign language to more than one in seven primary youngsters – almost half a million.

The figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families point to the major demographic changes over the past few decades. Around a fifth of pupils are from ethnic minorities – up from 11 per cent in 1997.

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Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.

Instead they are told that they must comply with the “modest” code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.

The phenomenon runs counter to developments in France, where last week a woman was evicted from a public pool for wearing a burkini – the headscarf, tunic and trouser outfit which allows Muslim women to preserve their modesty in the water.

The 35-year-old, named only as Carole, is threatening legal action after she was told by pool officials in Emerainville, east of Paris, that she could not wear the outfit on hygiene grounds.

But across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.

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A survey has found 24 Catholic primary schools in the North West and the Midlands teach a minority of churchgoing children.

Fewer than one in 10 children are Catholic at one school in Birmingham, while the Church is ending its involvement with a similar establishment in Blackburn.

Overall, Catholics make up 73.34 per cent of pupils at the 2,300 schools linked to the denomination across England and Wales.

But The Tablet, a weekly Catholic magazine, found that in Oldham, Blackburn, Wolverhampton and Birmingham there has been a sharp decline in the proportion of Catholics being educated in local faith schools.

At English Martyrs in Sparkhill, Birmingham, just 36 of the 410 pupils are Catholic while the vast majority are Muslim.

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Telegraph

Data gathered from various sources indicate that Britain, Spain and Holland will have an even higher proportion of Muslims in a shorter amount of time.

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Telegraph: Britain and the rest of the European Union are ignoring a demographic time bomb: a recent rush into the EU by migrants, including millions of Muslims, will change the continent beyond recognition over the next two decades, and almost no policy-makers are talking about it.

The numbers are startling. Only 3.2 per cent of Spain’s population was foreign-born in 1998. In 2007 it was 13.4 per cent. Europe’s Muslim population has more than doubled in the past 30 years and will have doubled again by 2015. In Brussels, the top seven baby boys’ names recently were Mohamed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza.

Europe’s low white birth rate, coupled with faster multiplying migrants, will change fundamentally what we take to mean by European culture and society. The altered population mix has far-reaching implications for education, housing, welfare, labour, the arts and everything in between. It could have a critical impact on foreign policy: a study was submitted to the US Air Force on how America’s relationship with Europe might evolve. Yet EU officials admit that these issues are not receiving the attention they deserve.

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Telegraph: MigrationwatchUK, a pressure group, has calculated that a net 2.3 million immigrants arrived in Britain between 1991 and 2006, the majority of them from developing economies in Africa and Asia.

Only 205,000, or eight per cent, came from the East European nations that have joined the European Union since 2004, according to Migrationwatch’s analysis of official population statistics.

The group said the scale of non-European immigration undermined the Government’s claims on migration patterns and laws.

Ministers have repeatedly rejected calls for an annual cap on immigration, arguing that it would not have any significant impact because it could not affect EU nationals, who have a legal right to enter Britain to work.

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