It was the autumn of 2011 and Dr Matt Goodwin was documenting the potential reach of the racist far-right in Tameside, a borough in east Manchester that is part of the parliamentary constituency of Gorton and Denton.
The borough council had spotted the work the young academic had been doing on the rise of the British National party – the subject of his pioneering PhD – and asked him to dig deeper into the local dangers of what Goodwin was describing as a “new British fascism” emerging in disaffected parts of northern England.
