Nick Griffin and Question Time

As many Brits will know, Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist BNP party appears tonight on respected British political debate show Question Time. Now the anti-nazi league and other gypsies have been demonstrating outside BBC television centre and going so far as to break in, in protest over Griffin's appearance.

Now I find the man disgusting, but he is an elected member of the European Parliament and therefore, if we are to uphold our own democratic values, he should surely be allowed to engage in such a show.

Thoughts?

Just waiting for his ideals to be ripped apart on tv.

I was impressed how Unite Against facism used, uhm, fascist tactics. Fail!

So far ignoring the BNP has gained them 2 MEP's, several councillors and a seat on the London assembly, so obviously doing a Gerry Adams on him isn't working too dandy.

Give him a voice, stop making him look like some damned martyr and give him plenty of rope with which to hang himself.

From the clips i have seen so far, he's pretty much swinging on Question time.

Going to watch it in a bit, I'm hoping he's not going to be given too hard a time, mainly because it'll be counter-productive.

When you have a bunch of middle-class types going on about holocaust denial, I'm fairly certain the benefits and working classes - some of whom can't recognize Churchill - will be thinking "so fucking what?", and if Griffin starts going on what effects them whilst the rest are busy shouting Nazi! at him, thats going to be more BNP votes.

He needs to be attacked on the here and now, and he needs to taken down a peg or two in the eyes of potential BNP voters, not people who already loathe them.

Odious, extremist, anti-semite on QT you say?

No different than when George Galloway or any Respec' politician is a panelist.

Next.

Yeah, the approach of trying to drown out someones voice by just repeatedly calling them a Nazi, while accurate in this case, does more harm than good.

The best way to deal with fucks like these is to reasonably converse with them and get them comfortable enough to state their real views.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/19/bnp-nick-griffin-question-time

Not a perfect list, but those are the types of things that people should be getting the BNP on record about.

Something else that amuses me - the beeb decided to make the token black a barely known American-born playwright.

Were all the UK-born, successful, widely known and intelligent non-whites busy or something?

It may come as something of a shock to the BBC, but T Roglodyte and family didn't do media studies at university. Oh, they're going to just love moving to Salford.

Looks like some of the questions from the guardian list are been used.

Hardly surprising since Guardian readers make up 90% of each QT audience.

What a fucking trainwreck the first half hour was.

Griffin got through it with the kind of brass neck and evasion that marks him out as a typical politico - an untrustworthy cunt.

Can't believe they've brought in Sayeeda Warsi, she's quite clever, and makes sone excellent points, but it's a tad hard to listen to someone who looks and sounds like Louse from 'Two Pints of Lager...' and take her seriously.

Straws managed to make a tit of himself over Labours role in the rise of the BNP, and Griffin actually won some points over the question on his view of Muslims.

It's no secret that wealthier Muslims are moderate, but I live somewhere where if you date an asian girl you risk getting found in pieces in a bin bag somewhere along the M62 (thats happened on more than one occasion*), while the person who turned you into a human jigsaw puzzle is quite happy popping into the local brothel to bang white girls, and drive around the town at 2:30 in the morning picking up pissed girls to shag.

Bonnie Greer is surprising me though, she's really kicking his arse.

It's no wonder the parties have been feared of debating Griffin, he's as professional a slimy shit as the rest of them, non-politico's he has considerable trouble with though.

*not to me obviously, it's kind of a once-in-a-lifetime event getting machete'd into pieces.

I thought he put up a pretty good performance, and I'd rate it as a draw:

Nick 1-1 versus everyone who was sniping at him.

He made some good points, and so did some of the others, but the format of the program doesn't allow in-depgh examination of any particular question... so it was an interesting programme but didn't ultimately resolve anything.

But then, did we think it would?

So not worth tracking down and watching once someone puts it up on Youtube, then?

Well, it wasn't a "Rivers of Blood II"

No-one half credible on the panel or in the audience to challenge an obviously nervous Griffin really.

The audience being predictably full of babbling students, a token jew or two and an angry black man, who couldn't start an interesting debate between them.

The panel consisting of an inept Strawman (who somehow came out of it worse than Griffin), a token anonymous liberal - what was his name?, and two random others to make up the required ethnic quota.

Don't bother, waste of an hour.

Personally I thought Griffin came out of it looking like a fool. He was nervous, fumbled his way through and could not counter any of the quotes put to him.

However, I think ecky has made a very important point and that is that there is plenty of unacceptable racist sentiment towards whites among ethnic minotity groups and the main political parties, through fear of a press smear, won't dare address that fact. Therefore, lower class Joe Publics are easily convinced by the kind of things Griffin says because they see the BNP as the only mouthpiece they have.

Also, I agree with Hood's remark about Guardian readers. We were told in advance that the audience would have a broad mix, including BNP supporters. But it was clear to me that the Beeb had once again chosen to lean towards it's usual left wing stance (impartialtiy my arse) and thus we didn't have a real debate, we had a "lefties have a go at the nazi" show. It's shame, because now Griffin has the ammunition to make statements about how he was set up......and mark my words, a statement to that effect will no doubt be on the BNP website within days.

Such as?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIHNJP9e9EQ

Just clips right now it takes a bit of time to upload.

I was watching the protest coverage on BBC News 24 much of the afternoon, and some people talked of this "Question Time" event as if it was going to change British life, change the political landscape.

Now, I have a feeling things are going to carry on much as before... with the border floodgates still open!

I just went to their website to see if anything about it is up yet, which it's not, and just found:

"Unfortunately due to the criminal actions of the government and the so-called ‘Equalities Commission’ we are unable to accept any new members at present. But you can sign-up as a potential future member"

I wish Griffin had been asked about that on question time. I wonder if it went up during, after, or before filming...

the BNP membership question was covered near the start. they're prepared to comply with existing law and prepare for new law

Being opposed to teaching about sexuality in primary schools (or something) was about as good as it got

It was?

Because the statement on their website suggests that they're going to comply with law by simply barring everyone from joining.

Which then leads the question; if they're not a racist party, why is the idea of opening up membership so repugnant to them that they're forced to close membership to everyone, instead of opening up to all?

http://bnp.org.uk/tempsite/

Just in case the yanks want to look.

No, that's just the BBC getting it's usual hard on for any Beeb related story.

As I have repeatedly said, I am no fan of the Labour government, but the immigration system was a mess when Blair came to power and the Home Office Immigration Directorate was unfit for purpose before they even started. In fact, many of the foriegn people you see on the streets that aren't EEA nationals came here during the John Major years, claimed asylum and then got to stay because it took the Home Office say damned long to consider cases.

The system, although still bad, is much improved, so while I may be a true blue, I was readily admit that it is the New Labour regime that has done much to improve the system, and let's not forget the mistakes of the Thatcher and Major years when it comes to immigration. Now, that said, had New Labour pumped more money into it, and had some proper immigration specialists advising them (as opposed to ignorant bob-a-job junior ministers) it could arguably have been turned into a very effecient department by now.

If they comply with the law it fundementally changes their core policy, and that has to be a threat to their membership numbers.

Why should we not teach about sexuality?

The Have Your Say page has a sizeable minority supporting Griffin, several having now decided to vote BNP after tonights show, and usually having had their 'recommend' button clicked several times.

It appears the red-top reading benefits/working classes have differing tastes to Grauniad-reading student types. Who knew?

I'll take a bet with you that they're BNP members who've been instructed to defend El Griffino.