I think I owe you all an apology. The whole concept of Nick Griffin of the BNP on question time was a concept I found to horrible to contemplate, so I ignored it. I went to the pub. This morning I woke up and I was confronted with the reason that I should have said something. You see when I got up at 6.45 am, I was confronted by the scene in our front room of my son, who is 9 years old, playing on the Wii with his best mate, who was having a sleepover. You may ask what all of this has to do with Nick Griffin? Well My son's best mate is 1/2 Chinese and 1/2 Croatian. If Mr Griffin had his wicked way, my son's best mate would be deported (or worse). I suddenly felt like a shabby, cowardly, good for nothing, who just hid my head in the sand. We can't stand by and give people like Griffin a platform, any sort of platform at all.
The BBC's justification for giving Griffin a platform? He's the Leader of an organisation which quite a few people are members of. So what? I read that there are more paedophiles in Great Britain than there are BNP members, but nobody would suggest for one second they should get a slot on question time, do they? Much of what the BNP advocate is illegal, many people have suffered violence at the hands of its members.
As I didn't watch his performance (why would anybody want to?), I can't comment on it, but I will say this. If he has to be on Question Time, I'd have liked to see a panel of good, solid working class Socialist activists. I sometimes think that the BBC just doesn't realise that "normal people" can and do have brains and can and do know how to get their case across. The likes of Griffin don't do irony and they don't get sarcastic. I'd like to get a few guys from the RMT down to have sorted him out.
If you talk to the chattering classes about the BNP, they fear that the great unwashed British public will be seduced by this bunch of numpties. They won't. You see the British working man views all politicians with deep suspicion. They quite rightly see the BNP as a bunch of nasty, vicious oddbods, best to be avoided. We have a tradition of live and let live. What is the best supported Football league in the World? The Premiership. What is the fourth best supported? The Championship. Teams brim with players from around the world. When someone such as Thierry Henry signed for Arsenal or Didier Drogba signed for Chelsea, did the British working class shun the teams? Of course they didn't.
Take music. Where did Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Sade, launch their career? In Great Britain. We love Music of Black Origin.
Take food. If you tell the British working man, he can't have curry, chinese or a Kebab, he'll tell you to get stuffed.
I once listened to a BNP councillor saying that Muslims had contributed nothing useful in the history of the planet. This was sadly not corrected by the presenter. I was amazed that nobody saw fit to point out that Arab scholars invented mathematics and the numbering system we use. Without it, there would be no science, engineering or anything else. Of course I wouldn't expect a BNP numpty to understand that.
I see from the press that Nick Griffin is going to complain to the BBC that he was bullied. Let me tell you what bullying is. In the heyday of the National Front, which Nick Griffin was a member of, I arranged to meet a mate of mine in Ladbroke Grove for a pint. He never turned up. In those days we didn't have mobile phones. The reason? He'd been severely beaten up by a bunch of National Front supporting skinheads, for having the audacity to wait for a bus. He spent the night in casualty and the incident completely changed his personality.He ceased to be a happy go lucky, carefree soul. He became sullen, withdrawn and started smoking far too much ganja. All because some numpties didn't like the colour of his skin. That is why I hate the BNP.
So what should I have written in my blog. Well it seems that 8 million people watched the vile circus. I'd have urged everyone to :-
a) Lobby the BBC to ban Griffin.
b) Urge everyone you know to not watch the show
c) Protest outside television Centre so they get the idea that it just ain't worth it
I'm sorry.
The BNP are a bunch of left wing socialist scumbags who I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.
ReplyDeleteBut.
All this melodramatic, shrieking, whooping and banner waving plays right into the BNP's hands. Someone on another blog commented that there are probably more people employed in various positions to fight the BNP than it has active members, and it's membership still goes up.
Anyone sat watching question time and heard those wild feral screams from the stupid left in the crowd again and again would have uncontrollably felt a shiver down their spine against them, not the BNP.
On your three points:
a) On what basis? As long as it is a lawful party allowed to run candidates at an election the BBC *must* treat it equally. BNP voters pay the license fee too. Who else would you ban that you just 'don't like'?
b) People can watch or not watch. All I know is that due to Peter Hain's pantomime performance this week MILLIONS more saw question time that would ever have done if the loonies weren't rabidly publicising the BNP.
c) Oh yeah, that worked a treat. A baying, mob out of control, being smacked about by Police truncheons really showed Griffin as the nutter - not. The violent mob looked more scary to me.
The strategy employed made Griffin's day, wait for the next opinion polls. If Question Time had run a normal program (instead of trying to gang up on him in a playground way) he would have gone unnoticed. Some more of Lenin's 'useful idiots' make things worse. Again.
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/ has good analysis of this.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteIn response to your response :-
1) If the BNP's members were a peacable bunch, you may have a point. Trouble is, they bash people up on a regular basis. The BNP don't expel members for this.
2)Agreed, Hain acted like a twat
3)The mob may have looked more scary to you, but if you'd been down there would you have felt threatened in a way an asian or a black person may feel threatened when a gang of BNP skinheads approach them at a bus stop.
I take your points and arguments,but happen to think that you've called it wrong this time, albiet for all the right reasons.
To me they are beyond the pale.
Rog,
ReplyDeleteThere's no dispute they are a legal party with repugnant views.
To me the issue is whether they are fought and their votes marginalised by acting with your heart or head.
Letting off steam, ala Hain, as many seem to be, just doesn't work
Dan
Until recently, you could try and deal with the BNP by starving them of the oxygen of publicity. However, because of the growth of the internet and blogging, you can’t ignore them any more. They are out there spreading their message to anyone who will listen (or read). Therefore, there is a logic to engaging with the BNP at a public level to expose the weaknesses of their argument. The problem is that BBC really cocked it up big time.
ReplyDeleteNick Griffin has walked away protesting that he is a victim and, whilst not having any sympathy for him, it is hard not to escape the conclusion that he will make heaps of political capital from this. Dumbledore and the other politicians seemed to be more concerned in proving how anti BNP they were (in a manner reminiscent of the anti-Semites who used to say “some of my best friends are Jewish”) than in challenging him on the detail of any of the BNP’s policies - if indeed they actually have any.
The fact is that the BNP do not have solutions to any of our problems - economic or social - but Griffin will now tell everyone he was prevented from discussing such topics, and the public has a natural sympathy towards people deemed to have been gagged by the establishment. With hindsight, perhaps Griifn should have been interviewed on the Hard Talk programme where he could have been grilled for 30 minutes on policy issues without any distractions. He would then have been completely exposed for the fraud that he is.
I watched the first half and then got bored, but the hero of the piece for me was Bonnie Greer who, although seated next to Griffin, turned her back on him, just enough to display her (and my, and no doubt many others') contempt for the odious creature. Even when addressing him directly her body language said it all perfectly.
ReplyDeleteAnd she wasn't melodramatic, shreiking, whooping or banner waving.
She was calm and clear and spoke volumes with her posture. That's the way to do it!