There is obviously plenty of controversy – seen across the internet and the MSM – about the decision by the BBC, the UK state broadcaster, to let the British National Party leader Nick Griffin appear on the BBC’s Question Time current affairs show. For non-Brits, I should explain that QT is a show where a panel of politicians, pundits and the occasional “personality” take questions from an audience. The audience is selected, according to the BBC, from a supposed balanced cross-section of the public. What in fact this means is that such folk are often drawn from a series of pressure groups and the like. The journalist Paul Johnson once said, many years ago, that if the QT audience were representative of the UK population as a whole, he would think of blowing his brains out. I agree. If I ever chance upon the programme, I feel murderous not towards the panelists, but towards a large part of the audience. It fills me with despair.
Even so, the decision of the QT producers to let this man on the show has thrown up some bizarre arguments. This morning, the Labour MP and pundit, Diane Abbott, told the BBC Breakfast TV show that Griffin should not appear. At the core of her argument, if one can dignify it with such a word, was the idea that only “mainstream” parties should be allowed to be panelists. The interviewer did not immediately hit back with the question as to what Ms Abbott defines as “mainstream”. After all, one could object to a Labour, or indeed Conservative politician, appearing on the show on the grounds that both parties support the idea of seizing a large portion of our wealth on pain of imprisonment; support wars against countries that, whatever the justification, involve the deaths of innocent civilians; support the UK’s membership of an oppressive and undemocratic European federal state, have taken away the right of self-defence for householders; have supported, and continue to support, an intrusive, meddling and yet also incompetent state apparatus. On those grounds alone, one could argue that such politicians should not only be banned from Question Time or any other forum, but hanged from a lampost.
Given that the BNP – a party with a hard-left, socialist economic agenda, by the way – has been elected to several seats in the EU Parliament, it would be odd not to allow the leader of a party that has won a million votes not to be held to account in the run-up to a general election next year. Of course, if we had a genuine free market in broadcasting, the editorial judgement of the BBC, which is funded by a tax, would be irrelevant. But given we have a state-financed broadcaster, that broadcaster, under its charter of incorporation, should enable elected political parties to be put to the public test. The BNP is an odious party for a libertarian, and Mr Griffin is, as his background suggests, a nasty piece of work. What have other parties to be afraid of in putting this lot under the media microscope?
Nasty piece of work? Care to back that up? Otherwise you sound kinda like “them.”
For my part, his background suggests to me an honesty that actually raises him above most of the current two main parties. Plus he’s against multiculturalism and against the wars we’re fighting. He’s essentially a statist and a fascist, of course, but we’re already a fascist nation anyway – so what’s the difference?
Abbott should learn how to use her TV controls and then she can decide if Griffin appears on it or not.
If the BNP and its members and supporters aren’t allowed to have access and coverage from the BBC then they should be excused the licence fee. If that happened I might just joint the BNP. It’s as irrelevant to my life as the BBC but I expect the BNP membership fee is cheaper than the licence. Given that the BBC is currently a much more malign influence on our national life than the tiny, powerless BNP my money would be better spent that way.
I think it’s obvious that the BNP get this, because it’s easy to rightly demonise the BNP, and the BNP can be relied on to reveal themselves as full-on fascist shitbags who can be held up an use to scare people into voting for one of the interchangeable mainstream parties. But UKIP does not get to show up, because they actually represent a world view that if exposed to the public might get more people to vote for them and are actually much harder to scare people into voting Tory/Labour.
Am I the only person thinking “This is another reason why we need to abolish the BBC” here? This kind of question then largely goes away.
Agreed Mr Jennings – although there is no need to “abolish the BBC”, just get rid of the television tax (“licence fee”).
After all the leftist trash who love the BBC (such as the auidence of Question Time) would happily fund it by voluntary donation.
Or perhaps they would not put their money where their clapping is…..
As a matter of fact Albion, Nigel Farage of UKIP, has been on Question Time several times.
Griffin is no fool. He is going to be as reasonable as hell tonight. No swivel eyed ranting about sending all the niggers “Home” this time round.
No he will talk very reasonably about immigration being out of control, which most people think it is.
He will talk about being against the wars in Iraq and the Stan, and he will talk about how the EU has stolen our Sovereignty.
The rest of the panel will concentrate on the Racist angle, but will not be able to really pin him down. I’m told interviewing him is like trying to nail jelly to a wall.
What will definately not be mentioned, is the BNPs far left Statist manifesto. After all the Labourites dont want the public to realise that the BNP believe in most of the things they do, just with extra added racism, now do they??So they will continue to be described as Far Right.
I will watch with great interest.
One thing’s for sure, you will be assailed with nothing but a farago of lies and half truths tonight, from all sides.
In the case of the Labour party, quite a lot; if the BNP are given the opportunity to present their policies to a wider audience, they will be seen to contain nothing a left wing Labour supporter would find objectionable, apart from their stance on immigration (which enjoys greater support among Labour’s traditional supporters than elsewhere). As it stands Labour look likely to suffer a crushing defeat at the next election (moderated only by the lack of a proper alternative). If Labour supporters realise the BNP offer them everything they wanted from Labour plus a policy on immigration, the Labour party could disappear.
The problem with television is that it is not a microscope but a platform. The ‘mainstream’ parties are rightly afraid of the BNP getting its ‘message’ out because it is the message that has appealed to mobs since time immemorial:
1- Blame someone else for everyone’s everyday problems.
2- ‘They’ are bringing the working man down.
3- Kick ‘them’, whoever they might be out of the country.
4- Repeat, with everyone who doesn’t match the central party’s ideal human until there’s no-one left.
It appeals to the basest and most dangerous part of human nature; fear of the ‘other’. And in trying times, such as here and now or Germany after WW1, it offers easy solutions which don’t actually exist.
This is what the BNP should be exposed as. They should be exposed as the power hungry bigots and propagandist liars that they are. Their history and political ancestry should be exposed and laid bare for all to see. This is not going to happen on QT. Nick Griffin is a very capable spinner and has a very smooth and reasonable way of hiding what he really means. So QT is not going expose him as the slime that he is. it is merely going to give him the opportunity to speak to more of the gullible and disillusioned who will follow him.
In addition to Nick Griffin appearing on QT (which I won’t get to see, being out of the country) The beeb should run a documentary on the history of nationalism in Britain and the wider world and show exactly where such politics leads (Death camps, killing fields, pogroms.)
If the BNP can get coverage on QT, the LA should aswell. I mean they have people who haven’t been elected to anything on it occasionally don’t they?
Mandrill,
You say that as if the entire British fourth estate has been engaged in a covert conspiracy to cover-up the real nature of the BNP and sanitise them for public consumption.
Have you been reading our press lately? Not only has everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE) been shouting exactly the same plea (from the rooftops) but then promptly going on to great lengths to do exactly that, complete with archive footage of Mr. Griffin and his chums making Nazi salutes. I cannot imagine anyone or anything getting more expose cover in the British press than Mr. Griffin and his BNP.
And it is not working. ‘Expose them for what they are’ may be a very satisfying crie du couer but even when put into assiduous practice, it is useless.
Yes I know RAB, I realise rereading what I wrote I didn’t explain myself well at all, my mistake. I mean all the howling in the media, not Question Time itself. They LOVE to talk about the trivial BNP whereas it is like trying to get water to run uphill to get them to even mutter darkly about UKIP, who are far more significant electorally.
The ‘expose them for what they are’ strategy won’t work while the mainstream parties continue to talk about race, immigration, and nation issues in a mealy-mouthed manner.
I’m not a BNP supporter, but I would say that it is rich of an establishment riddled with so many ex- and current Marxists to go about screaming about the pasts of people like Nick Griffin. They should look at themselves!
Rich, you want me to back up my claim that he is a nasty piece of work, do you?
Take a look.(Link)
Glad to oblige.
Thaddeus, sorry, I’ve been a bit out of the loop since I moved.
Maybe the trick should be getting them to expose themselves as the slime that they are. get nick griffin so riled on live TV that he just lets loose with a torrent racist abuse and tells us what he really believes. Him being a politician, I would imagine that would be quite difficult though.
Free speech doesn’t just mean allowing “mainstream” opinions, it means not censoring people who are vicious, bigoted extremists. Peter Hain should be allowed his say, however unpleasant we may find it.
It’s odd that people want to get rid of the BBC, purely because of some perceived political bias. Do you watch the other channels? At least the BBC does sometimes provide a platform for some kind of open political debate and is capable of achieving high standards in both serious and entertainment programming. (And would have achieved more, if Thatcher/Birt/Blair had left them alone). The best thing would be if politicians of all parties kept out of broadcasting, which they know nothing about, and left it to the professionals.
Hypocrites of the English Establishment….You bleat about the BNP being fascists & racists and should not have the voice of freedom…Condemning a party that rose from the ashes of the national front is pathetic to say the least. What are you plush fat cats actually afraid of ?! That maybe there is a party now that is ready to embrace what is needed to bring great back into Britain….Let me state now…I am a BNP member….Racist ?! Do not insult me ….i come from a multi racial family….I’m white British who married a woman of Arab decent ….1 child being the result….My mother married one of the nicest blokes you would ever have the pleasure of meeting…His name Mohammed Hussein his birth being Pakistan. My closet brother half cast of Black African decent….Your pathetic attempts to label me racist now dying quicker than the political decent of labour/conservative combined….. Fascism…….Is that not what you feeble people are guilty of by trying to deprive the British people of the only true British party available for British people….Let me stand proud in my statement that i am not Fascist i believe people should embrace each other and share their religions….But know this….when i travel into a different country i embrace their culture with honour of being allowed to be there, showing respect to the individual people for being my hosts in their country….This is my country by birth right…The politics of wrongful leadership as made this great country a laughing stock of the rest of the world. BBC. British Broadcasting Company….British National Party…I am British…….Nick Griffith has the right to voice his opinions for himself and the party……….
It’s odd that people want to get rid of the BBC, purely because of some perceived political bias.
It’s not just that. I want to get rid of the BBC because I find it offensive that I am required to pay for it whether or not I wish to watch it, principally. The bulk of its programming is terrible, but that is pretty much beside the point.
What is on the other channels is largely irrelevant. Britain’s entire television industry exists in a pathological enviroment that was created because of the existence of the BBC and which was hobbled to protect the BBC. The fact that a genuine competitive environment was never allowed to exist in the UK (and we were therefore never given the opportunity to see what one could produce) is probably zn even greater sin.
Nick Griffith has the right to voice his opinions for himself and the party……….
Yep, he sure does in my philosophy.
As for the rest of your post George, I dont believe a word of it.
How many of your ahem, multiracial family are currently members of the BNP, given its current Constitution?
Perhaps they are queuing to join up, but cant get their names on the register until Peter Hain clears up the legal position sorta ting?
Now, to important matters.
What are your views on big State Welfarism?
Indeed what are Nick Griffith?
Interesting typo that, by the way.
Griffin lives in mid/north Wales, probably the whitest place in the British Isles.
Pete: “Abbott should learn how to use her TV controls and then she can decide if Griffin appears on it or not.”
Did she not get a remote control on expenses?
Anyhow… I guess most people in the Ruling Party are worried sick that the BNP will get votes from this, so their own little darlings won’t “win” a place on the Commons gravy train.
George…
Where’s the punch line? Are you going to trot out the one about “some of my best friends are black” next?
The problem with BNP isn’t so much the racism, as it is that the racism is just another form of dipshit collectivism, one among the many that BNP has endorsed.
Is there an important difference between them and Labour? Because, if so, I’ve missed it.
We’re just a small tea shop in Brighton but we had a very recent encounter with the BNP. Read about our experience of Nick Griffin and our take on the Question Time debate here: http://bit.ly/3CJcaQ
What you should remember is that this country is a democracy and has been founded on christian morals, the BNP was voted for by over 1 million people, although we might not agree with all the BNP policies they do make a strong case for the protection of our british christian way of life, it is true that white british people in some areas are now a minority, it is true that some alocal authorities have banned christmas advertising not to upset the musim community, we have a immigration problem where we are being over run by so called asylum seekers who travel across several countries to get to the UK because they know they can take advantage of our christian social security system but the first chance they get they try to apply their prejudices they import with them and if they succeed they will turn this country in to a third world state, i predict that there will a civil war in this country if this trend is not stopped, i am a ordinary working class personand and i find this topic a regular conversation with people i meet on a daily basis, i have yet to speak with anyone who has a alternative point of view, so i dont understand why the politicians cant see what the ordinary working class people can see and take action now before it realy is to late
Sometimes, the only sense that I may have accomplished anything, is from angry looks, clinched fists and muttered threats lubricated with spittle, of someone I cannot recall ever having met before.
As for being on the BBC, we are all on camera, every day, now. Our whole lives seem to be a leading question, asked silently by unknown personages.
” Hell is empty….all the devils are here” (The Tempest)
C S Lewis said “My symbol for hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or a thoroughly nasty business office” (Screwtape Letters, 1943)
God’s punishment upon fallen angels: people.
Sartre: “Hell is other people” Poor devils.
It is wonderful to see the need for the BBC and the BBC licence tax debated, I do so wholeheartedly wish them to cease to exist that I got rid of my television and consequently do not pay the iniquitous tax – which incidentally, is the one and only useful action of the EU to affect Britain that I know of, they reclassified the BBC TV licence as a tax, which it of course is. I don’t miss the TV itself much, but I do so miss the BBC with great relief. But how else to get the Nick Griffin’s of the world on air and debated? Would any commercial TV take it on? Even TalkSport radio, which has had plenty of controversy-mongers on in the past will not allow the BNP on air.
But the BNP parallel with the Nazis is quite right, Hitler specifically had his party renamed the ‘National Socialist German Workers Party’ when he joined it in 1919. It was Stalin first who hit on the idea of distancing himself from Hitler by calling them ‘Fascists’, but of course the original fascisti of Italy under Mussolini were all socialists, as were the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) themselves. Still, what’s in a name?
So much for the history then, but my real point is that racism is rife in the UK and the BBC are among the worst offenders. They have an anti-British self-loathing mindset, part of their own odious corporate socialista agenda, “we must hate ourselves to justify priviliging others”, and they quite happily proceed with this pathological self-flagellation by rehearsing all our national errors, real and imagined, from all history. But the existence of the Black Police Association, Black Lawyers Association, public funding of Asian and Afro-Caribbean groups is somehow not racist and to be extolled. And they wonder why there is a disgruntled BNP-voting element in the electorate? They struggle to understand why the BNP return MEPs to Brussels? According to the national statistics for the last general election, published in the Daily Torygraph, where the BNP stood against UKIP, they on average got about 5% of the vote compared to UKIPs 2.5%. Now that is what worries me. Nigel Farage for Prime Minister I say, and Nigel Congdon for Chancellor of the Exchequer.
George, Mike, isn’t it time for your medication?
I glimpsed part of the progamme. Griffin came out of it very badly.
I only caught snatches of it so will reserve full judgment until I’ve watched it later on iPlayer but I was less than impressed by the braying fools in the audience that booed Griffin the instant he opened his mouth – great way to make him look like a martyr. Aren’t we allowed to hear his odious opinions in full so that they may be easier to dissect and thoroughly reject?
Griffin’s appearance is also giving fools of a different ilk free licence to come out with nonsense like this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/chris-huhne-griffin-is-trying-to-peddle-hatred-against-muslims-1807733.html
“The programme was dominated by race and immigration with a small look-in for Jan Moir’s homophobia in the Daily Mail. That did not do justice to the full and nasty nuttiness of the BNP’s policy. Its last manifesto, for example, called for all people leaving the armed forces to keep an assault rifle at home. We would have another 5 million guns on the street and a Detroit-style murder rate.”
Or alternatively another 5 million guns on the ‘street’ and a Switzerland-style murder rate.
Precisely. Quite why he thinks that it’s dangerous for people to keep weapons when they’ve been trained (and trained by a state sanctioned body) to use them responsibly is beyond me.
Why couldn’t Kuhn have cited a pre 2001 Kabul murder rate?
Mandrill writes of Griffin’s appearance on QT, “in addition to Nick Griffin appearing on QT (which I won’t get to see, being out of the country) … you can’t watch it on YouTube?
“Or alternatively another 5 million guns on the ‘street’ and a Switzerland-style murder rate.”
Go, Perry!
Frankly, I think most Brits would love having 5 million legal gun owners around their neighourhoods. I know I was always comforted by it in Texas, when I lived there. I had a gun. I could use it by law if someone took one uninvited step over my doorstep. And were I shouting for help, neighbours with guns would have been right there.
I cannot see the flaws in this tapestry of human community, of safeguarding the community against intruders.
When someone was trying to get into my home in Texas and the police came out, twice, and I had shown them my gun, they said, “If he comes back and steps inside your door, shoot to kill.” This was the police, bless them!
I am giving the tenor of the words here, because I don’t remember them exactly, but: “Don’t try to wound him because he will only say you invited him in then changed your mind. If he steps over the doorway, shoot to kill.”
I cannot see what is wrong about this philosophy.
Nope, 5 million guns in the UK is very different from 5 million guns in Switzerland. What’s the difference?
Think of the BNP, think of Robert Putnam’s studies on diversity, and you’ll realize that rationality goes out the window once you have sufficient ‘diversity’ or alternatively, enough ‘idiots’ around.
No shortage of either in the UK. It works for the Swiss because of their cultural homogeneity and long shared history. Absent that? You might not get Detroit, you might get Somalia.
BTW, the BNP was vindicated by recent exposes in the Daily Mail. Its being correct on immigration is only going to give it more momentum in gaining power. Then you may get a government that limits immigration yet has the worst policies on the economy. Well, one out of two ain’t that bad. 😛
As a BNP member it should be pointed out some truths1 we are not a nazi party, sorry to disapoint you.2 we will grow in power because as Aspho ,put it ,thous that try to please all, in the end please none .3we are not left or right in politics ,stop saying so, the people that built stonehenge did not have conser, or labour views, they were ethnic nationalists, in fact we are sick in dead of marxist loonys or globlist Merdocs,while these twits govern us the UK falls down.4the anglo celt and this empire was built on one supreme truth, MIND KIND RULES ALL,your multi what er ever ism is bull shit,5 Greek thinking is what rules us BNP SPARTAN THOUGHTS ,maths numbers, the law of IC ,numbers rule ,think of the english lanugage with all the WORDS, Pre fixs or suf exs, in them in it ,thiousands,not athenian degenerate liberal multi culture moral, emotive thoughts, ENDLESLY PISSING OUT OF YOU EYE BALLS.AS IF THIS SOME HOW CONTITUTES TRUTH.
Greek thought is this
mind +matter =maths, spartan bnp thoughts
In veiwing any comment, one should draw a line though all of the emotive lines if you ,press print on this artical, and then do this with the printed paper ,when all is said and done he has said very little.Their are three form of intelligence, in any group 1 the one who thing truth is what you SEE,2 thouse who think truth is what you THINK,3 THIS IS REAL TRUTH TTRUTH IS WHAT THE NUMBERS STATE,labour believe this4=2+1they present you with a truth ,but it is wrong , factors dont add up ,/the consers present you with wrong factores to start with 2+1=4,and thus come to wrong conclusion,on imigration,religion,indusrty, social truths,the BNP simple states this ===orwell==FREEDON IS THE RIGHT TO SAY 2+2=4 /BALANCE IN ALL THINGS.
The BNP is the result of the last 50 years of desgraced management of this country. If there would have been a balanced immigration, 0 corruption, moral and family values not attacked, instead governments promoting gays, promoting people to produce children out of marriage, promote free masonry sects, allow banks and financial insitutions to waste and steal peoples hard earned money, etc. etc. etc. then no BNP would exist.
So Laura, you want to replace failed statism with a party that supports failed statism only more so?
The BNP are fascists and claims they are not are laughable… and turning to fascism for fear of socialism is like suicide for fear of death.