It made sense for Nick Griffin to emerge from BBCTV’s Question Time as the victim rather than an aggressor, and he certainly achieved that, although I doubt if that’s the way he planned it.
Also not emerging with much credit were the unbearably smug trio of mainstream political non-entities Messrs Straw, Huhne and “Baroness” Warsi. Poor Bonnie Greer was hopelessly out of her depth, as usual. Why does the BBC bother re-inviting this woman. She seems perfectly nice, but has nothing to say, apart from a few right-on thoughts lifted straight out of the Guardian. The more Straw, Huhne, Warsi, Chairman Dimbleby and the invited audience combined to humiliate Griffin, the more likely his impact was going to be favourable. Lots of high-falutin Congressional committees in the U.S. always look like unbearable bullies when they line up, say 20 strong, surrounding one hapless testifier. Even if it was Jimmy Hoffa, you couldn’t help feeling sympathy for the little guy.
I had sat down, armed with my lap-top and tuned into my Twitter page, to say I told you so every time Griffin said something about his political philosophy which showed he clearly came from the left, as fascists do. But I waited in vain. The BBC had obviously other things on its mind than letting the viewers have any idea about the BNP’s (Banque Nationale de Paris) policies.
Listening to the odious Peter Hain today still going on about how we are all too stupid to be able to listen to the BNP without becoming fascist beasts ourselves is getting a bit hard to handle. The Labour party has failed its core working class vote, by allowing their northern carzees to be over-run by unemployment and immigrants. This means that in the upcoming general election, even hard core Labour strongholds will be lost to the BNP. Silencing Griffin is all about this, not some breach in standards of decency.
It was interesting to hear that Jack Straw’s father was a Conchie. That will surprise nobody who knows this amoral lawyer, who will happily spout the line that the last person paid him to speak. Listening to him when he was Foreign Secretary justifying the Iraq war was always nauseating. If he had been in opposition he would have said exactly the opposite. But Straw can’t be all bad. Did you notice how he dumped his provincial librarian specs in favour of contact lenses when he had the hots for U.S. Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice?
Griffin at least had his moment in the spotlight, even if the BBC made sure we only heard about racism. He did manage to get in a word towards the end about the teaching of sex to school children, which will have gone down well with his prospective voters. Griffin thought this shouldn’t happen, presumably because this is a moral matter best left to parents, not agents of the state.
It was interesting to hear Times columnist David Aaronovitch saying today that Griffin’s thoughts on homosexuals and sex education (Griffin said he was disturbed by men kissing in the street, just like almost everybody else except Aaronovitch) showed how out of touch Griffin was. I’d wager that any politician advocating that sex education should be handled by parents and not schools would find themselves in a huge majority, with the likes of Aaronovitch out in the cold.
Well done to the BBC for at least allowing us to meet Griffin. It was a pity that we were denied his views on the politics that matter, rather than outdated and boring arguments about holocaust denial and race.
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