Liberal Vision

Griffin slaughtered on BBC’s Question Time

For anyone who doubted the basic sense of allowing Nick Griffin onto this evening’s Question Time, watch the BNP leader in action.  And preserve us from the left-wing activists who were protesting outside TV Centre. They managed to give the BNP an endless stream of positive news coverage from this morning. Fortunately, at the main event itself, Griffin was roundly thrashed.

The man’s not a total idiot, but this was terrible coverage for the British National Party.

A victory for freedom of speech and a blow for the forces of authoritarianism (both left and right).

Not even the military can lay a glove on the BNP

The total failure of the mainstream establishment to tackle the BNP seriously has again been in the headlines with a bunch of military worthies bemoaning the party’s use of a spitfire on campaign posters.

General Sir “Mike” Jackson says,  ”How dare they use the image of the Army, in particular, to promote their policies. These people are beyond the pale.”

Where were Sir Mike and the rest of the top brass when the Tories used the imagery shown here as a central plank of Thatcher’s re-election campaign in 1987.? I don’t remember any of them expressing disgust and outrage at the time.

There are lots of good reasons to find the British National Party completely loathsome, using the imagery of a spitfire isn’t a very compelling one.

The “campaign” against the BNP since the Euro elections has consisted of pelting Griffin and his entourage with eggs at their first press conference, obliging the party to admit non-white members through the law courts, seeking to block the BNP leader from appearing on Question Time and now this.

The catastrophe is that Nick Griffin has been able to present himself as a fairly reasonable bloke at each and every stage.

At least the LibDems have the party’s best attack dog against him on QT on Thursday night - here’s hoping Chris Huhne eats him alive.

Peter Hain makes me leap to the defence of the BNP and the BBC

It takes a particularly ridiculous politician to say anything – anything at all – that is likely to make me remotely sympathetic to the plight of either the BBC or the British National Party. But Peter Hain has managed it. Idiotically, he has written to the Beeb insisting that Nick Griffin is dropped from this week’s Question Time panel. His grounds appear to be that the BNP is now outwith the law, as it has yet to comply with the recent court ruling obliging them to admit non-whites into the party (although they have said they will do so).

The ruling – brought about owing to the actions of my ex-boss John Wadham – strikes me as pretty ridiculous. But it’s certainly no grounds whatsoever for denying Griffin a seat round the table on QT.

If unambiguous compliance with every aspect of the law is a criteria for appearing on the BBC, this might disqualify a lot of mainstream politicians who face private or public prosecution for fradulent expense claims. Perhaps Hain himself should be kept off our airwaves in virtue of having been referred to the police over his dodgy campaign finances.

The truth is that Peter Hain represents that deeply unappetising left-wing trait of wanting to ban things he doesn’t like very much. I hope the BBC resist and Griffin gets a chance to make his case – and to have it properly cross-examined by Chris Huhne and others on Thursday night.

Nick Griffin v Nick Clegg: A match-up we all want to see

It’s a rare thing indeed for me to praise the BBC, but they are quite right to offer BNP leader Nick Griffin a slot on the Question Time programme.

If I were still advising the LibDems, I’d suggest asking the QT team to put Nick Clegg on the same panel.

Irrational, populist, dangerous nonsense needs to be taken on and dispelled by the best man we’ve got – our party leader.

The BNP secured about a  million votes on June 4th and have two British representatives in the European Parliament.

Their case, their arguments and their voters deserve to be treated like any other group with this level of support.

Griffin is actually being given a free ride on race issues. If he cheers on the England football team, which players does he consider to be “ours”?  Are Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson, Jermaine Defoe and Emile Heskey as “English” as John Terry, Robert Green, Wayne Rooney and Matthew Upson?

Or should the former bunch be “sent home”? If he doesn’t want them “sent home”, does he regret that “they” were ever here in the first place? Does he consider them less English in any size, shape or form?

Rather than screaming “fascism” and “no platform” at the British National Party, let’s take on Griffin and his party through force of argument.

A failure to do so will rightly be read as yet more cowardice by the political establishment.

Labour collapses to 22% in latest opinion poll

The latest opinion poll, conducted by yougov, is in The Sun. It shows the Labour vote at an all-time low of 22%, with the Tories on 41% and the LibDems on 19%.  This is the first poll to fully take account of reaction to the Fiddlegate revelations -and shows the minor parties on a combined total of 18%.

This puts Labour in possible meltdown territory in a General Election – and suggests a collosal number of votes for fringe parties on June 4th. At the last Euro elections, in 2004, 64% voted for the “big three” and 36% of voters voted for minority parties. The British National Party must be licking their lips. I’d be amazed if BNP leader Nick Griffin isn’t now elected as an MEP in the the North West region.