Question Time, the BNP et al.

The leader of the BNP, a man severely contending for the most Vile Waste of Skin In Britain award, Neil Griffin, has appeared on Question Time. There has been considerable debate on whether the racist and generally repellent BNP should be given legitimacy by allowing them on to this highly respected programme.

And I’m torn.

Firstly, I discard the idea of “free speech.” It’s not applicable. We have the right to Free Speech - but my right to Free Speech doesn’t mean the BBC has to invite me to Question Time or any other television programme. My right to Free Speech does not require the BBC to broadcast my views. Free speech does not demand others give you a large megaphone - no, not even the license fee funded BBC. It is not censoring the BNP or infringing their rights if we refuse to be their megaphone.

Nor do I accept that the BBC has to give its time to the BNP to be unbiased. The BNP are a fringe party. We do not expect to see fringe parties on Question Time - there’d be little time for anything else. We do not expect to see the Greens, the Law and Justice Party, the English Democrats, UKIP, Respect or any of the other crazy and mildly amusing additions I see lurking around the bottom of my ballot paper to appear on Question Time. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the BBC is unbiased because they do not give a stage to the lunatic fringe.

Those aside the real issue with me is one of Legitimacy vs Giving them enough rope.

On the Legitimacy angle I worry about us presenting the BNP as important. They are a fringe party, as I’ve said. And most people do treat them as such. But they’re in the media nearly constantly lately, they’re being invited to Question Time, they’re causing many people (and, ironically, I suppose I should include myself) to write and say serious things about how awful they are. We’re treating them like a party. We’re treating them like some kind of reasonable, plausible force. We’re treating them seriously rather than like the sick joke they are.

They don’t deserve this kind of attention. They don’t deserve this publicity. They don’t deserve this regard. They deserve to be ignored and treated with the withering contempt they deserve


The flip side is that, for all I’ve heard Nick Griffin declared to be a good spin doctor and a politician and for all that he has tried to sanitise the image of his party, it remains difficult to put perfume on shit and convince us it smells sweet. And I do find that the longer the BNP is allowed to talk the more their vileness becomes apparent. And a forum like Question Time would not favour them (in fact, he seemed to spend no small amount of time desperately denying quotes). The scrutiny is not kind to them and they can’t cover themselves indefinitely nor can he really compete on a level against real train politicians of major parties who have honed their skills against each other for decades. I hate most of them but they’re GOOD with words.

Actually, I’d make a point of going after lower level members. Those at the top, like Nick Griffin, are too savvy to say the vile things we know they represent - aim for lower down the organisation and get some perfect quotes that show them for the vile creatures they are. For Example: BNP member Nick Ericksen who said of women “Like gongs, they need to be struck regularly.” He also described rape a as a “myth.“ (I’m not going to repeat the other misogynist crap he said because I’m still aghast at it and would hate it to appear in my space even as a quite) That is vile - that is so openly and repellently vile that near anyone reading it is going to be appalled. Hunt down these candidates and get them TALKING.


I’m still torn. I’m inclined to say “drag them out in the sunlight for all to see” but why should we even bother looking at them?

Let’s have some good news.

I often read out endless screeds of homophobia and related badness. My RSS is filled with the various abuses that are thrown at GBLT people in a near constant stream. It gets quite depressing sometimes.

So I think it’s important to remember, we are winning. We are going forwards. GBLT rights ARE progressing, albeit slowly at times, but we are winning this. And it’s important to collate the victories as well.

Germany extends pension rights to gay civil partners (trying to address some of those inequalities between civil partnership and marriage)

Sweden allows gay couples to marry in church (The Church also as an open and non-celibate Lesbian Bishop)

America approves a hate crimes bill that protects GBLT people

86 year old world War 2 Veteran makes an extremely good speech for gay rights

The States of Jersey legalises Civil Partnerships

It's not a conspiracy - you're just a deeply offensive, horrible person

It amuses me that both Jan Moir and Nick Griffin have both claimed something very similar.

Jan Moir is convinced there is an orchestrated campaign of a liberal cabal attacking her (possibly lead by Stephen Fry - HAIL STEPHEN!)

Nick Griffin is spitting his dummie out and stamping his feet because he thinks he was ambushed at Question Time and it was organised to be biased against him.


Well, here's a news flash kiddies - there's no conspiracy, no cabal, no slanted bias, not attempt to tip the scales against you.

You're just awful people.

Jan Moir - you wrote a disgustingly homophobic article that was grossly offensive and truly repugnant to read. It didn't take a cabal or an organisation to drag you down - you wrote something so horrible that that many people were offended by it. Simple as. Yes, they did read it (she's taken to claiming no-one has read it) and it was offensive and repellent. No organisation, no bias, no campaign needed - thousands of people read your article and were disgusted. Because it was disgusting. Simple, isn't it?

Nick Griffin - everyone at Question Time focused on you. Everyone hated you. Everyone asked hard questions and everyone attacked you and made you look like a fool

This wasn't because it was set up to be biased. It is because they all hated you. The audience. The panelists. The presenter. Hells, I bet the film crew and the boy that brought the coffee hated you too. You're a loathsome person representing a loathsome party espousing loathsome views. They piled on you because their hatred of you outweighed ANY political differences they may have had with each other. Their hatred of you outweighed any other political discussions they may have wanted to have. Because you are that awful, that repugnant and that objectionable a person and represent a party that is all that and more that it outweighs anything else. To them it was either attack you or ignore you as not worth their time.

They didn't have to go out their way to an audience who hated you. MOST PEOPLE DO. For the BBC to have picked out a sizeable number of BNP supporters in the audience (which means finding people who are both BNP supporters AND willing to go on national television displaying themselves as such) they would have had to expressly worked to create a bias FOR the BNP. As it was they had an extremely diverse cross section of British society. And most of that hates you, Griffin. But the, you hate most of them as well.

We don't need to organise against you. You're vile enough to inspire opposition without it.