that 52 million will also have their opinion on the BNP shaped or influenced by this week. but they will not remember Griffin's generally terrible shifty performance as much as the images of the protests outside, the week-long media furore, the constant attacks on him and the attempts to silence him popular anti-immigration stance.
Well done the BBC
- Thread starter leftistangel
- Start date
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Thing is, when we talk about "social conditions", we aren't (or shouldn't be) just referring to stuff like poverty, the wealth gap or the like, we're referring to how different people and their differing interests are represented within our socio-economic system. So, for example, social conditions may give "a lot of wealthy people" the sort of feeling of impunity and superiority that allows them to vote for the BNP.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
As a partly non-"indigenous" honky, I reckon they're a bunch of myth-obsessed nut cutlets.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Exactly, i was thinking of examples of local state led initiatives to divide communites up by 'culture' (read race) and set them competing with each other, of social segregation, of educational apartheid and so on, of peoples whole life experience - not (just) something as crude as 'inequality'.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
^This. The bold bits, really.mmmm. At the risk of sounding a complete intellectual snob I do think the majority of potential BNP voters wouldn't have watched last night's Question Time.
There may be some that would - to assume otherwise is despicable elitism, and I think they'd have seen their figurehead made an utter fool, which was my perception (I speak as a hater of the BNP and all it stands for).
IMHO Griffin's main contribution to the debate was to deny what were obviously well-researched quotes, and to snigger, clap his hands and (metaphorically) cosy up to Bonnie Greer rather bizarrely.
The audience seemed to made up of left-wingers and people from Black/Asian backgrounds (who would be the BNP's obvious opponents) plus the odd BNP stooge. I didn't think there was anyone there, in that audience, who represented the so-called white working class who are meant to be the BNP's biggest supporters.
As Griffin is an MEP and as the BNP have several council seats, they need to be taken seriously and grilled about their policies on housing, the economy, foreign policy, etc. and last night's show just concentrated on their racism.
They need to face a serious grilling about other issues and be shown for the ignoramuses they are, and shown up as not fit to govern, not a council seat, not even an allotment plot, never mind a council or a country.
They are a one-trick pony, and their one trick is racism, and last night's debate (although it did show Griffin in a bad light) didn't really go beyond the racism to show how impossible the prospect of a BNP council (which is undoubtedly their next intention) is.
I was really disappointed by how much talking over speakers and interruptions there were. Dimbleby didn't chair the programme as effectively as he usually does. Sometimes it was just an inaudible morass of voices going on for quite some time before he regained order. I don't think that kind of behaviour reflects well on any of the panellists, it just makes them all seem really boorish and badly behaved and disrespectful.
And I was disappointed by how much of the programme was dominated simply by the BNP and racism. It was ten minutes before the end when Dimbleby decided to move on and allowed the audience member to ask the Jan Moir/Stephen Gately article question.
As Oryx said, the BNP/Griffin need grilling on their views on the other issues of the day, not just haranguing for existing, because just saying how repugnant someone and their political views are doesn't move the argument forward in terms of addressing the underlying issues as to why some people are voting for them.
Zabo
Well-Known Member
Indeed so and the best forum would be either "Newsnight" with Paxman or "Today" with John Humphrys not the circus which has become "Question Time".
As I said earlier, I don't think I missed anything - as has been confirmed by the many posts on here.
The sad thing about all this is while the media and the circus performers have been concentrating on the BNP the Tories and Labour have been able to go into hiding rather than addressing or being challenged on a number of matters.
Brown and Cameron must be delighted.
Zabo
Well-Known Member
I like the reasoning in the leader from today's "Independent".
"So the appearance of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, on the BBC's Question Time has come and gone. What has it left behind, aside from several hundred frustrated protesters who failed to stop it from happening and Mr Griffin's complaint to the BBC that he faced a "lynch mob"?
There was, rightly, much argument about whether the BBC should have invited Mr Griffin to participate. Like it or not, however – and we dislike it intensely – the British National Party is a legal entity; it puts up candidates for election. It now has two legitimately elected MEPs.
In these circumstances, it would have been wrong for the BBC to treat the BNP differently from other minority parties, whose leaders and elected representatives appear routinely on the whole panoply of political programmes. To have excluded them from Question Time any longer would have fuelled the claims of the BNP and its supporters that, although they play by the rules of the constitutional game, the BBC and the political establishment do not. It would have compounded the BNP's sense of victimhood.
That said, it was probably inevitable – while patently undesirable – that the programme turned into a Question Time like no other. Not only was there a throng of protesters outside – probably more numerous and rowdy than the BBC and the police had bargained for – but the composition of the panel and studio audience was tailored to the BNP leader's participation.
And when Mr Griffin complained about having to face a "lynch mob" and being "howled down" by the audience, regrettably, he had a point. There was a hectoring and bullying aspect to the show that pitted the other four guests, and the majority of the audience, against him. That might be a fairly accurate representation of British opinion in relation to the BNP, but it is not what happens when other minority parties, such as the Greens or UKIP, are on the panel. Nor, when, say, UKIP appears is three-quarters of the time devoted to Europe. Mr Griffin and the BNP dominated the proceedings.
For anyone tempted to support the BNP, Mr Griffin's poor response to pressure might make them think again. As a politician, he was not canny enough to turn his position to his advantage; he could not deploy wit in his defence, nor did he have the confidence to protest to David Dimbleby – as he could have done – that he had come to talk about policies, not take a beating. But the way in which he was pilloried may have inspired more sympathy than he or the BNP deserve.
When the hour was up, viewers might have learnt something about Mr Griffin's strengths and, mostly, weaknesses, but they would not have been much clearer about the party's policies. That was a failure of the programme and why, not without misgivings, we say that the BNP needs to become a regular feature of political discussions. It is not hectoring or mystique, but familiarity that breeds contempt."
"So the appearance of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, on the BBC's Question Time has come and gone. What has it left behind, aside from several hundred frustrated protesters who failed to stop it from happening and Mr Griffin's complaint to the BBC that he faced a "lynch mob"?
There was, rightly, much argument about whether the BBC should have invited Mr Griffin to participate. Like it or not, however – and we dislike it intensely – the British National Party is a legal entity; it puts up candidates for election. It now has two legitimately elected MEPs.
In these circumstances, it would have been wrong for the BBC to treat the BNP differently from other minority parties, whose leaders and elected representatives appear routinely on the whole panoply of political programmes. To have excluded them from Question Time any longer would have fuelled the claims of the BNP and its supporters that, although they play by the rules of the constitutional game, the BBC and the political establishment do not. It would have compounded the BNP's sense of victimhood.
That said, it was probably inevitable – while patently undesirable – that the programme turned into a Question Time like no other. Not only was there a throng of protesters outside – probably more numerous and rowdy than the BBC and the police had bargained for – but the composition of the panel and studio audience was tailored to the BNP leader's participation.
And when Mr Griffin complained about having to face a "lynch mob" and being "howled down" by the audience, regrettably, he had a point. There was a hectoring and bullying aspect to the show that pitted the other four guests, and the majority of the audience, against him. That might be a fairly accurate representation of British opinion in relation to the BNP, but it is not what happens when other minority parties, such as the Greens or UKIP, are on the panel. Nor, when, say, UKIP appears is three-quarters of the time devoted to Europe. Mr Griffin and the BNP dominated the proceedings.
For anyone tempted to support the BNP, Mr Griffin's poor response to pressure might make them think again. As a politician, he was not canny enough to turn his position to his advantage; he could not deploy wit in his defence, nor did he have the confidence to protest to David Dimbleby – as he could have done – that he had come to talk about policies, not take a beating. But the way in which he was pilloried may have inspired more sympathy than he or the BNP deserve.
When the hour was up, viewers might have learnt something about Mr Griffin's strengths and, mostly, weaknesses, but they would not have been much clearer about the party's policies. That was a failure of the programme and why, not without misgivings, we say that the BNP needs to become a regular feature of political discussions. It is not hectoring or mystique, but familiarity that breeds contempt."
London_Calling
Pleasant and unpatronising
Spoken like the educated, metropolitan liberals they are.
Reinhold Niebuhr:
"Rationality belongs to the cool observer but, because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason but faith. This naïve faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course."
Grandma Death
Reconfiguring & Reconstructing
Idris2002
Stay Alive in '25
Of all the sell-out cunts in Nulabor, Hain is probably the very worst of all.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
I absolutely do get your position - it's the same one I saw every day when I was a student, and it's about as helpful now as it was then.
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