Actually, that's an assumption that's wrong. Traditionally, the right wing of British politics has been the preserve of the upper classes. For every working class skinhead there are two people with double-barreled sir-names who want 'the darkies' out of Britain just as badly, they just have a different idea how to go about it. They're much more likely to get elected as a tory MP than firebomb someone's house. Oswald Moseley was upper class for example and there are known links between parts of the British aristocracy and some of the more right wing organisations in Germany and France, and the neocon faction in the US.

Your doc martin wearing, Combat 18 hoodlum type has actually always been a minority (of that minority). Which if anything makes them even more pervasive and dangerous.

Jon

I think the editing team failed to a degree - it was too concentrated on a single issue (and a single panelist) and it did give the appearance of being 'Nick Griffin versus everyone else including the audience' which didn't really serve a good purpose; it's given the BNP something to complain about and a way to distract the news agenda from Griffin's rather erratic performance. If they had spent a good time talking about other issues, they wouldn't have left themselves open to the accusation that it was a hatchet job.

As to whether he has a case or not, I suspect it's very much down to how things were proposed to him; there's a world of difference between 'appearing on question time' and being 'the subject of question time'. If they can successfully argue that there are other issues of great weight that should have been discussed but weren't and that Griffin was unnecessarily singled out, the BBC could be in trouble.

It was going to happen. If Dimbleby had tried to keep it a more normal Question Time, he would have failed. The panellists would not have wanted it, and the audience certainly would not have wanted it to. The producers must have known that this was going to be focussed on an individual’s views. They played it as broadly as they could, but it was always going to go down like it did just because of Griffin’s presence.

Agreed. The C18 hoodlum type is a minority - as are the rich upper classes of which you speak. In order to gain power, though, a party has to appeal to a mass of people, and at the moment those who feel disaffected are being wooed by the BNP’s softer rhetoric. That’s the lot you have to target, because at the moment, the BNP knows just the right kind of noises to make them think in a certain kind of way. A million people voted for the BNP. There are not a million racist toffs and C18 hoodlums out there. There are a lot of people out there with no jobs, many with a poor education (not all, I know), and certainly not all the skills or tools to help pull them out of their predicament.

+1 Jon, and in a way I hope his complaint is upheld - I don't believe the political front he tries to project for one second (it certainly cracked a bit last night if nothing else), but I really do think the BBC lost sight of it's impartiality here, even in the run-up to the show. Actually, the word 'show' is quite appropriate IMO...

There's no smoking gun in terms of real evidence, but I've felt the BBC overall is slowly losing it's way for a while now, from last night's debacle to some of the articles on the site that are starting to resemble the style of the Daily Mail. Not the tone, thankfully. Yet. A good example being the 'UK expected to exit its recession' story I posted here, that made it sound so certain we were on the up. That was thoroughly disproved today

I know what you mean, but I've seen Dimbleby bring a baying crowd round quite a few times before, though not one with so many coloured faces in it as last night it has to be said - that just looked deliberate on the producer's part, but maybe it wasn't...

And I'm assuming Dimbleby's on enough money to be an effective ringmaster too

And that is why I blame the main parties for creating space for the BNP to grow into. If they had both worked to create better opportunities for these people then the BNP would not have a chance.

please don't delude that over a million voters are 'fascist' or are ignorant
a lot of them wear other clothing and are very well educated …

This was quick: youtube video

No they're not, they're ignorant and badly educated, by definition, for they support a fascist mob of thugs. I accept that some of them may be voting by accident, maybe their pen slipped.

With all due respect Manc, you're being naive. Back when I was at Uni, virtually every member of the more extreme right wing student political organisations was someone who was being financed by a trust fund from Daddy and quite a few of them had had their student digs bought (that is bought, not rented) by their parents. And they all got degrees and got very nice jobs in finance or law or such like. Well, aside from one guy who pulped himself when he drove his Golf GTI into a wall when drunk. I guess he was a moron...

The people you see on the news up in Burnley may come across as so dense that light bends round them, but they're not really any more representative of the active right wing in the UK than they are of the population of Burnley as a whole. They're just the ones that fit the soundbite (and image) that the news people want to portray.

I do think however there is legs in the principle that you can vote if and only if you can pass some sort of idiot test. That applies round my way too, where they'd elect the proverbial shaved monkey if it was wearing a red rosette.

Jon

To call racism 'right wing politics' justifies that mind set a little too much for me. The BNP has no place in politics, they do not have a human right to spread whatever they want, 'free speech' is a meaningless term, they are spreading hate and prejudice and it is no different from physically abusing 'pakis' in the street, it's depraved, low and I'd call them evil if they didn't get such pleasure from it - what they want is to feel powerful and important.

Those who choose to support such an organisation deserve no respect, regardless of daddy's trust fund. Certficates and money do not equate to education and respectfulness.

You're making the same mistake QT did. The BNP aren't just about racism. They have lots of other really nasty ideas too. And I call it 'right wing politics' because that's what it is.


I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Nearly a million people voted for them. That means they do have a place in politics and should be confronted on that platform. The fact you don't think they should have that platform is utterly irrelevant.


"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves." The man who said that did as much for the rights of black people as anyone else in history has. And you're right, it should apply to the BNP. The paradox is it applies also to the people who would deny freedom to the BNP. I'm sure the BNP would happily agree with you - disallowing freedom of speech is something I suspect they'd be very much in favour of. But the fact is the rules that stop them from silencing the voice of reason are the same rules that don't allow us to silence them. You can't have a system of law and justice that applies selectively depending on whether someone's views are acceptable or not. Everyone must be equal under the law, or the law is a waste of time.

And 'free speech' is a meaningless term? God, that's exactly the kind of thing dictators around the world have been spouting for years.


"Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one." as another philosopher once said.

Jon

The BNP is as much a political party as Scientology is a religion. They may call what they say 'policies' but that doesn't mean we have to give them the same respect, they are using the political system like a parasite to spread their ideas and give their ideas added strength, we should recognise that and tell them to GTFO just as we should do with Scientology.



News just in: my opinion is not just irrelevant, it's utterly irrelevant.



Implying my argument is no better than Hitler? 1:0 on the Godwins law front.


"A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones that need the advice." Bill Cosby

I didn't say silence them. But neither should we help to amplify and spread the message - hand them megaphones and say we'll give them cut-price leaflet printing deals. It's like sharpening the machetes in Rwanda.