How Question Time Became Important

denverthen

Yeah. Right on. Thanks, Labour, for the BNP.

JohnBUK

Martin, this is all a red herring. How Nick Griffin fared is irrelevant. The 1m who voted for him did so because none of the other 3 main parties have listened to their concerns about immigration, EU and crime. The BNP have at least acknowledged these issues. There is a divide between the governed and the governers and unless this is addressed then the BNP will continue to thrive. Griffin has many skeletons in his cupboard but the current batch of MPs hardly smell of roses. So any glitches in Griffin's performance can be rationalised for the time being.
What voters want is to be listened to and acknowledged as if we were in a democracy.
I watched QT and thought the whole thing a disgrace. Whatever Griffin's performance I suspect a lot of people will feel he was hard done by and he will get their sympathy if not their vote.

Geoff Miller

Now we have final proof of what many people have been thinking for a long time - that Labour has used mass immigration and the Balkanising effects of multiculturalism to socially engineer the British population and boost it's vote.

You are right when you say that people are disenchanted with politicians.

It took a biased QT Chairman, a hostile and unrepresentative audience and a hand picked panel to attack Nick Griffin. Supported by a baying mob of up to 600 people.

Around 800:1

And yet he still landed some punches.

And it was nice to discover that whilst my mother slaved away in a munitions factory and my father, when not fighting for the Royal Marines, was tasked with digging body parts out of ruined houses in SE London that Jack Straws father was in a comfortable cell in Exeter Prison getting three square meals and plenty of time to study Karl Marx.

cmp

JohnBUK - Perfectly said.

Rhoda Klapp

Do you think that display will reduce the BNP's vote?

If I am not too keen on mass immigration, which party am I supposed to vote for?

Beer Moth

Do yourself a favour Martin: conduct another straw poll, only this time, consult people who have not already been highly vetted; those who are not 'the right sort' to be handling the media.

The QT debacle has served merely to further entrench the divide between we who want to save our British identity, and they who would, and are, packing it off to oblivion.

Rhoda Klapp

It's not amazing to me that you attend a journalism class. What is amazing is that you are teaching it.

Noa Zrk

The main counter-points have been well covered above to this smug and complacent piece. What a pity that the main news of Labours deliberate importation of 3 million immigrants hadn't broken in time for QT, it might have changed the tenor of the diatribe.
How well would Call me Dave have performed if he had had a panel and audience of angry anti-drug abusers, fleeced tax-payers and socialist workers personally abusing and grilling him on drug abuse, the Bullingham club and expenses claims? Griffin didn't walk out, as Gordon has a tendency to do and he was left with the moral high ground. Those who believe that QT was a victory for the Left and Far Left will soon be disabused. The Right has re-established a new legitimacy and others beside Griffin who will give it a future authority.

Sam ARMSTRONG

"I think it is important that we continue the debate..."

Like you have a choice now.

Merlyn

Well, well, finally our closet BNP members are coming out. Not a moment too soon... we are at the 11th hour, time to fight our corner. Who else have we got to fight it?

Sarah

I haven't watched QT for years - more of a radio listener so prefer Any Questions. I wished Dimbledy hadn't intervened quite so forcefully - it would have been better for the panel to make some of the points he ended up making. Generally I felt the programme teased out all the crucial differences between what NG *really* thinks and what he wants people to think the BNP stands for. There was just one moment where I felt he possibly had a point and was shouted down by everyone else a little too quickly. This was his observation about certain walking tours in the Lake District being discontinued because they were attracting too exclusively white a clientele. That was certainly reported at the time and I have no reason to believe it was a false story. And it did seem a remarkably stupid reason for stopping providing the service.

Augustus

The whole show was one big biased and not very intelligent anti-climax. Never mind that Nick Griffin gave a pretty poor performance, and often showed all the pain of a man caught passing wind in a crowded lift, the BNP are right to claim BBC
bias. It was obvious that Dimbleby and Co. were out to ensnare him with a form of venom one doesn't usually associate with adult political debate. Islam in general is incompatible with Christian nations, everyone knows that. Try and buy a Bible in Saudi Arabia, or be discovered celebrating Christmas at home. He didn't say that all gay people are 'creepy', he mentioned, as I recall, only not being too happy seeing grown men kiss in public. But what has that got to do with a multicultural tsunami anyhow. The murdered Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was every bit as Islamophobic as Griffin, and he was openly gay. This was not a fair or genuine Question Time, and there are over eight million people who know it wasn't.

April

I feel very disheartened by the BNP’s political agenda and being subjected to such offensive views openly .Clearly, people like Mr. Nick Griffin and members of his party do not understand their purpose or value as human beings. Showing such hostile reaction to people from ethnic minority background is a sad state of affairs for the British people.

Mr. Griffin has not had an opportunity to socialise with people from ethnic minority background otherwise he would not be furthering such racist or ill informed views. Neither is he familiar with the British way of life as we live in a multi cultural society

We also need to question the BBC’s decision to allow people like Mr. Griffin the time and opportunity to come on air and to insult many of us. Where is the justification for such decision? Equally those who aim to commit acts of terrorism could seek the same right so as to get their views across. We condemn acts of terrorism and go to any length to combat it because we know it’s immoral and value mankind.

As TV licence payers we did not have a say in the BBC’s decision to allow Mr. Griffin to take part in a debate so as to mislead and insult the population for his gain , where is accountability? I think people should raise formal complaints to OFCOM as the Question Time session was offensive and harmful to many people , both ‘white’ and ‘black’. Bearing in mind that there is no such thing between being ‘pure white’ or pure black’ .There is a lot of mixed marriages and people embrace and respect each other’s culture and most find it enriching and intellectually stimulating. During Question time, the lady sitting beside him stated that he studied law , that’s a surprise how did he managed to study at all given that his reasoning level seems to be lesser than that of a 5 year old.

Why organisations, such as, the Commission for racial equality, Equality and Human Rights Commission and so forth have not come forward to defend or act on behalf of those who are targeted by the BNP.

We should not blame any of the main political parties for increasing support to such inhumane views. As we are well aware ‘Race is a card’ that can be used to woo those citizens who are at their low ebb and do not know what to do to feel better. We know at some point we all do that ,it’s human nature ,we find someone to blame for something that goes wrong in our lives, though in reality we are failing to deal with out problems .

Mr. Griffin’s freedom of expression should have been curtailed as clearly it is against the interest of public policy, it’s immoral, inciting racial tension, giving inaccurate information and so forth.

Sadly, Karl Mark dictum finds its place in BNP’s political agenda ‘Divide and rule’ .Those who are true human beings will rise above the BNP’s false image of the effect of the immigration in the UK. I was even more upset to hear Mr. Griffin talking about religion, that is, that British must remain a Christian country, this is an insult to Christianity. Being Christian is not only about belonging to such religion. But a ‘true’ Christian is one who has compassion for mankind and not hatred. Whatever colour we are it’s irrelevant as human beings we all have the same emotions and feelings. For me I have the same feeling for someone whatever colour that person is and would try do anything to ease off someone’s suffering I do not for one minute think or are conscious of the ‘colour differentiation’ .

On a more positive note lucky for people commonsense and moral values prevail so as to understand that the BNP does not have a place in modern society as we are not returning to ‘Germany’s Hitler’. Race or colour is just empty words, but human beings are not…

We all going to live everything behind one day, no one is going to take anything with us when we depart from this earth. Sharing what we have gives us contentment, self satisfaction, makes us proud of whom we are and whatever religion we belong to I believe would teach the same. We are not here forever, but, let’s make the most of what God offers us so that when we depart we will be remembered for our good actions and the positive contributions made to mankind.

My suggestion to Mr. Griffin is to try and re-educate himself on his religious belief if he really sees himself as a ‘true Christian ‘, that is to be a person of good moral grounding and to erase hatred for mankind so that we can live in peace and harmony. There is enough suffering in this World and a good Christian would not want to see others suffer and never mind inflicting such suffering on others so as to build his empire.

Noa Zrk

April

My dear, did you mis-hit your hot link to the Guardian comments page?

However, be assured that all who read your letter will be charmed by your niavity and belief in the eternal goodness of the Labour Government and its self-proclaimed belief that all the actions it takes are for the benefit of its citizens.

Augustus

April, you are forgetting that racial polarization is not always more pronounced among whites than among blacks, and there's no general trend of racial animosity by any particular group. Obama has himself stereotyped whites in Pennsylvania in racist terms, and has employed banalities like 'typical white person'. and in fact one of the most prominent racists today may well be the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the President's own former pastor, who has insulted in racist fashion whites in general, Jews, Italians, and just about everyone other than African-Americans.

TomTom

The BBC has prior form with Nick Griffin after colluding with the Home Office before the 2005 election to infiltrate a private meeting in a Keighley pub and secretly film private comments for broadcast to instigate a criminal prosecution......Griffin was acquitted.

Once he sensed the switch in format at question Time with himself as the spit-roast he must have been unnerved.

I really think this format should be used with all party leaders in future - let's see Clegg and Brown and Cameron subjected to a really hostile audience, biased interviewer and parade their past for scrutiny.....it would be great to hear about the Communist Party in Brown's career and Cameron's drugs and what really went on at Carlton....and Clegg could explain his life as an MEP

Marbury

Amazed you thought the rest of the panel were good. Warsi I agree with you on. But the others were terrible: Straw weak and evasive, Huhne insufferably pompous, Greer insufferably snooty (she sneered at him for having a 2:2 - that'll have heads nodding in Dewsbury!) and wont to go off on bizarre digressions about the ice age. Which of them - apart from Warsi, who had a good go - gave any impression whatsoever of understanding why people vote or think of voting BNP? http://bit.ly/2OdHXw

David Norris

Nick Griffin was set up, like a fox before a pack of hounds. How Peter Hain and Jack Straw have the nerve to critisize him, is beyond me, their hands are still dripping with the blood of the illegal Iraq war.
At least Nick Griffin attempted to answer his questioners, when the baying mob allowed, Jack Straw never answers a question, if he does, he is so long winded in the process, most people have forgotten the question, before he gives an answer.
Jack Straw should be patented and sold as a cure for insomnia.
I have never thought of voting BNP but I am seriously considering it now.
All the other parties only seem concerned about 'feathering their own nests'

De Rigueur

TomTom

Now THAT is a first rate idea!

Got any mates at the BBC you can put that one to.
Or Maybe Martin has??

Paul T Horgan

As a refugee from the enclave that is Barking and Dagenham, I believe that I have an insight into the mindset that has made the BNP the official opposition there. There is a culture of bigotry against the 'other' there whether it be different race, accent or academic achievement.

Question Time did not address this at all and has probably entrenched the views of the BNP voters there.

So long as the Left are permitted to act as self-appointed hecklers against the BNP and are allowed to continue their egregious behaviour instead of conducting a proper political debate then the BNP will be able to create a sense of beleagured exclusivity that will seduce voters. They will continue to garner the 'victim vote'.

The behaviour of the left actually insults the voter as it indicates that without energetic opposition that the ordinary voter will be seduced into voting BNP, that there is no such thing as free will.

The left should forget the street battles of the East End of the 1930s. Mainstream politicians should marginalise the left by using reason and rational discussion instead of name calling. The rise of the BNP and the hijacking of opposition to them by the left is a failure of British politics.

Alexandrovich

April: are you Jesus Christ?

logdon

“April
October 24th, 2009 6:31pm

Race or colour is just empty words, but human beings are not.”

Huh?

I’ll pass on the misunderstanding of the plural here and get to the actual point.

Obviously you have not read today's news from Iraq. Shia on Sunni? Sunni on Shia? Not even races but denominations of the same faith but that doesn’t help the 140 dead.

Or maybe you’ve misconstrued the news from Africa over the last twenty years where tribalism and ethnicity trumps all.

This is great big melting pot cliché at it’s most cloying. It is why we have areas of the Northwest with 30% Muslim populations. They’re certainly not ‘melting’.

Then again, maybe Darfur would be your cup of tea. Try telling them that for the Arabs who enslave Africans, race and colour are ‘empty words’.

Would you suggest a spot of re-education?

They tried that in the Gulags yet Solzhenitsyn still managed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

I heard yesterday that a large number of Anglicans are now defecting to Rome. I wonder why? Could it be our head Druid’s passion for Shariah?

This is relativist claptrap and what has got us into this situation in the first place.

Funnily enough the Waste Land kicks off with April is the cruellest month.

April, your utopianism reverses the cruel to be kind into, aimless kindness often leads to the cruellest situations, and is a potent demonstration of the law of unintended consequences.

Sad, but true.

Snowman

April @ 6.31

You’ve missed to type in the last sentence ‘And then I woke up’. Please, do try to comprehend that it ain’t about the BNP or NG. It’s the other bit that’s hurting the country.

Bar Bar of Oz

Warsi was extremely impressive and is a striking tribute to Tony Blair's most significant achievement - forcing the Tories to remake themselves in New Labour's image.

Sir Graphus

Going off on a tangent, somewhat, your remark “Griffin didn't even bother to get in the point that he had been elected and Warsi hadn't” merits further discussion. What with the EU, quangos to chair, a plethora of ministers from the House of Lords, there has been a massive erosion of the need to be elected in order to wield power, and a corresponding reduction of respect of politicians for those of them who are elected. I would wager it wasn’t just Griffin to whom it hadn’t occurred that there were no bragging rights for being elected. This is sad and worrying indeed for democracy. I’m tempted to read Peter Oborne’s “The Triumph of the Political Class”.

Worst of all is the recent legislation that Lords can revoke their titles and move back to the Commons; a seemingly trivial change, but it means that, for emotive example, Jacqui Smith, when rudely ousted by her constituents next May, can merely pop up in the other House, merrily carry on ruling despite the electorate’s stated desire that she shouldn’t, then return to the Commons in more electorally favourable times. Politicians have been steadily rigging the game so that we don’t really matter anymore. They’ve nearly finished.