The BNP's Nick Griffin on Question Time, what are your thoughts?

[overmydeadbody]

link here

I shall be watching with a big bowl of popcorn. There's no amount of intellect that can make the BNP's policies sound like a good idea so he will die on his arse for sure. I agree with BadgersPaws, the BNP are always harping on about freedom of speech and the leftist conspiracy to silence them. I say let them expose themselves for the racist idiots they are, there's no way they are going to gain any voters from this.

let him that should be
he has no solid arguments

A couple of weeks ago BBC Newsbeat interviewed two "young BNP members" who claimed that Ashley Cole wasn't born in England.

Now that illustrates a level of stupidity and ignorance that you perhaps might not think too much of if they were indeed just ordinary young BNP members.

But they weren't.

One was the editor of the BNP's newspaper, the other is the MD of their record label.

So you can see the level of thick headedness that runs right to the very top of the BNP's hierarchy. Consider also that the stupidity isn't just about what they said but the fact that they thought that people wouldn't spot who they were.

So give Nick Griffin his time in the spotlight and chances are he'll trip himself up.

I feel the same about this as I do about David Irving. It's much better and healthier to discuss these people and their claims in public. Let them make their case and then let's have a debate and show them through the logic of our views that they aren't right.

Keeping things in the dark makes them more forbidden and attractive.

Yes, but I want to see interviewers giving Nick Griffin a really hard time. In fact, giving all politicians a hard time with rigorous questions and answers.

The BNP represents nothing but hatred, violence and bigotry and for some people to say they are the only party listening to them means that they too are devoted to hatred and bigotry?

And I knew a few morons who went to Oxbridge. It's no guarantee of intelligence, I'm afraid!

Having said that, I bet he'll look great on QT and his imbecilic followers will be whooping with sub-normal glee.

'they feel like strangers in their own country'

I know DP, shocking isn't it...

to walk down the street where your parents and your grandparents before you lived,
looking at the houses where your friends grew up playing with you, and wondering how it is that enough of them voted BNP for the party to actually represent them in Council, despite the fact that you, their friend, classmate and colleague is labelled by that party as different and lesser simply because you are a different colour.

Must be a truly shocking and alienating feeling

Interesting list by Sunny Hundal of questions NG should be asked on QT. Hope some of the audience hit him with some of these.

The BNP are, right now, an unlawfully constituted party. As such, the BBC would have a very good reason to bar NG from QT until the BNP's constitution has been amended to take the court judgement into account. This isn't a technical point - the issue that makes them unlawful goes right to the heart of what the BNP is.

But I agree, on the whole, that barring him would be playing into the hands of those stupid enough to vote for him. They all think that they're being unfairly treated already.

peachy;

you can blame new labour for the rise of the BNP......they have lost so many working class votes...votes they rely on.

You can blame New Labour for people being moronic enough to vote for a party that hates women, gays and black people? Yeah right.

And if Nick Griffin were so damned educated, he would know that the history of Britain is a history of immigration.

Cretins, the lot of them and those who vote for them.

I would like to see him debate serious issues with - for example - Frank Field, Baroness Amos, Vince Cable, Benjamin Zephania,Germaine Greer - that would be interesting . I am sure there are lots of interesting people who could show him up....

Now they've invited him, rescinding the invite would really play into the hands of the BNP. Think I come down vaguely on the give 'em enough rope side of the argument. Part of the reason people are voting BNP is that they feel no-one is listening to them - refusing to debate with the BNP will appear to justify that point of view. And I suspect some of those voters don't really know what the BNP stands for - this is a chance for other people to challenge them in public.

Here's hoping Dimbleby or one of the other guests has got hold of some of their poisonous diatribes, including that one about forcing all teenage mums to be sterilised or whatever it was.

Who else is going to be on the panel?

Jack Straw, Bonnie Greer (WHY?), Chris Huhne, Baroness Warsi. Not very appetising in prospect but hope they all give him a fucking drubbing.

Of course he has to appear - free speech is a right that our grandparents fought and died for, and by banning them from any kind of public platform plays directly into their hands. There is no intelligence behind their policies, and if the panel are worth their salt they will show Nick Griffin up to be the idiotic bigot that he really is. The only shame is that it's unlikely that many BNP supporters will be fans of Question Time, so won't see their esteemed leader (hopefully) making a complete fool of himself.

I'm sure Straw will make an effort given his constituency. And Warsi should be able to ask some pertinent questions...

The thing about Warsi is that she's a peer and has never been elected by anyone to anything, allowing Griffin to make a justifiable point about his own electoral legitimacy. But I hope she pulls his pants down and kicks his arse, obviously.

That's an unfortunate point. Gah. But hopefully all she'll have to ask is 'would you throw me out of the country?'

And she did stand for election, even if she didn't win, so with any luck got several thousand votes? (Although being a Tory in Dewsbury is always ambitious...)

Plus someone (Nick Cohen maybe?) made a good point about Straw cosying up to some fairly extreme Islamist organisations over the years - some of them won't have very nice things to say about women, Jews or gay people, if anyone (ie NG's researchers) chose to look closely.

I'm just anxious that they've chosen the wrong people. Huhne might be OK, he's supposed to be a good debater I think. Cannot see the point of Greer being on there at all.

Oh dear. As it happens, my parents were involved in student politics back when he was president of the NUS and have always been rather unimpressed by him.

But then he spoke out against the veil, so it's a bit more complicated than merely cosying up to extremists in the hope of winning Muslim voters over.

Can't see the point of Bonnie Greer at all, tbh. If they were looking for a BME non-politician, there are far more interesting people to choose! (Although maybe they had lots of refusals?)

This was strategic stuff when he was Foreign Sec - Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Quite scary people. (But then Cohen has a cob on about this stuff so don't know whether he's overplaying it.)

Good point about the refusals - that might well explain it! They should have got Darcus Howe on, he'd have eaten NG alive.

'peachy;

you can blame new labour for the rise of the BNP......they have lost so many working class votes...votes they rely on.

Bollocks; NewLabour may have lost the votes but if you vote fpr twattery you can't blamesomewone else. If you have decent vallues as most eople do, you will find someone else to vote for. My background is as WC as you get, my aprents are ve5ry classic copuncil -houe- blue- collar- sun- reading stock and they would never,ever vote BNP. becuase they are not racist.

GB at woorst (and I still like him) reduced the options by one, he didn't straitjacket them and force them down the path of minimum honour