What we learned from Question Time last night
Before Question Time last night, we knew that:
(a) Nick Griffin was a twat.
(b) Unite Against Fascism were a bunch of illiberal, anti-democratic loons who choose violence over discussion every time.
(c) The BNP’s policies and record would not stand up to any serious scrutiny.
(d) The Question Time audience were clearly going to be rigged against the BNP.
(e) Jack Straw is a complete arse.
(f) There was nothing to fear from putting Nick Griffin in front of the cameras and he deserved his chance on a primetime television show.
After Question Time last night, we know that:
(a) Nick Griffin is a twat.
(b) Unite Against Fascism are a bunch of illiberal, anti-democratic loons who choose violence over discussion every time.
(c) The BNP’s policies and record do not stand up to any serious scrutiny.
(d) The Question Time audience was clearly rigged against the BNP.
(e) Jack Straw is a complete arse.
(f) There is nothing to fear from putting Nick Griffin in front of the cameras and he deserved his chance on a primetime television show.
So does Griffin’s appearance count as a massive success or a massive failure?
This is somewhat O/T but what strikes me most about this farrago is that the MSM have blindly followed the BBC agenda – showing once again how powerful and all-invasive the BBC is. This is really a BBC story.
Yesterday’s news should have been: Another British soldier killed in Afghanistan; Jack Straw attempts (again) to avoid public inquests whenever he thinks so; the Bank of England tries (again) to warn the public of the huge financial and economic challenges facing the population; and in other news, the party leader of the BNP appears on a dysfunctional BBC quasi-political programme.
Well, we need to ask the voting public those questions, don’t we?
Not QT audience-goers. Not bloggers. Not political pundits.
would you really expect the BBC to understand the disconnect between the political classes and those that vote for them, or have any idea of how to explore it? So its a failure, but no worse than they usually do.
You make some valid points, but the comparison with Straw (representing mainstream nulabour views) and Griffin (ditto BNP) is the interesting one – there are a lot of parallels lurking in there.
Just watching it now. The audience is a bit Jerry Springer.
Griffin puts in a poor performance, mostly by allowing the conversation to focus soleley on the BNP and related issues. That said, the panel seems fairly awful too – from Warsi who campaigned one way in muslim areas and another in non-muslim areas during her failed attempt to become an MP through to Jack MCB Straw and Chris ‘Am I still here?’ Huhne. What an american born playwrite was doing on the panel is a puzzle to me too.
Best. Screencap. Ever.
I have to mildly disagree with your assessment. I have a different feel.
I will summarise -
The marxist Demos who obviously control the agenda of the current labour government, who have manipulated the thinking patterns of the electorate for the last 12 (at least) years, must be very proud of their achievements.
As you correctly say, the audience was obviously pre-selected and formed an entirely unrepresentative cross-section of UK population, dominated as it was, by members who would be highly critical of the elected BNP member. This has been the policy of the Common Purpose/Demos dominated beeb for decades. Demos, ex Tavistock will be proud of their achievement.
I read the MSM today, and struggle to find a report that accurately reflects the program I watched last night. The bought and paid for MSM are obviously part of the UK control mechanism. I was particularly disgusted by the FT coverage, but then the ultimate owner is a patron of Common Purpose!
Blair and Brown have visited on this nation, as part of a deliberate plan of national destruction, in the name of multiculturalism, an avalanche of fringe ethnicity, enjoying a level of enhanced state subsidy deliberately designed to disenfranchise the indigenous population, and therebye create the very social tensions they campaign only vocally against. State structures have been put in place to deliberately formalise and expand this disenfranchisement of the indigenes.
Complaints by the indigenes serves only to have them labeled racist. This technique serves to negate any detailed discussion of grievances, and is backed up by a plethora of laws, regulations, boxes to tick, that re-enforce different ethnicities, many under the label of ethnic monitoring for “fairness” in the employment area.
Thought and attitude crimes were invented to increase the ubiquity of this mind-bending.
I would mention the chaos and civil war in the Balkans after the death of Yugoslavia, and the strong man Tito, who kept a similar ethnic mix under communist control.
Control in the UK is less apparent than old communist states, but far more insidious, and thus longer lasting and difficult to counter, being based on a more sophisticated selection of Tavistock techniques. It now commences at 5 years old, in the educational measures introduced by this filthy corrupt Fabian Gov’t, to be used upon our children, slanted against the “family”, the bedrock of human society and civilisation.
The selection of the panel was equally calculated to be inflammatory, in the extreme.
The outcome of all this, as expected, is an opportunity for the MSM to further bash the BNP, and in this they indulge.
But be aware, the gut reaction of the indigenes most aggrieved by the above, while perhaps not being cognisant of the above analysis, will nevertheless be a significant increase in resolve to vote for BNP next time. The marginalisation of BNP sits comfortably with the feelings of marginalisation of the indigenes, and strengthens their identification with the party. After all, it is the only one speaking for them.
Tavistock, Demos, Fabians, undercover Communists have thus shot themselves in the foot with this display of unbridled hated/fascism, and enabled a greater proportion of the population to perhaps see them for what they are.
And about time too.
Be also aware, that Demos is now advising Cameron, who is also seeking advise from various branches of the Rothschild dynasty, oft times on a boat in the Med.
This is not as strange as may appear.
The Rothschild dynasty, through its various agents, – far removed in the (supposed) political spectrum, are part financing Demos, Common Purpose, Tavistock, and similar organisations.
A circle has no end.
“What an american born playwrite was doing on the panel is a puzzle to me too.”
She was black.
@alfred – Rothschilds. Hmm, you’re not talking about a secretive cadre of international Jewish bankers exerting control over global affairs, are you?
Wait, I thought it was the shapeshifting alien lizards who we were supposed to be warning everyone about?
Those shapeshifting alien lizard bankers aren’t getting me, I’m blocking their telepathic moon-rays with my tin foil hat.
You are David Icke and I claim my five pounds.
I wonder what your work colleagues, family and friends think about that, Madeley.
Besides, I always knew that a blogpost about Nick Griffin would end up comparing him to an alien lizard.
It was a success for the BNP, because no-one thinks worse of Griffin than before and some few will now have sympathy after the show was turned into a blatant political ambush. The political establishment in Britain is off on an ideological frolic of its own. I fear the people may yet use such tools as Nick Griffin to make the political adjustments the mainstream party cartel prevents.
I also learned that Jack Straw’s father refused to fight in WW2. Shows the hypocrisy of Straw getting all high and mighty about the war.
There were quite a few digs by Straw and Huhne against the Conservatives. At one point Straw even dropped the far from far-right and lumped all right-wingers in with the BNP.
The thing that gets me is that for faux-justification of this programme we’ve had a month of BBC bigwigs sanctimoniously prattling on about things like their charter, ‘fairness’, ‘democracy’, ‘censorship’, ‘debate’ and all the other platitudinous rubbish visited on us in yet another blatant ratings exercise.
And – try to ignore your view of Griffin and/or the BNP for a moment – what do we get? In a contrived, fixed, manipulated exercise we saw the antithesis of all the above. They might just as well have tarred and feathered Griffin and thrown him to half a dozen pit-bulls. He may deserve that, but for sure it ain’t democracy. And what effect it will have on the million (?) poor sods disaffected by New Labour who voted for the BNP and others potentially of like mind, God only knows.
Do I care about what happens to Griffin? Not much. But the sheer unprofessional, cack-handed incompetence of the BBC I found breath-taking and insulting if they expected me to assume that this was an objective, fair, decent, democratic exercise. And, the sight of the hypocrite Straw taking, what was for him, delicious advantage of such an open goal contrived by the BBC I found most unsettling.
A plague on all their houses.
Question time is a crock of crap at the best of times.
Unsurprisngly, the left failed to realise their direct responsibility for the rise of the BNP.
6% of the voting population voted for them in the Euro election, but that’s because secretly we’re all a bunch of Muslim hating racists.
We obviously need more of your left wing authoritarian thought crime legislation, Jack (it’s much easier than addressing the issues, eh?). I was relieved to see your UAF brownshirts didn’t miss the opportunity for some violent demonstration.
I just don’t want to live here anymore..
This is the best response I’ve read so far. Right on the money I’d say.
Tom, “political ambush” is a superb description of what went on – it was chaired appallingly and was thoroughly undignifying for the BBC.
Doug, I thought Straw and Huhne were pathetically weak throughout the programme.
Talwin, I suspect this was the BBC’s best attempt to satisfy the cries for bloods from all the Lefties who’ve been complaining about Griffin’s appearance (“We have to let him on, but we’ll make his life a misery”)
FLS, I was utterly disgusted with the way that the UAF behaved but I have come to expect nothing less.
Andy, many thanks.
Completely agree – blogged on it today. Shall link to this now.
[...] I just stole this pic from Letters from a Tory [...]
You make some valid points, but the comparison with Straw (representing mainstream nulabour views) and Griffin (ditto BNP) is the interesting one – there are a lot of parallels lurking in there.
More than you might expect.
Excerpt from Question Time.
Live from Alexander Palace 10.30pm 23/10/1936
Excerpt from Herr Hitler’s response to rising crime in the Empire and Commenwealth.
“Not just my 100,000 ‘Brown shirted’ special constables but if a crime is reported a detective from the Gestapo will arrive to investigate the reported crimes. Identity cards will be introduced to combat terrorism. CCTV cameras will observe the trouble makers. A period of 42 days detention without trial will be introduced to deal with the worst troublemakers. Lady Helena Ashcroft-Osbourne-Reynard claims to represent Hardworkingfamilies. She does not. She does not give them jobs. The national Socialists will give them jobs. British Jobs. British jobs for British workers! ………”
@Talwin –
I agree with you on this. The fact that BBC QT had all the hallmarks of a set up to hang out Griffin to dry will do nothing to stop him being seen as a hero by many and when I listened to the news on Sky and the BBC it appears that many people will be changing their vote to BNP because of the stitch up over QT.
Straw was floundering like a flat fish on a beach over the question of immigration and showed he was so shallow that he never answered the questions over Iraq. As for Huhne, he was a joke, even Whazi who I like very much let herself down by saying, ‘There are no bogus asylum seekers in the UK, only asylum seekers.’ That was just a silly statement that she knows to be untrue as was her comment that Islam is extremly tolerant of same sex partnerships. Yeah right it is, just try telling that to the gays who are about to be hung from cranes in Iran for being gay.
This is the second best on the subject I have read today. Sorry, Hirst is first.
The LibDems picked a light weight, Chris Who?, to represent them. The Tories chose their token Paki whom they made a baroness because she failed to get selected to become an MP, Sayeeda Warsi. Labour went for the war criminal and law breaker Minister of Justice, Jack Straw. The BBC stuck with the regular presenter David Dimbleby, who appeared to have lost his moral compass on the way to the BBC studio. The BNP chose their one-eyed monster, Nick Griffin MEP, and he handled being the victim very well. The British Museum sent one of its exhibits, Bonnie Greer, and apart from Dimbleby she was the only non-politician on the panel…Rather than damage the BNP, I feel that this episode has done more to strengthen the BNP. There is the so-called British sense of fair play, and Nick Griffin was fouled. In my view, it was a victory for the BNP against the odds.
No no no. Islam *favours* same-sex partnerships for the very reason that when a couple declare themselves gay you can hang them for homosexuality without the need for much of a trial!
Maybe that was on one of her ‘muslim area’ leaflets, but not her ‘white area’ ones when she failed to get elected before getting a Call Me Dave boost into the Lords where no popular assent is required…
Greer was good and amusing as was Baroness Warsi who spoke well on immigration
http://takeonpolitics.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/question-time-verdict/
Actually, what we learnt is that the truth really smarts doesn’t it?
Nick Griffin said afterwards “There is not much support for me there [in London], because the place is dominated by ethnic minorities. There is an ethnic minority that supports me: the English. But there’s not many of them left.”
Yup, he’s right there. My family come from Plaistow and Canning Town. They’ve all gone now and Newham is 98% immigrant. MY ROOTS ARE GONE!
The Conservative mayor swiftly hit back on behalf of Londoners: “Nick Griffin is right to say London is not his city. London is a welcoming, tolerant, cosmopolitan capital which thrives on its diversity.
East London was my home and I had to move when I had kids or send them to schools where all the kids were asian. I didn’t want to move. I loved where I lived until it was overrun by immigrants!
London is not a tolerant city thriving on its diversity. People are killing each other there and crime is rife. There are all sorts of foreign organised crime syndicates and the place has been spoilt. I suppose its OK if you’ve come from one of the posher areas and don’t have to live with the “wonderful diversity” anymore.
TRUTH HURTS… Yes, I’m exceedingly bitter about having to leave London which was my home (and I am a not a BNP supporter!)
Agreed. But it’s not just Jack Straw who’s an arse, they were all complete arses. Why on earth was Bonnie Greer wittering on about “ethnic British people” having arrived from Africa at the time of the last Ice Age, which may or may not have been 17,000 years ago? What on earth does that have to do with anything?
T’was fun to watch nonetheless.
That stupid woman. What a totally ridiculous thing to say. Her justification for uncontrolled immigration is going back to caveman days then?
I didn’t see the whole thing as I was working but it was quite obvious the show should have been called “Lets Get Nick Time”.
@Sue – ah Sue, you’ve made the ‘right wing’ mistake of asuming diversity means a hodge-podge of peoples living alongside eachother and not the ‘left appropriate’ correct way of placing one ghetto (Jews: Stamford Hill, Blacks: Brixton, Irish, Greeks and Turks: Islington) next to another. For a properly oriented lefty, diversity is about the co-existence of ethnic ghettos and not some phallocentric acceptance of the host culture no matter where you’re from.
I smell a cunning plan cooked up between labour and the media.
They have managed to change the news agenda and get themselves out of the headlines.
There has been plenty of bad news for labour this week all swept aside.
The programme is usually about current issues of the day instead we got a load of crap.
Shaun.
All I can tell you is that the word “diversity” just wants to make me throw up now!
And what could be more diverse than a sludge of chunks of many colours, especially orange for the magical puke-carrot? Job done, sez the box-tickers….
Bearing in mind the fact that Nick Griffin is unlikely to have had any media training whereas the politicians will have undoubtedly been on expensive courses and had considerable TV experience, I don’t think he did too badly with a totally hostile panel, chairman and audience.
And the issue isn’t whether you, I, or all the pontificating experts think it was a success or failure, but what the people think in those marginal seats where they already have BNP Council Members. I think most British have a sense of fair play and will recognise a “stitch-up” when they see it and thus have sympathy for him as an underdog.
I come from a country where the word “fascist” or “racist” is followed by the sign of the cross, so and even though I despise every kind of political extremism, I think it´s a very democratic attitude to, at least, hear Mr. Griffin. The way he has been treated in “Question Time” is seriously regrattable and turned out to be good for him and his party.
I´m not very concerned about this. It´s a basic rule that when there´s a crisis people tend to turn to more extreme positions and ideologies.
And then, Griffin is obviously a political oportunist. He saw an opportunity and seized it. He realised that the british people are eager to have a discussion on emigration laws and that is his principal and apparent concern. And he did it. He gained a lot of popularity.
LFAT,
While it was a terrible edition of QT due to the attacks on Nick Griffin, there were some parts that were interesting:
Jack Straw prattled on about something (boring) and didn’t answer a question.
The leader of the BNP said that colour was not an issue.
To the question “where do you want me to go?” NG said “I don’t mind if you stay”.
and the fact that he seemed to do quite well on the immigration section but thankfully Warsi did much better.
Very Good LFAT, and very, very true.