BNP Leader Nick Griffin On Question Time: Oddballs, Exposure And A Riot
NICK Griffin, monocular leader of the BNP, is to appear on BBC’s Question Time politics show. You can read what we think of it here and here. But what says the media? What says the media about the BBC’s decision to make its moribund TV show interesting?
The front pages:
“Why even the BNP leader’s wife thinks he is a weirdo” – Mail
“BBC chief: We were right to allow BNP on Question Time” – Guardian
“BNP: Thank you auntie for giving us such a boost” – The Times
“Riot fear over BNP talk show” – Daily Star
Nick Griffin The Man
Daily Mail, Dominic Carman: “DOMINIC CARMAN: A deeply disturbing encounter with the BNP’s Nick Griffin – and the wife who thinks he’s an oddball”
Jackie [Griffin’s wife] pulls no punches when it comes to her husband. The former district nurse later revealed some extraordinary home truths about the couple’s marriage.
“My mother thinks he could do with a damned good slap,’ she confided in me, adding: ‘Nick’s parents taught him that the sun rose and set in his a***. He never had to do anything at home and was told he was always right, he can do everything and he’s wonderful.”
They first met in Suffolk in 1978: she was 15, he was 19 and friends with her sister’s boyfriend.
“Nick was an oddball, never part of the gang,” she says.
Sing along: Nick Griffin is only one oddball, the other is in the…
After graduating in 1980, Griffin worked full time for the National Front.
“I thought he would grow out of it,” says Jackie. “I was earning money, he wasn’t – what a fool I was.”
The couple married in 1985. Joe Pearce, best man at their wedding, was imprisoned twice for inciting race hatred. The Griffins lived on state benefits for more than a year.
“I worked my a*** off trying to keep us going,’ Jackie moaned. “I’ve been… working to keep us going financially and bring up four children while he’s spent his time playing at stupid politics. To Nick, it’s all a game.’
Meanwhile, In Scotland…
The Herald: “BBC ‘bent over backwards’ to accommodate BNP leader”
Mike Russell, the Scottish Culture Minister, said of the decision to invite MEP Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, on to the flagship show tonight: “BBC managers in London must explain why they are bending over backwards to accommodate this overtly racist party, which has absolutely no standing north of the Border.”
Mike Russell is a member of the Scottish National Party – not to be confused with the British National Party. SNP MPs sit in Westminster, debating and voting on things that can affect the English, Welsh and Northern Irish. Discuss.
A Few Words From Nick Griffin
The Telegraph: “Nick Griffin: Question Time uproar will give BNP new levels of ‘public recognition’”
“I thank the political class and their allies for being so stupid. The huge furore that the political class has created around it clearly gives us a whole new level of public recognition”, he said.
See Nick Griffin in all newspapers.
The Scotsman: “Murphy warning on rise of BNP inScotland
SCOTTISH Secretary Jim Murphy warned Scots not to be complacent about the rise of the British National Party, as he pointed to a tenfold increase in support for the racist party.
The Cabinet minister said he regretted that the broadcast was going ahead, and he warned that, far from the BNP being an English problem, support for the far-right party had grown so much in Scotland that only the largest football stadiums could accommodate all its voters at once…
How facsists love those football stadiums.
“Ten years ago, the number of people voting BNP in Scotland numbered just over 3,000. In June of this year, that increased tenfold to 29,000 people in Scotland who decided to put their cross in the BNP box. If this thought doesn’t concern people, then the problem is only going to get worse.”
Time For A Heated Debate About The BBC
The Guardian: “BBC is right to allow BNP on Question Time, says Mark Thompson”
The BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, today robustly defends the corporation’s decision to invite the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, on to Question Time,
Says Mark Thompson:
* “Yaaayyy. Get a load of those viewing figures. We are relevant. In your face, Murdoch!”
* Maybe not.
Daily Mirror: “QUESTION SLIME”
Cabinet minister Peter Hain and Trevor Phillips, chairman of Britain’s race watchdog, had begged the BBC Trust to block the show. But a senior Westminster source said: “They turned the request down.”
A bitterly disappointed Mr Hain:
“I am very sad the BBC I grew up with and held in such high regard has made one of the biggest mistakes in its proud history. Nick Griffin has today confirmed that I was right. He feels that the BBC have given him an early Christmas present. This gift of credibility will last him a political lifetime. It saddens me to see that BBC executives have become apologists for the BNP, lauding the recent electoral success of the BNP as a new ‘threshold’ which the Corporation must respect. They have gone to extraordinary lengths to give the BNP a platform, and the credibility they crave.”
The Indy: “BBC ‘will lose trust for giving airtime to BNP’
Michael Rosen, the former children’s laureate, accused the broadcaster of “hiding behind” the BNP’s European election victories to justify its decision, adding that executives “were relishing” the ratings that the broadcast is expected to receive. “It is failing in the very impartiality that it claims to be trying to uphold,” he said.
Daily Mirror: “Doreen: Don’t be fooled by the racist BNP”
Having heard from Doreen Lawrence, mother to murdered Stephen Lawrence, the Mirror does a vox pop:
Crescent Radio boss Raes Mahmood Khan.. said: “In some ways it’s scary they are going to be on TV but in a way it’s good in that it uncovers just how ugly their policies are.”
On With The Show
The Guardian, Mark Lawson: “TV matters: Question Time”
From years of sitting beside Bonnie Greer on the Newsnight Review sofa, I know that she has the eyebrows and mouth to belittle Griffin both silently and vocally…
He doesn’t stand a chance.
Daily Mirror, Derek Mcgovern: “No Time for Griffin”
“But don’t worry too much about any publicity Griffin might garner. It’s not as if anyone watches the show any more – indeed I fully expect Robin Day to make mincemeat of him…
The BBC says it’s a freedom of speech issue but, if you believe in free speech, you have obviously never hired a lawyer. Paddy Power quote 7-4 for host David Dimbleby to label Griffin a racist and it’s 3-1 for any of the other panelists to throw a glass of water over him. I think they mean Griffin rather than Dimbleby, though it’s hard to say which would get the bigger cheer.
Power offer 11-10 that playwright Bonnie Greer is the first guest to walk off during the show, with Baroness Warsi at 5-4. Jack Straw at 6-1 is the man to back to leave last. Always go for the last straw.
Outside In The Cold, More News Is Being Made
BBC: “Anti-BNP groups to protest at BBC”
Well, yes. Isn’t that what they do?
Daily Star: “BNP BIGOT’S RING OF STEEL”
More than 400 police are on duty in case anti-BNP protesters storm the west London studios.
Leading to:
Police have put 300 officers on stand-by – Daily Mirror
Daily Express: “POLICE BRACED FOR CLASHES AS BBC ALLOWS BNP GO-AHEAD”
The Sun: “BBC beefs up security for BNP”
The Pre-Debate Debate:
The Sun, Jack Straw: ‘Denial of Holocaust says all’
By JACK STRAW, Justice Secretary
There is nothing funny about a man who in the past has denied that the Holocaust – the murder by the Nazis of six million Jews – took place.
So we can’t laugh at him?
I’m Not Racist But I Know Some People Who Are…
Daily Mail: “Playing into the hands of racists”
The implications of the fastest population growth in our history are truly alarming. This isn’t about race. It’s a question of sheer numbers. For these overcrowded islands cannot absorb an extra 10million inhabitants over the next 24 years – more than two-thirds of them first-generation immigrants and their children – without seriously damaging the quality of life for all who live here, whatever the colour of their skin. Housing and public services are already under huge strain from mass migration. Yet the Office for National Statistics says we must now brace ourselves for a population of 70million in just 20 years.
Well, opinion polls show 84 per cent of us, including two-thirds of the ethnic minority population, do worry about it. Rightly, ministers have scrambled to condemn the racist Nick Griffin as he prepares for tonight’s Question Time.
But has anyone done more for the BNP’s vile cause than the mainstream politicians of all parties who ignore the public?
Daily Mail, Sir Andrew Green: “SIR ANDREW GREEN: We must halt this conspiracy of silence over our immigration crisis
Eighty-four per cent are worried about our population hitting 70million in 20 years or so, including two thirds of our ethnic population. Seventy-one per cent are worried about the impact of immigration, including 45 per cent of the ethnic communities.
It was “two-thirds of the ethnic minority population” not a moment ago…
The beneficiary, of course, is the BNP, which has been left with a wide-open goal. Nick Griffin, due to appear on Question Time this evening, must be delighted. The truth is that the public are right to be concerned. The numbers of migrants are now so great as to change the whole nature of our society, yet no one has ever been consulted. Middle England is privately seething with resentment at this change and the white working class is deserting Labour in droves.
WHO’S WHO ON TONIGHT’S SHOW
DAVID DIMBLEBY – White man whose dad worked for the BBC (in charge)
BONNIE GREER – Black woman (so utterly devoid of power)
CHRIS HUHNE – White man (white men can be powerless)
SAYEEDA WARSI – Asian woman (Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action – the longer the title the more meaningless the job)
JACK STRAW – Northerner (Chippy)
Posted: 22nd, October 2009 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comments (14) | TrackBack | Permalink
