BNP Nick Griffin’s Question Time: Christmas Cancelled, Winston Churchill Tweets And White Trash
JUST when you thought you’d heard the last of twitchy BNP leader Nick Griffin, up pop the media to tell you that you should be thinking about him.
Before we go on, we have question for Mr Griffin:
If, as you say (we have video evidence), Winston Churchill would have joined the BNP, in what capacity would he have served – as leader or as your subordinate? And if he would have been the BNP’s leader, in what ways would he have made a better leader than you? The Indy sums it up best:
It is not hectoring or mystique, but familiarity that breeds contempt.
Oh for a Sir Jimmy Goldsmith clapping along as the crowed chant “Raus! Raus! Raus!”
Now to all the news and views:
Sky News: “’One In Five Voters Now Considering BNP’”
Shocking news for Sheila and Lucy Cohen to know that one of them or their three grown-up children is a Nazi. But the BNP is all-inclusive (you said that too, Nick.)
More than a fifth of voters would consider voting for the British National Party according to the first opinion poll taken since the controversial appearance of Nick Griffin on Question Time.
Would consider… And then dismiss it?
More than half of those questioned said that they agreed with the BNP, or thought that the party had a point, in wishing to speak up for the interests of the indigenous, white British people which successive governments have done too little to protect.
Into the void created by the mainstream parties’ lack of desire to talk about immigration, race and a media that demonises the white working class steps the BNP.
And as our own Ed Barrett notes:
Today, the white working class has neither political power nor cultural cachet. One consequence of this is that the rest of society sees no reason to hide its distaste when discussing it. In these politically correct times poor whites are just about the only section of society that it is permissible to insult. The council estate, once a symbol of progress (albeit of a bureaucratic penny-pinching variety), is now regarded as the British equivalent of the American trailer park, and its inhabitants, once the harbingers of a coming classless age, are derided as ‘white trash’.
Sky news’s facts leads to the Sun’s front-page headline:
“DOWNFALL – NAZI BACKSLASH FOR GRIFFIN – Nation turns on BNP chief after TV fiasco”
Only seven per cent in the YouGov poll of 1,314 people said they would “definitely” or “possibly” back them.
Down with the BNP!
As the Guardian puts it:
“Ministers warn of poll boost for BNP after Question Time”
Forwards with the BNP!
What to make of it all. And who to blame? No, not the Jews and the Muslims and the blacks and the Poles and the gypsies. Well, not only them. Blame the BBC:
Daily Mail: “THE BNP BACKLASH – Furious MPs accuse BBC of playing into bigot Griffin’s hands by stage-managing Question Time onslaught”
So it was there fault he looked a like a third-rate politician out of his depth, unable to follow even his own rudimentary argument?
The Daily Star agrees:
“LOONEY – That’s the BBC for making this racist look like a victim”
And for all your Griffin Groupies – yes you – you can see more of Nick Griffin on the telly soon. As the Daily Express leads:
“Fury as you pay for BNP TV ad”
They will field enough candidates to guarantee them at least one party political broadcast on national television and radio.
BBC: “Griffin ‘still has questions to answer’
Columnist David Aaaronovitch told the programme that Mr Griffin’s performance was ‘bizarre’ adding that “maybe his grasp on what it is that the British people thinks is not quite as good as he thinks it is. People should remember that there are an awful lot of questions that he has yet to answer”.
To help you make up your mind, news from the world of PR:
BNP leader Nick Griffin ‘defensive, evasive and flustered’ on Question Time – PR Week
Friday Drop: Good week for BNP leader Nick Griffin – PR
The Nodding Heads Tell Us What To Make Of It All:
The Times, Matthew Parris: “Why sacrifice free speech to swat a gnat?”
I saw an entire national intelligentsia, in a time of relative peace and stability, unthreatened by any serious challenge to the values they hold dear, and in the face of no more than a gnat of a man leading no more than a rag-tag party with no more than a dishcloth of a manifesto, flinch — seriously flinch — in its commitment to free speech.
On the one hand this, and on the other that; six of this . . . ; finely balanced judgments; agonies of indecision; reluctant conclusions; “I’m all for free speech, BUT . . .”; Jesuitical distinctions between censorship and the denial of a platform; quibbling over format . . . almost every voice sounding nervous, agonised; every judgment, when finally reached, offering first a frightened little curtsey at the throne of An Awfully Difficult Decision.
Was it? Really? Wasn’t this, rather, an absolutely obvious, straightfoward, open-and-shut case? Was there nobody to restate, with the relaxed confidence that philosophical certitude should bring, the only available position for a modern British liberal: that this is a free country in which a range of highly diverse opinions may be held and, if held, published, subject to the law? Full stop. Yes, full stop; for heaven’s sake, full stop.
Daily Mirror, Tony Parsons: “Our leaders open door for fascists like Nick Griffin”
The latest figures predict we will have a population of 71 million by 2033, a number inflated by future immigration. Where will they all live, I wonder? What will 71 million do to the environment? How will we educate their children? Can the NHS cope? Am I a racist bigot for asking these questions? But my wife asks them too. And she is Asian.
So you never married a Jew, eh… Why not?
The Indy, Diane Abbott MP: “Diane Abbott: Dark times for the debate on immigration”
With that level of exposure, there comes a level of legitimacy. It does not matter that Griffin gave a poor performance. No matter that London-based middle-class journalists competed to denounce him in the newspapers the morning after. What people will remember was that last Thursday was indeed “BNP day” and the party and its views were somehow accepted into the mainstream.
Daily Mail, Edward Heathcoat Amory: “The reality behind Nick Griffin’s empty rhetoric”
RHETORIC: ‘Our immigration policy is supported by 84 per cent of the British people at present.’
REALITY: The BNP’s immigration policy is voluntary repatriation of ‘immigrants’ (ie non-whites) regardless of whether they were born here. There is no evidence that any but a tiny minority of British people support such a plan. Mr Griffin himself recently suggested that if there was a problem working out where to send immigrants back to, he would ‘drop them out of a plane somewhere over Africa’.
Daily Star, Judi James: “A TWISTED CAPTAIN PUGWASH”
JUDI JAMES, TV behavioural expert and author of the Body Language Bible: My biggest fear was that he would come across, as some extremists do, with a certain amount of charisma, speaking well and seductively despite his disgusting views.
In the end his body language revealed him as a sweaty, quivering jellyfish of a man. His hands were shaking and he looked incredibly nervous, which meant that he just could not hack it with a panel of intellectual heavyweights.
He looked like some twisted Captain Pugwash who kept laughing. It made him look even more false and revolting.
Daily Mail, Amanda Platell: “Nick Griffin: The ogre at the panto”
However loathsome Mr Griffin is – and I think we can all agree on that – the 60-minute spectacle of this sly political fox pitched against the hounds was vulgar, excessive and utterly self-defeating. For however incompetent his answers, however ludicrous his assertions, I suspect that this televised show trial will not have changed the mind of a single BNP voter.
See above for more news on Platell’s suspicions.
Daily Mail, Andrew Marr: “What would Churchill make of Britain today?
Churchill was a child-like lover of gadgets, who would surely have embraced with glee the age of the iPhone. His texting would have been idiosyncratic, his emoticons baffling, and his friends would have saved every message.
Big question, Winston: Mac or PC. Debate.
Meanwhile at the BBC:
Indy: “BBC bosses have cancelled Christmas”
More controversy at the BBC. The decision to invite Nick Griffin on to Question Time caused plenty of grief, with staff – like the wider public – split on the rights and wrongs of the issue. But scrapping the Christmas party allowance, a move that was announced internally this week, prompted a much more united response – of fury. Last year, the Beeb halved the allowance – which was once £50 per staff member – but has now abolished it altogether.
Someone in the BNP get Nick Griffin a beard and fast…
The BBC Anti-Nick Griffin BNP Protest In Pictures: Hello Mum
Image: Matt Buck
Posted: 24th, October 2009 | In: Key Posts, Politicians Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
