Nick Griffins's hero preparing to catch an egg in his mouth. Stock footage.
The BBC is determined to give the BNP a platform in Question Time next week.
A regrettable decision, especially in the light of their refusal to give the Green Party a fair share of the airtime over the years, proportional to the vote we have received in elections over the years.
However, given the situation, and given that Question Time is a programme where the audience gets to set the questions, here are a list of questions that occur to me that should be put to the Griffin. You can add more questions in the comment slot. We should hope that all the questions supplied by the audience would be of this type, because for Griffin to be given the opportunity to answer straight questions on the week's news would be to give him a platform to pretend that the BNP is a normal political party.
Questions:
- In your opinion, ws Hitler right, and if not, why not?
- When did you give up believing that the Holocaust was a hoax, and why?
- What do you understand of the psychological ego-defence mechanism of projection?
- How do you feel about the Britons who lost their lives in 1939-45 in the war on Fascism?
- Why did you choose a Polish Spitfire to illustrate your election leaflet?
- How do you feel about the veterans who accuse you of exploiting their sacrifice in WWII?
- What is the scientific basis for your beliefs about the existence of a "British gene"?
- Would you describe yourself as a national socialist?
- Do you believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak?
- How many of your candidates and members have criminal convictions?
- Since you are so concerned about immigration, are you concerned about the poverty, wars, torture, dictatorships and human rights abuses in the world which lie behind immigration?
And so on. You get the idea. I'm not an anti-fascist specialist, so the Hope not Hate website should provide material for scores of other questions.
There is more on this blog about refuting BNP arguments here.
PS I have just seen that the Guardian's Sunny Hundal has the same idea. His 20 questions are here, and they are better than mine, frankly. Well, a bit better, anyway, but that's his job. Pity the British journalists generally are not up to putting tough questions to politicians, instead of dumb questions put in a tough way.
3 comments:
"How many of your candidates and members have criminal convictions?"
What an easy gift question for any experienced politician !
Because the BNP is really such a tiny party, despite all the free publicity it has been getting recently, any of the main political parties have far larger numbers of skeletons in their closets, such as candidates with criminal records, even if the overall proportion might be lower than that of the BNP.
How many Labour and Conservative front bench spokesmen had to admit smoking cannabis, for instance ?
The BNP can claim that they are "pure" and not touched by the MPs' expenses scandals, whilst glossing over fact that they simply have not yet had their turn at the trough of public money yet.
I completley agree with you Richard and the programme last night will, I am certain, lead to an increase in support for the BNP. Griffin is already stating that the West London audience was too cosmopolitan and therefore not representative. I am afraid that the BBC and most of our pundits have learnt nothing from history
NuLab, it is a good question, as many BNP members have criminal convictions. Politicians can wriggle out of even the very best qq.
Thanks Joseph. We shall have to wait for the polls to find if they did get a boost. A lot of their appeal relies on None of the Above reaction, and it is a pity that the GP is trying to position itself as s Serious Mainstream Party at a time when the electors are fed up to here with the Serious Mainstream Parties.
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