Now, let us pray ...

Dear … er – Allah … er – Brahma … er – Buddha … er – God … er – Jesus … er – forget it. Amen.


The BNP, Nick Griffin and the BBC.

The BBC’s Question Time on the twenty-second of October, starring Nick Griffin of the BNP, was a disgrace – and Dimbleby, who presided over it, should tell us what he was aiming at. The programme is supposed to be a topical and political airing of views, a bastion of free speech. But it was none of that. Neither the panel nor the audience were there to debate. They just turned up to hound and bully the invited victim – Griffin.

The whole show stank of a set-up. It was advertised and plugged like no Question Time before it. We were all agog, waiting for it. And they didn’t disappoint us. It was beautifully staged; from the yelling hysterical lynch mob outside to the hand picked panel, and audience hired from Rent a Victim. Then came the ritual bullying of the new boy in an astonishing exhibition of pack-instinct.

Griffin might have been the victim. But the fatality was free speech. That went right out of the window. The freedom-loving mob outside and the yah-booing yobs inside saw to that. Did daddy never tell them that free speech is all-inclusive, it doesn’t come to order. In a democracy, your enemy has a voice too, and a right to be heard. That’s not negotiable. There was no discussion here, just an outpouring of negative emotion backed by abuse; the very opposite of free speech. They got Griffin on stage then stifled him; no pros no cons.

Griffin was sneered at when he distanced himself from his previous stance on Hitler and the Holocaust; ridiculed for changing his mind. Just a minute, don’t Labour and Conservative leaders make U-turns too? I don’t see much similarity between Cameron’s Conservatives and Thatcher’s Government. Churchill was a Tory when he called Gandhi, ‘A half naked fakir,’ not very PC. Enoch Powell was in the Conservative shadow cabinet when he made his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. That wasn’t all that PC either. And New Labour bears as much resemblance to old Labour as a pig does to a chicken. Don't forget that Oswald Mosley, Hitler’s mate, was an ex Labour MP, Minister without Portfolio and - Socialist - Fabian Society member. We all change our stance. I used to be proud to be British.

Let’s face it, this Question Time was a disaster, disgrace, and self inflicted shambles. Griffin isn’t an up and coming Fuhrer. He’s not even a heavyweight politician. And as for his opponents, why was Bonnie Greer there? She’s not a politician, so what alternative policy could she offer? Or was she just a token black face? But not to worry, none of the others told us anything about their policies or put a case to counter Griffin. Jack Straw dodged the immigration issue. Sayeeda Warsi said something like, 'All asylum seekers have a good case.' No they don't. That's a ridiculous idea. The audience did what stooges do best. And as for the mob outside … did they know why they were there or where they were? Some of them had placards that declared, ‘Millions of Iraqis killed since 2003.’ What’s that got to do with the BNP? It was Straw’s mob, backed by Warsi’s colleagues who took us into that lot. Why didn’t the hecklers challenge them on that?

The present growth of the BNP springs from New Labour’s immigration policy and this bully boy State with its thousands of new rules and offences. Everyone’s a paedophile until they prove otherwise and if you don’t want a traveller’s camp at the bottom of the garden you’re a racist. New Labour is the BNP’s recruiting sergeant. You reap what you sow.