“Would the BBC allow any other party’s spin doctors to appear anonymously?” asks Peter Hain in the Guardian, referring to the BNP’s “director of publicity” Mark Collett being introduced in an interview on Radio 1’s Newsbeat as merely “BNP supporter Mark”.
Well, yes. Yes they would. In 2006, the Today programme allowed Abu Izzadeen, a senior member of far-right Jihadist group al Muhajiroun a lengthy interview without identifying his senior status in the group. In fact, they went one better and neglected to mention he was a member of any group at all, allowing him to rant about Muslim anger without once questioning his credentials in speaking for Muslims. Izzadeen’s al Muhajiroun friend Anjem Choudary also frequently appears on BBC programmes. Bear in mind no one has ever voted for al Muhajiroun:the group believes democracy is blasphemous, and do their best to stop people voting.
Anyway, back to Peter Hain’s argument:
Furthermore, there is a distinction between those who have voted for the BNP and the party itself. In June, at the European election that triggered this BBC decision, many voted for the BNP as a protest against the mainstream parties at the height of the MPs’ expenses scandal. Few of these voters would recognise, still less endorse, the BNP’s virulent racism and its discriminatory policy towards black people, Muslims and Jews in Britain. The number of people in the UK who accept the racist and fascist agenda of the BNP must be far less than 1% of the population and there is no justification for giving them such an important platform.
I hate to say it, but I think Peter Hain’s one per cent is extremely optimistic. And if Hain is claiming that people vote for the BNP without knowing what they stand for, isn’t it better that the party be challenged in a public forum such as Question Time?
Was it entirely necessary for Bruce Forsyth to prolong the agonies of Strictly Come Dancing’s racism row? Well, no. Anton Du Beke said Lailla Rouass looked like a “Paki” . Anton Du Beke apologised. The apology was generally accepted. Show goes on. But Forsyth felt it necessary to weigh in. Somewhat ironically stating “I’m sure there was nothing vindictive about what he said…the page should be closed on it,” Forsyth then went on to say that in our land of “extraordinary political correctness” we should “keep things in perspective”.
On this, perhaps, Brucie has a point. But it’s his own intervention that has stretched this argument out for another day. There may be no such thing as bad publicity, and it’s true that Strictly has made the front pages of a fair few newspapers this morning. But one can’t help feel that a controversy like this is not really what people want from such a well, wholesome show.
Meanwhile, in a land of slightly less extraordinary political correctness:
The past few days has seen a hell of a lot of righteous indignation over the BBC’s Andrew Marr’s questioning of Gordon Brown’s medical routine (“A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through; are you one of those people?”).
I should say I found the question pretty distasteful myself. Though many of us do rely on pills to help with physical or psychological ailments, it’s just not something we talk about. Interrogating someone on health, which in Britain is seen very much as a private matter, is just not done. (more…)
Well, it’s happened. The BBC has announced that British National Party leader Nick Griffin MEP will appear on political discussion show Question Time on 22 October. Facing him (among others) will be Justice Secretary Jack Straw, a man believed by frequenters of far-right web forums to be a key part of the International Jewish Conspiracy.
I mention this partly because it will be interesting to see if Nick Griffin manages not to mention it when he faces Straw. Griffin, of course, is the author of the 1995 pamphlet Who Are The Mindbenders, which catalogues in some detail how Jewish (and in many cases “Jew-ish”) people control the media. While the BNP is now more noted for its anti-Muslim outpourings, it retains a root in classic far-right conspiracy theories on pernicious Judaism. Anti-fascist website Hope Not Hate just last week claimed to uncover an audio file of Griffin and party comrade Simon Darby alleging that “anti-Islamisation” group the English Defence League is in fact a “Zionist false flag operation”. (more…)
