If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Essential support for under 25s
Essential support for under 25s
Take a look around and enjoy reading the discussions. If you'd like to join in, it's really easy to register and then you'll be able to post. If you'd like to learn what this place is all about, head here.
Comments
So anyone *not* watching tonight?
The problem with it (which is what I've feared all along) is that I don't think tonight's debate will have dissuaded any potential BNP voters. Of course you, I and everyone else here will have seen Griffin for what he is: a lying, backpedalling racist hypocrite. But the lies, false stereotypes and myths he peddles will, IMO, have made a far bigger impression on those people already predisposed to think that way than the counter-arguments from the rest of the panel. I suspect the exposure the BNP got tonight will have gained them more supporters than lost them.
It is also a bit sad that, in my perception at least, the only person who dealt any decent blows was an American writer. The representatives from the three main political parties did not do as well as I'd have liked.
Nevertheless, I wanted it to go on for another hour. Whatever differences the other political parties may have, the one thing that unites them is their condemnation of the BNP.
It was funny seeing Nick Griffin vehemently distancing himself from a lot of his own quotes. Also, according to Jack Straw it turns out that there is no European Law preventing Nick Griffin from telling us why he used to deny the holocaust.
I’m gonna watch the show again tomorrow and give some more analysis.
When Islam comes into the equation then she faces the predicament that most “moderate” Muslims face, ie whether to give the Islamic answer and upset the vast majority of the audience and British public… or whether to give the sensible, progressive, tolerant answer and risk incurring the wrath of Allah and losing a lot of support from her fellow Muslims.
And I’m glad that the issue of homosexual civil partnerships came up to highlight this. She tried to sit on the fence and evade the issue of civil partnerships to begin with, but good old David Dimbleby kept on asking her. Now her (reluctant) approval of civil partnerships will be met with condemnation from sections of the Muslim community. I'm already seeing it on a few Islamic internet forums.
I would guess that her views on homosexuality are similar to Griffins.
Perhaps, at least she has the good sense to "live and let live". She might not agree with homosexuality, that is her right. At least she doesn't attack it like Griffin does.
I just watched a clip, I've got the rest of the show taped. The clip i saw, it seemed relentless. good.
It was good to see the Tory Communities Cohesion spokeswoman admit that there are issues surrounding immigration, and that it's causing real problems for real people, but that the BNP wasn't the answer.
I think a whole heap of people will have been turned off him by this appearance.
Why on earth did you watch it if you though that he shouldn't be on Question Time? I don't understand. Surely, as a protest against the BBC, you should have boycotted it?
By the way, I thought that he should be on - and I watched it. It was able to confirm to me that he is everything that we feared he would be and convinced me that nothing but a small minority would ever give this man any credence. Free speech has won here. He shot himself, and his fascist ideology, in both feet. Well done BBC!
Bad sadly I feel I have been vindicated. Do you seriously think that anyone who is prepared on principle to vote for the BNP or tempted by it would have been dissuaded from doing so after last night?
Because I don't.
So a massive amount of free publicity and exposure for the BNP, and while rational, decent people all agree he's been exposed as the cunt he is, bigots and idiots everywhere will have been reassured by the lies and bullshit he peddles.
I can only hope we can now put the whole episode to bed and he can return to the obscurity he belongs in.
We can't have been watching the same program. He was an absolute joke, and exposed as such. No one could have watched that and thought 'here's a credible candidate'. And for the people who have voted BNP in the past because they don't feel they're being listened to, they were shown he wasn't the way forward. For everyone who didn't know he was a holocaust denier, they do now; for everyone who didn't know about his homophobia, they do now;
It was a victory for both free speech, and against NG and the BNP.
:no:
:yes: :yes: :yes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAvkFS_cgk
It doesn't take long for witty youtubers to make these videos.
To be fair, I can imagine some ultra-left UAF people using an audio recording of this video as propaganda against the BNP. It's really well made and some of the sentences flowed quite well.
I thought Emmanuel Goldstein only got two minutes.
How do you think that audience (and panel) would react to someone who said the following ?
"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
Why are you asking?
I imagine so he could point out it was Churchill...
Did I?
My god, that was a complete anti-climax. For weeks, we've had the usual suspects going on about how the appearance of Nick Griffin on a political debate show was going to lead to the end of the world etc. He came across as a complete twat, but everyone knew that already. His opponents on the panel didn't come across particularly well either...
UPDATE: "I'm against black people kissing in public", says Nick Griffin. Allegedly. Ahem.