BBC Question Time

[Delmont St Xavier]

Well the leader of the British National Party appeared in front of a live audience tonight. (22nd Oct 09)

Do you think his appearance was an 'early Christmas present to the BNP?

Or was it a case of he got a 'doin?'

[Doorstop]

I watched QT this morning as I was out galavanting until 4 and I have to say I was appalled at Griffins treatment.

The man is an arse, his party is an arse of a party but last night's spectacle was nothing short of the modern equivalent of bear bating.


I have to say I'm with the moral majority I feel on this one in that the other party politicians came out looking just as bad as Griffin for their attitudes.

I've never liked that vitriolic Tory troll Sayeeda Varsi as she is usually repellent in her disdain for the other panel members and for the audience in general, but last night she was but a shining star in a galaxy cluster of arsehole politicians who literally went in for the easy kill just because they thought they could.

Not one sensible question from the audience (of which there were exceeding few) was even given passing credence via a viable or coherent answer such was the bloodlust.

Bloody disgrace .. I know as a rule Politicians are cunts but last night showed true colours under a spotlight for all concerned.



Who won the sweepstake incidentally?

I timed the show on the phone's stopwatch from when Dimbleby began speaking after the initial credit music until the first comment from Mssr Griffin raised the first 'boo' and the bullying began. I made it a damning (for the show in general - not just Nazi boy) a staggering 3' 52".

[Sharon]

I tend to agree with doorstop, it was set up to be a witch hunt - although what else could it be in the face of a real live witch!?

But did Griffin really fail? I suspect that some people watching that - his potential voters - wouldn't hear alot of the arguments being put to him, and pretty much only see people shouting at him, him staying amazingly calm with a little quiet smile on his face, and occassionally making a point about immigration which the rest resoundingly failed to deal with in any kind of coherent way.

He got a doin', but it might have been an early christmas present too.

Some real gems though...

my favourite being "... the almost totally non-violent branch of the KKK"

[floweredpig]

Everyone seemed to want to give a history lesson.I think we got as far back as the Ice Age at one point.


It was the perfect platform for the audience and panellists to ask detailed questions on his policies and
then break down his arguments with logical rational thought but that didnt happen.
Instead all we had was the rest of the panellists in competition for the biggest round of applause.
He could have so easily been humiliated yet they let their emotions get in the way.


An opportunity lost.

[flyman]

Did anyone seriously think it was going to be anything other than the biggest let down since Will Young beat Gareth Gates? It was a real chance for some probing questions to be asked about Griffin and his fellow band of unmerry men,but as usual the lets all point at the bad man and shout crowd won.I dont think it's done anything for any party to be honest they all fared pretty badly.they should have went the whole hog and got Mr Blobby to come on and custard pie Griffin because it wouldn't have been out of place on this charade.Credit due to the Beeb mind for sticking with the ethos but by god it was a chance scorned methinks,he would have had a harder time on This Morning with Phil and her from the Ice skating thing that i er ahem um am obviously trying to cover up that i watch

[Doorstop]

Exactly .. a totally missed opportunity to let an obvious idiot hang himself by interrogating him on pertinent policies that have the present zeitgeist and watching him flounder in a lack of knowledge on same.

The latter happened last night and instead of seeing a speck of an intellect be picked to pieces over important issues we watched a pack of hyaenas tear their victim to pieces over idiotic minutiae that we all know make no difference whatsoever.

We all know Griffin is a racist so why focus on that particular subject. Ask him about a coherent and fair change to the chaotic immigration policy at present and sit back and watch him tie himself up in knots.

Ask him how he would solve the obvious problems in a British economy which has become increasingly dependant on service industries for employment in a time where the obvious requirement for a service economy, ie. cash, is becoming increasingly difficult for the average British worker to secure and let him drown in his complete lack of a coherent and sensible strategy to combat the decline.


No.


What happened last night? A bitchslapping competition that's what.

It descended into a "My Dad's bigger than your Dad!" slanging match between Griffin and Straw at one point for God's sake.

[Bridie]

An opportunity lost indeed! The only bit I enjoyed (if thats the right word) was the comment already posted about the "almost non violent KKK section"
Too much "I saw you on youtube" and the history of immigration.
I stopped to think that maybe the only reason they dwelled on this was to give younger viewers a history lesson - but would they have been watching anyway and do they teach these things at school?
Where was the questions about the BNP's policies on trade for eg that would have been interesting
It was a wasted opportunity and I almost missed the great orators and debaters of yesteryear - of any party!

[Autolycus]

....
Where was the questions about the BNP's policies on trade for eg that would have been interesting
..............................................

Do they have any other policies? I thought it was merely 'let's send all immigrants (and those who look like immigrants - or who have stupid foreign sounding names etc) home and everything will be hunkey dorey', no?

[flyman]

8 million viewers though the beebs rubbing their hands in glee,next week they are getting Derek Acorrah on to see if he can channel ,Hitler,Idi Amin and Ghandi and just to make it a bit balanced Thora Hird.Doorstep the segment that Griffin started, the" my dads better than your dad "routine was straight out of the playground i'm not a Straw fan but he gave that one the contemp it was due.I wondered what was coming next? maybe they were going to produce their collections of Shell football coins or Commando comics then again Griffin would have been humped on that one cos he's changed all the story lines so the Germans won.........................For you Nick ze var ist over.

[Dot]

I watched this programme too and anything I could have said is already covered by other people.

It looks like Mr Griffin plans to complain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8322322.stm

[zoidberg]

If you didn't have time to watch the whole show, here's the highlights.

http://bit.ly/DycDq

[Sharon]

Damn - beaten to it!!!

But i embedded

[zoidberg]

Damn - beaten to it!!!

But i embedded

Show off

[Lucky Poet]

....
Where was the questions about the BNP's policies on trade for eg that would have been interesting
..............................................

Do they have any other policies? I thought it was merely 'let's send all immigrants (and those who look like immigrants - or who have stupid foreign sounding names etc) home and everything will be hunkey dorey', no?

They also want to put homosexuals 'back in the closet', whatever that means (though it doesn't sound especially nice). This is a softening of their previous position which was to simply recriminalise it. I'm sure, though, that if they had their way it'd be the concentration camps for me.

Not a happy bunny about this fiasco:
1) Putting the fucker on Question Time and letting the audience have their way with him (not to mention the other panellists) allows Griffin to plausibly claim that he was set up and picked on unfairly.
2) I had to put up with a fascist bastard on my telly for half of yesterday evening, and I'm all out of flyspray.
3) Now everybody's talking about the BNfuckingP, including me.

Strangely, the only time I got angry last night was when the Deputy Director General of the BBC was being interviewed, telling us in impeccably condescending tones how important free speech is, like he was a Professor of Political Philosophy rather than an overpromoted civil servant who clearly doesn't understand what he's just been playing with.

Fine, let him be on telly (he already has been quite a bit anyway), but QT was the wrong programme.

[hazy]

What an absolute waste of a TV programme. I have little time for any kind of extemist . It was a slagging match and not a political programme. After watching the news this evening some of the people have jumped to his defence and now he is getting more free publicity. He has now got a lot of people talking about his party that would never have spoke abot it before. He did seem a bit of a cock when he spoke though.