BNP on Question Time

That'll teach them to think they can come onto civilised political talk shows.

The coverage of the BBC Question Time BNP special on the blogosphere seems to be a little divided into two groups. On the one hand Nick Griffin was crap and well done they wiped the floor with him, and on the other hand Nick Griffin was crap and oh dear they wiped the floor with him.

I think my favourite paragraph of coverage, which resolves the issue for me is this from Raedwald:-

Anyone who has employed inarticulate unskilled white working class labour will be sensitive in avoiding the key provocations; talking down to them, being too clever and above all taking advantage of their inability to frame arguments even when they know they're right. When the carefully designed QT panel and audience did all of this to the clumsy and inarticulate Nick Griffin on Thursday watched by 8m voters they scored another spectacular home goal.

Ambush Predator neatly digs into the very centre of problem with the current fight against the BNP:-

But it’s the UAF idiot that reveals the true danger in our society today.

And that isn’t the temporary political success of a small left-wing nationalist party:

Martin Smith, the Unite Against Fascism organiser, who directed protesters to the gate at Television Centre through which many surged, had vowed to resist police attempts to break up the demonstration and insisted it was essentially peaceful. But he did admit that one far-right supporter had been attacked earlier in the afternoon. "A guy came with a BNP banner. That was ripped from him and he was hit on the head, but you have to expect that if you come to an anti-fascist demonstration with a BNP banner," said Mr Smith.

No.

No, you don’t, any more than a black man or woman has to ‘expect’ to have racist violence directed at them because they inadvertently wandered into a BNP rally.

Both are wrong. And the fact that you can’t see that makes you even worse than Griffin…

Constantly Furious's spoof transcript is remarkably like how I remember watching the program

Dimbleby: "Good evening. I'd like to welcome our panel tonight. Well, all of them bar one, of course"
[audience laughs nervously]
Griffin: "I .."
[audience boos enthusiatically]
Dimblebore: "That's really quite enough from you, Mr Griffin"
[applause. Cries of 'quite right']
Dumbledore: "First, I must just apologise for the screaming and breaking glass you may be able to hear. I'm told that the UAF have peacefully stormed the building and are now peacefully smashing the place up".
Dumbledore: "..and so, to our first question. Gentleman with the cross face.."
Angry Asian: "Nick. Is it that you love Churchill and hate Muslims, innit?"
[wild applause, jeering]
Griffin: "I didn't ..."
Baroness Wassup [interrupting]: "Yes, you do, don't you, you do"
[prolonged applause]
Dumbledore: "Moving on now. I've got photos, Mr Griffin, of you standing near a man from the Klu Klux Klan. Does the very existence of these photo's not prove, beyond doubt, that you'd very much like to strap a black man to the front of your pickup and drive all round the bayou at high speed?"
Griffindor: "Well, I ..."
Bonnie Greer [interrupting]: "Don't you try to tell me about no KKK. I'm a 'merican."
[rapturous applause, cries of 'Right on', 'mmm hmmm']
Dumbledore: "I must just apologise for the smoke the audience may able to smell. I'm told that the UAF have peacefully ripped open the filing cabinets, piled up all the scripts and books in the building, and set light to them".
Dimblebore: "..and now, for another question"
Lone non-nutter in audience: "Is it not possibly the case that some of our problems with immigration stem from Labour's policies in this area?"
[audience falls silent, confused]
Chris WhoHe: "What? Is it me? Sorry. What was the question?"
Jack Straw: "I'd like to answer that by reading out a long list of Labour's achievements, allowing the audience to refill their glasses and go to the toilet."
Baroness WhoShe: "Well that's not true is it, and ..."
Dimbleby [interrupting]: "I'm sorry, we'll have to move on. Mr Griffin is just sitting there, smiling, and no-one has booed him for nearly five minutes"
[applause, booing]

Captialists@Work's rendering of Hitler on Question Time is a also pretty amusing

Question time 1936. Live from Alexander Palace.

On the panel tonight... Sir Arthur Bastion, Minister for Gasworks.
Lord Beaverbum, proprietor of the Daily Announcement
Lady Helena Ashcroft-Osbourne-Reynard, Socialist MP for Whitechapel and slum areas.
Field Marshal Alexander Blimp, Inspector General of the cavalry ,
And Adolf Hitler ,Chancellor of Nazi Germany.

First question, The gentleman in the top hat.
"Does the panel think that we should have closer ties with Europe?"

Herr Hitler?

Absolubtely. I fully believe that we should have a single currency, a single administrative system, and a single trading area. A single transport policy and a single representative body. I fully support closer European unity." {Applause from the audience} And if great Britain and the Commonwealth doesn't want to join? "Then we will bomb you into dust!" {smattering of uncertain applause}

Next question. From a Mrs Trellis. Should this country still be engaged in a police action in the middle East. Field Marshall?

Erm, well I can't say anything political, but our Armstrong Whitby tri-planes should have been withdrawn in 1920. Our 1903 Lee enfields are getting on a bit and their isn't enough head armour for evey soldier. Some still just have forage caps instead of tin helmets.

Herr Hitler?

Its an outrage. The armed forces are being denied the equipment they need.
{Applause} This feeble recession hit government spends money on immigrants, claiming to flee oppression in,erm,Germany and Austria, yet they cannot support their own troops. I would spend {voice rises} Three -Four - five -five hundred - five thousand times on armaments. I would provide work for our national socialist brothers in the Panzer and Messerschmidt factories by making our armed forces the best in the world. {Applause}

It does however remind me of a thing I noticed on EU Referendum a few months back, you'll of course be familiar with Godwin's Law and Reductio ad Hitler

The fallacy most often assumes the form of "Hitler (or the Nazis) supported X, therefore X must be evil/undesirable/bad,". For example: "Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong." The tactic is often used to derail arguments, as such a comparison tends to distract and to result in angry and less reasoned responses.

The first twenty minutes of Question Time were about the BNP playing the Churchill card. Its like Inverse Godwins, Churchill did X therefore X must be a good/desirable. EU Referendum had this:-

That is [Adrian] Michaels's idea of journalism, preening that, "It's all good debate fodder on day three of our Europe series." He is so "pleased", he tells us, "that people like Barroso are happy to engage with the sceptic crowd and fight their corner in interviews," then throwing in his own little bit of ego-massage by declaring: "Intelligent debate normally beats name calling."

Actually, that is debatable. Winston Churchill was a great one for name-calling, consistently referring to Hitler as "Corporal Hitler" – one of his more favoured jibes.

I understand that Churchill's Islamophobia takes the form of this quote from a book he published in 1899, "The River War", in which he describes Muslims he apparently observed during Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan:-

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

Crikey!

Anyhoo, the other night's Question Time - Two Minutes hate has never seemed so long