Quote from tristancliffe :

Do I want the BNP in power? No. Would I welcome some of their policies (or at least the acceptable public veneer of their policies) being used by the current government? Hell yes.

+1

I find when any discussion comes up to do with the BNP it is a good thing to point out first that I am not racist. I don't care whether you are white, asian, black or believe in christianity, islam, buddism etc.

Now that is out the way: While question time can be a good program, I do not think that this episode was. Nick Griffin deserved to be on the program as the BNP are a political party and have won seats. For those who say he shouldn't of been, I am sure you would fight and argue for free speech if you wanted your opinion heard so let the free speech be heard. Whether you agree with or not though is another thing entirely. The problem I found was that instead of discusing BNP policy it seemed to be much more of a personal attack on Nick Griffin.

As Tristan said above, I do not want the BNP in power and I shudder at the thought of them even having a chance. However, I do find myself agreeing with a small percentage of what Nick Griffin / BNP say.

While you can argue the point of the media causing a frenzy or just wanting to sell newspapers, that why they use 'shocking' statistics which may be true. Without doing a survey yourself to find the true data you have to rely on information provided by the press. The two shocking pieces of information that I was shocked by (and i apologise the dates/amounts may be incorrect as I am doing this by memory) is that by 2011/2012 Leicster would become a white minority, and my home city of Birmingham following in around 2014. There were other cities mentioned aswell but, while I do not have a problem with migrants of any colour, creed or religion for immigration to go far enough that some of the major cities become white minorities is ridiculous. The statistic I saw was that by 2012 (I think it was) that 15% of the population will be immigrants. That is not 15% will be 'non-white' it means that 15% of the population of this country will not of been born here.

Now while statistics can be twisted for purpose of the presenter if these are anywhere near true then, in my opinion, paints a bad picture for this country.

Finally too add, and I know this was said above, is that I do not want the BNP in power though I do find myself agreeing with some of the statements. I can also see, that due to the other parties 'policies' on immigration (read: false promises on immigration) why people out of frustation possible are and will vote for BNP.

Quote from mookie427 :

Anyone who thinks Question Time is an example of an unbiased debate show needs their head seeing to. At least it's not as bad as the embarrassingly biased 'The Big Questions' on every sunday morning

Whole-heartedly agree. I think the way that it was handled was apalling. The way the audience and panellists were so hostile towards Nick just created sympathy for him from my point of view. I despise the guy for his views and what he stands for, but I did feel very sorry for him. He was shaking yes, but who wouldn't be when you're in a room full of very hostile people who never had the intention to let his views be heard. In my opinion, the BBC came out worst from this, followed closely by the bumbling of Jack Straw who makes Boris Johnson look like one amazing orator!

There is a simply solution to all this. Bring Maggie back. She'll sort it all out!

And get rid of the BBC and allow a wide range of news coverage so no one view or agenda is monopolised and we don't find ourselves in this mess again. (oh how some may be more sympathetic to my view point now eh? )

The BBC is brilliant, and doesn't have a monopoly.

I think what we witnessed on Thursday night demonstrated what an out-of-date and agenda driven organisation the BBC is.

While they should invite people from all parties on to their shows, the way they specifically hand picked audience members raises serious questions and it has massively back fired.

It isn't only this instance they seem to be pushing in a certain direction. When was the last time you saw a show seriously questioning global warming? When was the last time you saw a show that questioned whether 'de-regulation' of the banks was the cause of the economic crisis?

But hey 'Life' has some really nice camera techniques... makes it worth it eh?

You really are blinkered about the BBC aren't you. Why? What is it that annoyed you?

Nick Griffin appeared on the show when they could fit him in, if they had waited until the show went to a place where he had more support then it would have been biased. The fact is in London he would be beaten up or stabbed if he walked the streets alone, the audience was hostile because he has almost zero support from the kind of educated people that live in London and are willing to attend a show like Question Time. If the BBC really had an agenda they wouldn't have put him on the show.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Nick Griffin appeared on the show when they could fit him in, if they had waited until the show went to a place where he had more support then it would have been biased. The fact is in London he would be beaten up or stabbed if he walked the streets alone, the audience was hostile because he has almost zero support from the kind of educated people that live in London and are willing to attend a show like Question Time. If the BBC really had an agenda they wouldn't have put him on the show.

If there truly wasn't an agenda they would have had a normal show with a wide range of questions. If we had we may have seen a true destruction of their policies

The BBC tried to flex it's muscles, and they failed. They have made themselves look stupid and it's completely backfired. They tried to go "Look how powerful we are, we can invite this guest and shoot him down".

We have a national broadcasting corporation with this much power and influence and I can only see this as a bad thing, and I think I've been proved right by the disproportionate mass hysteria about this show. And finally it appears mass opinion has started to recognise this.

I may be repeating myself, but I don't care. I told you lot, i freakin' told you lot!

Do you think that, just possibly, the presence of Mr Griffin meant that a 'wide range of questions' was never going to happen? Do you think it was the BBC that 'shot him down', or the guests and panel (with a little help from the chair of course).

If Nick Griffin had appeared on another similar show on a another channel the same 'hysteria' would have taken place. That aspect had nothing to do with the BBC.

You told us nothing that has actually been proven right.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Do you think that, just possibly, the presence of Mr Griffin meant that a 'wide range of questions' was never going to happen? Do you think it was the BBC that 'shot him down', or the guests and panel (with a little help from the chair of course).

If Nick Griffin had appeared on another similar show on a another channel the same 'hysteria' would have taken place. That aspect had nothing to do with the BBC.

You told us nothing that has actually been proven right.

Mr Griffin had appeared on ITV and SkyNews that day already. No hysteria, no one cared.

The BBC chose the mostly useless guests, and they chose the audience. They chose where to host the event. This very fact means they can control what type of people will turn up and what sort of questions will be asked. A single public organisation shouldn't be able yield such power, and thus it has mightily back fired on the BBC. If Griffin appeared on a UK style FOX News he would have been absolutely destroyed by the likes of Daniel Hannan etc... Instead we had a bunch of political light weights, and an audience full of students!

No one came out of the show looking good.

Quote from Intrepid :

it has massively back fired.

What?

Quote from Intrepid :

The BBC tried to flex it's muscles, and they failed. They have made themselves look stupid and it's completely backfired.

How?

Quote from Intrepid :

it has mightily back fired on the BBC.

Eh?

Quote from Intrepid :

They really have mucked up this time.

What?

Quote from Intrepid :

I may be repeating myself, but I don't care.

you always do. We're used to it.

Quote from Intrepid :

I told you lot, i freakin' told you lot!

Repeatedly, but you make no sense. What amounts to a mistake? What backfired? Could you say something that doesn't just sound like insane ranting? Anything that substantiates an iota of your rambling?

Quote from SamH :

Repeatedly, but you make no sense. What amounts to a mistake? What backfired? Could you say something that doesn't just sound like insane ranting? Anything that substantiates an iota of your rambling?

In a vein attempt to try and discredit the BNP by putting him down on their leading political show, they have instead produced a mass wealth of sympathy towards it's leader. That's how it's back fired. It's quite obvious.

We could have had a proper political show, with proper politicians who would have absolutely picked apart every policy of the BNP. Instead we had a terrible mockery of a show. The BBC has to go, simple as.

Quote from Intrepid :

The BBC has to go, simple as.

I would rather you went.

Regarding the BBC thing, it wouldn't matter who did it the fact that he was given the opportunity to appear on a show of this nature was a marketting coup and whatever channel was in "power" would have made the most of it. Getting rid of the BBC wouldnt change the "monopoly". BBC has a large market share yes, but it's not a monopoly. Additionally, getting rid of it would simply meen some private individual gets control of the market share rather than a government organisation with a published statute. I know which I preffer, and the lack of adverts is a bonus.

Now onto the subject of immigration. A lot of people in this thread have highlighted they are concerned about the pace of change. To me that's irrellevent, I have always embraced change - I work in I.T. so i'm quite used to it. Infact, I rely on it - i'm only as good as my last few years of work and anything older the technology is so out of date that it does not matter. To me "change" is a natural thing, and i'm unflustered by it.

Yes, I do fear Sharia Law may be in part implemented in the next few years, the reasons are nothing to do with immigration however, they are to do with who has control of the UN Human Rights commission, which currently is a committee of middle east nations with terrible records of human rights. They're currently busy passing UN resolutions which put religion above government, and the effects are now being felt in a very real way. For instance, Ireland is about to finaly pass it's new libel laws after years of it trying to go through - but with a late addition, "Blasphemous Libel". If this law passed here I would be unable to say many of the things I do, I would loose my right to free speach, and no longer be allowed to say "Your God does not exist, you stupid tooth fairy worshipping fruitcake.".

Immigration however is a seperate issue, people are feering that they will become a minory and subsequently loose control. So let's look at this realistically, Britain has the highest rate of immigration per head of population in the world, with about 2.5 times the population quota of the next most "swamped" country, America, and about 10 times the ratio of the next nearest in Europe, Germany.

So we've got half a million immigrants a year coming in, and just under a quarter of a million a year going out, in a population of around 60-65 million. Some of you are uncomfortable with this, why? I believe it is fear of loosing control, loosing your sense of what is British, becoming a minority.

You're not about to become a minority. The current situation of immigration has been born out of EU deregulation on migration. We've had a massive influx of Eastern Europeans, most of whome are now returning home. Eastern European culture is a little different to our own - but not massively so. They're mostly Catholic and on the whole enjoy Western values, or are learning how too since the fall of communism.

Remove that percentage and you get the African and Middle Eastern migrants, I don't have figures of how many that leaves.

Of these, the Africans are split between Muslim and Christian, with a large proportion of Nigerian and Moroccan Muslims. The Middle Eastern migrants of course are mostly Muslim, but they're coming here as refugee's because we blew up their homeland and have a responsibility to take them in now.

Can you tell me what's wrong with this picture?

Because I don't see it, I meen - I see the fear, but then again that is fear that has been fed to you. The press has been echoing the BNP party rhetoric for a long time, and many of you have fallen for it. Much of it is baseless fearmongering because fear and scandal sells newspapers.

Don't believe me? See for yourself.

I really don't have the same fears as you guys, and I don't really understand your argument. Then again, my fathers-fathers line came from Italy in 1588 and landed in Ireland, and came to Britain only a couple of generations ago. Maybe I am just another migrant, afterall, it wasn't long ago all the fear was being directed at the Irish: There was a war and everything.

EDIT
Oh and regarding the audience, I saw an internet circular myself - I saw it the day before the show - from the BNP asking it's members to attend.

@ Intrepid: Is this fact or are you just reading the BNP's claims of 9,000 new "enquiries"? Since they're not allowed to accept new members right now, they certainly didn't pick up any. An enquiry is just a question, like "send me more information" or whatever.

Question Time usually amounts to in-substantive political rhetorical exchanges with nothing much worthy of note. You occasionally get a politician put uncomfortably on the spot, where he or she squirms amid a bit of laughter before being rescued by the next question, or by Dimbleby. It's pretty light-going.

As for the BBC, it has an obligation to give proportional airtime to parties like the BNP, UKIP etc. That's what it's mandated to do, and that's what it did. It didn't backfire on them. They received overwhelming support for having Griffin on the programme, and that's what happened. The "backfire" delusion is yours alone, Alan.

Bottom line, if you don't like the fact that Griffin/the BNP got Question Time exposure then democracy ain't your thing. If you're scared that by allowing the BNP to gain equal or proportionate coverage, they might actually garner support, then you are as good as admitting that there's something that he's got that you know that people want. You should examine that thought for a bit, and see what it is about the BNP that you deep down, secretly, like.

Straw came off just as badly as Griffin, IMO. Straw's in denial about immigration. So are the Tories and.. who knows about the LibDems? But clearly there's a big gap between politicians, who are terrified of going near anything that might be seen as politically incorrect, and the people on the street that clearly aren't happy with what's happening in their communities. THAT seems to come down to rapid change at street level, "white flight" etc.

IMO, until immigration concerns are addressed to the point that changes on the ground are REVERSED, the BNP will continue to carry far more appeal for far too many voters than is safe for this country.

Quote from SamH :

IMO, until immigration concerns are addressed to the point that changes on the ground are REVERSED, the BNP will continue to carry far more appeal for far too many voters than is safe for this country.

Whilst that is one way out, I think another way is for the press to stop itterating the same rhetorric as the BNP. See the link I posted in my last monolithic block of text for an example.

My point is that whilst immigration is high, I do not see it as a problem. Why is it wrong to take immigrants?

We're not about to become a minority soon - but if we continue the them and us culture and fail to integrate then we'll go that way.

Personally i'm in favour of getting rid of the hate campaign toward immigration - stopping this whole nonesense of any religion getting disproportionate airtime (how many times do you see a bishop on the news and how many people in this country are actually Christian?), constitutionalising disestablishmentarianism (not anti, ie: seperating church from state - and thus stemming the tide both of disproportionate representation and the implementation of aspects of Sharia law), dissolving all laws of religious favoritism (no siekh knives in public, no exceptions for burkas in hoodyless Tesco's), and cancelling tax exemption for religion.

Stemming the influence of all religion in the media, government, education system will allow us to integrate as a society and mix more freely.

Without pro religious bias there is no fear of the immigrant.

Let's not forget the Arch Bishop of Canterbury is in favour of Sharia Law because it is a religious law, and for him ANY religious law is above government law even if it is one that totally opposes all of our long held and deeply routed values.

Doing away with the fear between cultures can in a large part be achieved by making religion a personal thing and segregating it from official state practice. Not only will this help social integration, but it should go a long way toward religious tolerance too.

Quote from v1rg0 :

Because you occassionally upgrade your PC, mass immigration is good.

Actually the concept of "change" in business runs deeper than that, there are seminars and everything! Usually after company buyouts...

Quote :

you have alluded to the BNP being the modern incarnation of a dictatorship responsible for the genocide of millions, with no evidence.

No I havn't said the BNP >are< the Nazi party, they're just cut from the same cloth. The same cloth also as the white supremacist / KKK parties in America with whome they have links. They're a direct descendant of the National Front, they may be hiding the brown & black shirt batallions, but their teath are just as sharp in a fight - ask me how I know...

Quote :

With the level of immigration we have, criminal elements are imported too. Locally we've had numerous shootings and a man stabbed 20m from our doorstep. I don't read papers, I get my opinions from these very real experiences in my own life.

Yes, import a selection of a foreign population and you will get both it's good and bad elements. Just like we have good and bad elements here. I'm not sure I agree with immigration and crime being co-dependant though, the last I read up on crime (a year or so now) it was apparant that crime, particularly violent crime, had fallen dramatically - a natural side effect of living in a police state.

Quote from v1rg0 :

Ah, I see. Asking people on the fringe of British politics to become respectable, is the equivalent to Middle-Eastern terrorist groups strapping TNT to themselves and exploding amongst crowds of innocent people. But Al Qaeda isn't real and the BNP are? Frankly, sticking your head in the sand would've been less embarassing.

No, I'm asking them to bugger off or get arrested. If the BNP was to gain any real significant power over this country, the damage caused would be far greater than a few bombs could ever cause. I never said that Al Queada aren't real, I said that perhaps they are, according to some people.

Sticking your head in the sand is exactly why the BNP are gaining popularity, Nick Griffin was arrested for hate crimes years back, yet now aparrently its ok to look upon him as a legit politician.

The BNP should not be looked upon as a legit political party, ever. They preach hate, which I believe is illegal.

Infact this is another reason why democracy is bad, if you give power to the people, then you're giving power to all the scumbags too.

Anyone who would support policy that seeks the eventual creation of a 99% white population has got screws loose.

Not gonna happen Nick.

Quote from Becky Rose :

My point is that whilst immigration is high, I do not see it as a problem. Why is it wrong to take immigrants?

My point, however, is that whether or not it IS a problem, the majority of the electorate do very much see it as one. Even a hand-picked, politically correct Question Time audience loudly took issue with Straw when he tried to say that immigration wasn't a big deal.

If I remember correctly Question Time audiences are intentionally picked to be representative. Supposedly they get people to declare who they would be most likely to vote for and if they support the leader of that party or not and pick accordingly. But I've not seen such a form, so I would rather not be quoted on that .

Quote from tristancliffe :

The BBC is brilliant, and doesn't have a monopoly.

I really, really hope that you aren't being serious.

Quote from mookie427 :

I really, really hope that you aren't being serious.

It doesn't have a monopoly. To have a monopoly, it would have to be the ONLY provider of television programming. People confuse success with monopolies. The BBC is successful but it's far from being a monopoly.

Doesn't mean that it doesn't have its problems, mind you. Its news coverage of the Israel/Lebanon and Israel/Gaza conflicts is far too Murdoch-esque and the BBC news service has shown itself to be susceptible to bullying and threats from Israel.

Just going to throw this in. If all the immigrants were deported from the country, UK would collapse. Not joking.

Quote from SamH :

It doesn't have a monopoly. To have a monopoly, it would have to be the ONLY provider of television programming. People confuse success with monopolies. The BBC is successful but it's far from being a monopoly.

Doesn't mean that it doesn't have its problems, mind you. Its news coverage of the Israel/Lebanon and Israel/Gaza conflicts is far too Murdoch-esque and the BBC news service has shown itself to be susceptible to bullying and threats from Israel.

to be fair I was focusing more on the 'brilliant' part but didn't make it clear enough