The screaming headlines from the Sun to the Guardian. The hours of broadcast from Today to CNN. And the final revelation that…oh my, Nick Griffin is a fascist.
To be honest, I didn’t want to add to the millions of words already devoted to this subject and fuel the flames of his publicity. But having re-watched the BBC Question Time programme and the pre and post media frenzy, I have been left feeling numbed by the ineptitude of the UK’s public service broadcaster.
Griffin is an MEP, he is elected, we live in a democracy, the BBC were right to broadcast.
Sadly, it went downhill from there. The carefully selected panel was no surprise (although Jack Straw was surprisingly poor), neither was the make-up of the audience. What did surprise me was just how dramatically Dimbleby and the producers prostituted themselves in their desire to ensure we knew just how ignorant and bigotted Griffin is…for more than 30 minutes…without cessation. It took possibly 3 minutes for the point to be made (perhaps 5 for the less intelligent members of the audience). Job done.
What was completely missed was the fact that Griffin, and his even more disturbing side-kick Andrew Brons, are in a position to influence European legislation – the implications of which reach far beyond just British shores. If Dimbleby hadn’t allowed the red mist and the ill advice of the BBC’s editors and senior PRs to descend, he would have realised that had he conducted the remaining 55 minutes of the programme in the usual format, Griffin and, more importantly, his party would have been exposed as the political danger they truly represent.
The Nazi thugs will always vote for Griffin and his ilk because of their misguided values. It’s the so-called ‘protest voters’, who apparently have no-one else to vote for, that needed to be shown the true implications of what they have done by witnessing not the moral bankruptcy of the individual, but the political immorality and ineptitude of the party for which he was acting as a representative on the night.
There is no doubt in my mind that had he become imbroiled in the standard of political debate usually engendered by a ‘normal’ Question Time, he would have buried, beyond any hope of redemption, both his party and himself at every turn. Instead, the coffin lid was left ajar and, dracula-like, he squeezed out and into a world of PR opportunities for himself and his party.
The panel and audience may have felt a sense of smug satisfaction at the end of the evening, but the fact that fascist extremists have been allowed to walk away with even the slightest glimmer of opportunity means the BBC has very little to be satisfied about. I thought Dimbleby was the best man for the job. He blew it!
