October 23, 2009

BBC’s Question Time and BNP’s Nick Griffin: Stumbling Into The Mainstream, Against A Wall Of Bias

By Sean Gabb

On Thursday night, October 22, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party (BNP) was invited by the BBC to appear on Question Time. This is the most important political discussion programme in Britain. Its format is typically a panel—Government ministers and senior representatives of the main political parties—that takes questions from an audience of the general public. It is watched every week by millions, and it has considerable influence as a shaper and as a mirror of public opinion.

Inviting Mr Griffin onto the panel was both acceptance that he and his party must be recognised as part of the political spectrum within Britain, and was a first-class opportunity for him to put his opinions directly to the largest audience he has ever faced.

Now, in reviewing his performance, I must confess that I do not support Griffin or his party. I am a libertarian, not a white nationalist. If I am inclined to vote for any political party in Britain, it is for the UK Independence Party, which campaigns specifically for withdrawal from the European Union, and is generally a sort of Conservative Party in exile.

This is not a disclaimer made out of fear that I shall somehow be smeared myself as a white nationalist, but out of honesty. I will try to be fair to Mr Griffin. Indeed, I will avoid commenting on his opinions, and stay so far as I can to the technical aspects of his performance.

Mr Griffin and many of his supporters have spent the time since the broadcast claiming that the BBC showed an open and disgraceful bias against Mr Griffin. They are right. There is no doubt that it was intended that he should be treated unfairly. The other panellists were Jack Straw, Minister of Justice, Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative politician, Chris Huhne, a senior Liberal Democrat, and Bonnie Greer, a black American woman who has somehow been made a Trustee of the British Museum. The programme was filmed in London, which is now perhaps the most racially diverse city in Europe.

From the opening minutes, it was plain that this would not be—nor was planned to be—a normal episode of Question Time. The other panellists had conferred and brought along set speeches of denunciation, which the Presenter, David Dimbleby, both allowed and encouraged. Indeed, he joined in with hostile questions of his own.

It is unlikely that the audience had been fed questions to put. It was hardly necessary, bearing in mind the demographic profile—quite unlike Mr Griffin’s own electoral base. The questions were universally hostile. So were most of the audience comments.

Rather than Question Time, this was an hour in which Nick Griffin was put on trial before the nation, following the sort of process that a Communist police state might have envied. It was all set up to be grossly unfair.

I believe that Mr Griffin is planning a formal complaint to the BBC about bias. Sadly, he is missing the point. Whatever unfairness was meant, he was given the opportunity of a lifetime to do two things—first, to show the world that he was not a sinister crank; second, to tell the world directly and in brief what he was in politics to achieve. Judged in terms of this opportunity, his performance was an embarrassing failure.

He did make two points very well. The first was to defend his claim that Islam was a “wicked and viciousâ€