Top 10 BNP On Question Time Moments

Last night (on October 22nd), Nick Griffin and the BNP finally got their platform on national TV, appearing on Question Time. Here’s the run down of the top moments from the evening if you didn’t manage to catch the grilling of the Griffin:

1. Over 500 anti-fascist protestors [1] rallied outside BBC Studios in West London before, during and after the broadcast. A small number jumped the entrance gates [2]and managed to get within feet of the Question Time studio, resulting in the arrest of six. Nevertheless, the show ran smoothly.

2. Author and critic Bonnie Greer [3], who was a guest panellist on the show, has admitted she had to restrain herself from slapping Griffin’s smug mug [4]; after the BNP leader’s definition of the origins of "indigenous" British and the BNP's website account, she shut him down with "Your history is a joke!"

3. When questioned about the Holocaust denial [5], Griffin said “I was not convicted of it” and smirked at host David Dimbleby.

4. When asked to explain why he had previously expressed admiration for Hitler and the Nazi Party [6], Griffin replied “I can’t explain it.” Clever boy.

5. Griffin has now been dubbed the "Dr Strangelove" [7]of British politics by Labour's Jack Straw after attempting to claim the mantle of Winston Churchill [8].

6. Griffin was accused by the panel of making up facts, after stumbling through statistics regarding how much of the UK population weren’t happy with the immigration system [9].

7. Griffin was asked by the panel about when he was quoted describing immigration as “genocide” [10]. He was also questioned about a conference in America in 2000 where he was photographed with Mr Duke [11], the former leader of a Ku Klux Klan chapter. He denied the immigration statement, saying he was “misquoted”, and that he was “appalled” by the term “genocide”. However he affirmed the KKK was “totally non-violent”. Hooray for that then.

8. Nervous and angry from the start, Griffin said early in the show “I am the most loathed man in the country.” I can’t say he’s the most loved now…

9. One audience member briefly touched upon the BNP’s recent change in policy to allow non-whites [12], after being forced following a legal battle with the Equality and Human Rights Commission in August. The full story, including Ctrl.Alt.Shift and Don’t Panic’s stunt to infiltrate a BNP meeting and test the non-white policy, was published in the Evening Standard, London Lite, broadcasted on Channel 4 news, BBC London news and ITV’s London Tonight. Click here [13]for the full video!

10. Following the show, Nick Griffin said today he was the victim of a "lynch mob" audience drawn from a city that had been "ethnically cleansed" and was "no longer British".

As a proud born and bred London boy, of Mauritian descent, I salute you Mr.Griffin and your whimsical palaver.

Catch the rest of the coverage from Question Time below.

Words: Dwain Lucktung. Deputy editor, Ctrl.Alt.Shift.

Photo: Flickr user James M Thorne