Griffin or Out?

The general consensus seems to be that Nick Griffin muffed his big opportunity on Questiontime last night.

If some people were expecting Griffin to deliver a show-stopping performance and win tens of thousands of people over to his view then they were, in the event, wrong. Griffin didn't deliver much. He struggled with the format and didn't have any really clear messages.

But. I doubt that his performance will have put-off many of his supporters. Because it gave him another platform to deny the accusations of race-hate and to dismiss the alarming stories about things he has said and done as 'Daily Mail' fantasies.

His core racist vote will have seen this as a clever avoidance of non-saleable pronouncements and those on the margins will, in some cases, believe that the BNP is what he he says it is; a reconstructed political force that speaks for a large section of the British community and for whom, 'race is not an issue'.

There was a lot of reference to this YouTube video of him addressing a small audience in the US while sharing the platform with a prominent KKK figure. But rather like this video, Questiontime failed to really drive home the real depth of intolerance and mindless race-hatred that the BNP leverage and propagate.

Unfortunately if this is the best Questiontime, the media and the mainstream Political parties can do to expose Griffin and his bunch of thugs for what they really represent, then he will continue to draw support.

Much more needs to be done to really expose the ludicrous ideas, lack of historical comprehension and absurd illogical positioning that the BNP adopt.

Simply putting Griffin in front of a hostile audience and a group of monologuing politicans will not do the job - unfortunately no-one believes them either.

Did Griffin lose the argument? Not really - there wasn't much an argument - just a lot of accusations. I would like to see Andrew Neil give him a proper 'Hard Talk' grilling and see his ideas exposed for what they are. Ridiculous, dangerous and extremist.

Until Griffin's idiocy really is exposed fully, people will vote for the BNP even in places like Surrey Heath where the BNP polled only around 100 less votes at the European elections than the Labour party.