The 1945 Intake's Memory Besmirched by No Platforming the Press

I used this clip before shortly after Michael Foot died.



"The liberty of the press in this country can only be maintained by the vigilance of the people, and the vigilance of parliament the courage of the newspapers themselves. That's the only way. Therefore we must, fight, fight, fight to maintain those liberties," he said.

So why is it that the left wing Blogosphere is up in arms that Iain's Dale's magazine Total Politics is interviewing the BNP's Nick Griffen? They're threatening a boycott or a magazine that does give an unbiased view of British politics especially compared with the Spectator or the New Statesman.

Look at this line from the Labour manifesto:

"The Labour Party stands for freedom - for freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom of the Press. The Labour Party will see to it that we keep and enlarge these freedoms, and that we enjoy again the personal civil liberties we have, of our own free will."

Of course that was the 1945 manifesto when Labour truly did believe in those freedoms. Of course as I blogged last night over the last five years the party that even stood up from such liberties during the clear and present danger that was World War Two have become more draconian, more authoritarian than any before them.

I've spoken against no platforming before, if you are not prepared to win the argument you are merely seen as running scared. If you do you are leaving people looking for a voice to fill the void and that is dangerous. We need people like Dominic Carman who is taking the fight to Griffen in Barking courageous enough to point out the truths of the BNP not run away and hide.

I trust Iain Dale will have asked some of the tough questions, he does ask them in each of his interviews. But please Labour if there is a future fair for all, you have to at least appear to mean it is for all. Don't defend press freedoms and the moniker Zanu Labour really is more appropriate.

Fact Checking Nick Griffin's Claim

Much as I liked to see Jeff squirm at the fact that a casting vote may lie with a BNP member for Glasgow in the next Scottish Parliament I thought he really should have done fact checking before taking the word of Nick Griffin for granted.

Jeff refers to this article in the Times so lets look at the facts.

Griffin said:

"We [BNP] were 4.4 per cent in Glasgow North East in the European elections."

Fact:

Minor niggle, I know, but the BNP's 545 out of 12705 votes in Glasgow North East is actually only 4.29%. That is one very poor round up a whole tenth of a percent higher than they could claim (i.e 4.3%).

Griffin then said:

"In Glasgow there is a [Holyrood] seat to be taken with probably about 6.5 per cent of the vote and we believe that is a do-able thing."

Fact:

OK 6.5% was the vote for Patrick Harvie who was in that 7th place last time out. However the Green vote was up to 9.98% given them the biggest protest vote away from the Westminster parties on the night. 7.11% was the position on the night in June of the lowest ranked party who gained a seat in Holyrood on the list.

Fact:

The BNP were only the 7th ranked party across Glasgow on the night behind the five Holyrood parties and UKIP, hardly a good place to lift the 7th top up seat.

Fact:

Across Glasgow as a whole they only polled 3.25% which was not even their highest council area return on the night in Scotland. I had the unenviable position of witnessing that on the night in Falkirk; even there it was only 3.77%.

I'll not even bother fact checking Jeff's claim of 54 seats for the SNP. That would be fun to do, but needs a little more work. Maybe later.

Griffin Questions were Commercial Suicide says Lanarkshire Radio Station

Derek McIntyre programme director of Lanarkshire Radio Station L107 based in Hamilton has admitted to 'commercial suicide' by arranging to interview Nick Griffin this morning. Fifty people emailed the local community station withdrawing support and a few advertisers have also backed out from Poultry farmers may have had a little bit more success as a number were thrown at the BNP leader.

The station must have known what they were facing as their website had advertised this morning's mid-morning James Russell show as:

"This Wednesday on the mid-morning show...probably the most controversial interview ever on Scottish radio."

Mr Russell also described the scenes outside the station as peaceful, yet 3 people were arrested for breach of the peace offences, one also for resisting arrest. the BNP leader had faced a total of eight calls in the hour.

It's been a mixed week for Griffin following his appearance on Question Time. His own supporters either want him to resign as leader for failing to press the attack on air or are flooding the BBC forum with comments. But whatever the outcome his party didn't appear to get any bounce in the opinion poll either out of sympathy from the protests or for his performance on the show.

The Mob that Didn't Lynch

I see that Nick Griffin has said that he faced a 'lynch mob'* last night. Strangely I didn't see him swinging from a tree in the Blue Peter garden so I must assume he doesn't mean literally.

He's also complaining that the format of the show changed last night. Well I agree. It gave too much airtime to the opinions of one party, namely his. It didn't really show him up as lacking sensible ideas outside his pet subjects, and even then he didn't do too well on some of those. (Having been asleep at the time of airing I watched on iPlayer this morning).

He's also complained that the show shouldn't have been held in London. Well I'm sorry on that one but looking at the baying crowd yesterday evening, and sadly we couldn't avoid it on the wall to wall live coverage on all the news programmes from substantial and overlong periods of time, it made most sense. Only the Metropolitan Police had the strength in numbers to allow Griffin to appear on the show in a studio of peace. If that sort of protest had erupted in some more provincial BBC studio, or worse some civic centre or theatre heaven knows what would have happened, maybe Griffin really would have been lynched, not that I'm condoning that sort of action.

Mind you to consider London as 'no longer a British City' as Griffin said is surely a treasonable offence. Off to Tower with him. Oops built by the Normans. Well maybe the Queen can sort it out, if she weren't descended from German stock as is her husband 'the Greek'. Mind you it was established by the Romans so maybe he has a point but then surely it wouldn't have been British at all. Maybe he can find solace just to the west at the Kings Stone in Kingston, only that was for crowning the West Saxon Kings and of course they are yet more Germanic people. Clearly what he wanted was a studio audience somewhere in the North like one BNP heartland urban Yorkshire, plonk at the northern reach of the Danelaw.

One does start to wonder where the population of the UK and probably Griffin himself would have to go when all of these half bloods or less are repatriated to wherever they come from. Indeed can we really find someone of true British pedigree. Maybe he and indeed us could end up somewhere in the Empire he yearns for. The Empire that sent its Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, Afro-Caribbeans and others to fight in two World Wars as heroes.

*Definition: lynch mob n : a mob that kills a person (usually by hanging) for some presumed offence without legal authority.